The favourite alto player of so many other musicians — John Coltrane was convinced that he had no peers on the saxophone — Cornelius Hodge (the 's' was added later) actually began on the improbable soprano instrument as a teenager, and received a lesson or two from Sidney Bechet, but soon enough switched to the alto. He worked alongside Bechet in some groups, dividing his time between Boston and New York in the early 20s, and he joined Chick Webb's band in 1926. But it was when he joined Duke Ellington, in May 1928, that Hodges found his destiny. By this time he had accrued a surprising maturity and command on what was still a jazz instrument finding its feet: barely 21 years old, he already mustered an effulgent tone and a way of ornamenting a melodic line which took the example of Bechet's prodigious virtuosity to a place which spoke of refinement, even luxuriance. His early solos with Ellington, as on 'Stevedore Stomp', still have the feeling of old-fashioned hot music about them, but by the time he became a regularly featured soloist in the early 30s the full expressive power of his delivery was becoming manifest. Ellington relied on his improvising on dozens of records, and in the late 30s Hodges was himself the nominal leader of several small-group sessions where the personnel was drawn from the Ellington band: the likes of 'Squatty Roo' (1938), a blistering concerto at a medium-up tempo which often brought out the best in him, were magnificent. He was a powerful blues player too, but Ellington realized that the Hodges which audiences liked best was the rhapsodist, and features such as 'Warm Valley' (1940) and 'Magenta Haze' (1946) were some of the most evocative works in the band's discography. In 1951, Hodges felt like a change and led his own small group for a few years, recording for Norman Granz's Verve; but in 1955, tiring of the work of leading a band, he went back, and though he maintained an occasional regime of separation as a recording artist — cutting numerous sets with Wild Bill Davis and Earl Hines, and leading two classic sessions of small-group Ellingtonia, Back To Back and Side By Side (1959) — he basically stayed loyal to Ellington for the rest of his career. Although he had a sometimes sardonic outlook on his position in Ellington's music, he must have known that nobody else framed his playing so persuasively. He could seem almost icy in his detachment at times, allowing his eyes to roam an auditorium during a concert solo but only for the purpose of counting the exits to settle a wager, yet the molasses tone and perfectly judged licks kept his playing indecently fresh and oddly youthful. Nicknamed either 'Jeep' or 'Rabbit' (after a penchant for lettuce), Hodges was happy to let Ellington create new settings for him right to the end: 'Isfahan' from Far East Suite (1966) is a rapturous display of yearning, and the sessions for New Orleans Suite (1970) were to have featured him once again on the instrument which he had scarcely touched for years, the soprano sax. Instead, he died halfway through the recording, while visiting his dentist in New York.

Biography from Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia (2005).

If you'd like more information, check out The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2002) or The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz (2007), both of which are still in print.