Hodges played "My Honey's Lovin' Arms" for Bechet, who was impressed with his skill and encouraged him to keep on playing. Hodges's eldest sister introduced him to Bechet, who asked him to play something on the soprano saxophone he had brought with him. When Hodges was 14, he went with his eldest sister to see Sidney Bechet play in Jimmy Cooper's Black and White Revue in a Boston burlesque hall. It was around this time that Hodges developed the nickname "Rabbit", which some people believe arose from his ability to win 100-yard dashes and outrun truant officers, while others, including Carney, said he was called by that name because of his rabbit-like nibbling on lettuce and tomato sandwiches. He had taken up the soprano saxophone by his teens. Once he became good enough, he played the piano at dances in private homes for $8 an evening. While his mother was a skilled piano player, Hodges was mostly self-taught. His first instruments were drums and piano. After moving for a short period of time to North Cambridge, the family moved to Hammond Street in the South End of Boston, where he grew up with saxophonists Harry Carney (who would also become a long-term member of Duke Ellington’s big band), Charlie Holmes and Howard E. Hodges and Katie Swan Hodges, both originally from Virginia. Hodges was born in the Cambridgeport neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts, to John H.
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