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PHOTO: JOE HENDERSON (1937-2001)
Jazz saxophonist and composer Joe Henderson could best be described as a renaissance man. Creating a style unique from the dominant saxophonists of his early career --namely John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins – Henderson became the consummate leader and sideman. His name has become synonymous with power and grace on the tenor saxophone, and has long been revered in musical circles for his distinctive sound and powers of invention. Although Henderson’s earliest recordings were marked by a strong hard-bop influence, his playing encompassed not only the bebop tradition, but rhythm and blues, latin, and avant-garde as well.
Henderson has had a remarkably consistent career, carving out his own reputation through technical excellence, songwriting ability, and a stunning diversity that made him a sought-after sideman early in his career. He made his mark at Blue Note records as a member of the Kenny Dorham band and went on to record with the Horace Silver group that made the classic Song for My Father. A master of composition, his songs “Recorda- Me” and “Inner Urge” have become jazz classics.
From 1963 to 1968 Joe appeared on nearly thirty albums for Blue Note. The recordings ranged from relatively conservative hard-bop sessions to more avant-garde explorations. He played a prominent role in many landmark recordings: Horace Silver’s swinging and soulful Song For My Father, Herbie Hancock’s dark and densely orchestrated Prisoner, and Andrew Hill’s avant-garde Black Fire. Henderson’s adaptability and eclecticism would become even more apparent in the years to follow.
Henderson’s playing has a distinctively tender sense of swing, which can be heard on dozens of Blue Note albums from the 1960s. Often overlooked at the peak of his career, he returned to recording in the 1980s to great acclaim.
After a long battle with emphysema and a stroke in 1998 which stopped his public career, Joe Henderson passed away on June 30, 2001, leaving a legacy and career that spanned for over four decades and a permanent prototype for others to follow.
“Joe Henderson is always in the middle of a great solo.”
Joe Henderson
A giant of the jazz saxophone, his modesty stood in contrast to his melodic improvisation
by John Fordham
Monday 2 July 2001
The Guardian (UK)
When his partners were playing and he was taking time out, he would look, for all the world, like a restlessly preoccupied man at a bus stop. Yet, despite the machinations of his impenetrably devious reserve, and the competition of an avalanche of brilliant postbop practitioners on his instrument - from Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane to Michael Brecker and James Carter - he was one of the greatest saxophone improvisors in the period from the 1960s to the present. Often discussed as a plausible heir apparent to Sonny Rollins, it is a sad surprise that the younger man should be the one to leave the stage first.
The musical impact of Ohio-born Henderson was all the more remarkable for his dislike of grandstanding, egotism or bravura. He fastidiously avoided the crowd-baiting hot lick, and had his own imperturbable perception of musical dynamics, rarely deviating from a steady, methodical mid-range purr, the very limitations of which made his remarkable harmonic and melodic imagination all the more audible.
Though he liked the middle register, which he occupied in a kind of penetrating murmur, he had a high-register sound as pure as a flute. He favoured fast, incisive statements of densely-packed runs, often ending in brusquely dissonant squalls or prolonged warbles, as if he were gargling with pebbles. Much of the vividness of his improvising stemmed from manipulations of tonal contrasts and phrase-density, and a composer-like juggling with fragmentary phrases and motifs, but on the fly. On top of it all, his ability to avoid repeating favourite phrases of his own - or anybody else's - could be little short of uncanny.
After the uplift of interest in straightahead jazz during the 1990s, Henderson's audiences were a lot bigger than the handful who used to show up at Ronnie Scott's club 20 years before, when he was already a jaw-dropping executant of sharp curves and four-wheel skids as a melodic improvisor, but mostly playing straight jazz rather than the then commercially dominant idiom of jazz-funk. But for those present, Henderson was obviously a whirlwind force on the rise - not only for his imagination, but for his openness to the contributions of the local musicians he worked with on those solo travels in Europe, particularly the innovative British drummer Tony Oxley.
Rollins and Charlie Parker were always clearly among Henderson's primary influences, but he had also absorbed the work of those equally wayward individualists, Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk. A broad-minded and erudite musician, who explored classical, Indian and Balinese music - as well as jazz - he would later say that he heard Monk the way he heard Paul Hindemith. The subsequent 1990s movement toward classical pianists beginning to record Monk tunes as high points of 20th-century music came as no surprise to him.
Henderson studied music at Kentucky State College from 1956, and at Wayne State University, Detroit, where one of his fellow students was the multi-reed player Yusef Lateef. He briefly worked with Sonny Stitt and led his own band before military service, which ended in 1962. Then he joined the bands of trumpeter Kenny Dorham and pianist Horace Silver, eventually co-leading a hard bop group called the Jazz Communicators, with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. After that, he worked with Herbie Hancock in the pianist's harmonically adventurous, if commercially obscure, sextet of 1969-70, and with the jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat And Tears. He toyed with jazz-rock fusion, but it was not especially memorably.
Though Henderson would recall that some of his earliest sax-playing experiences had been for dances around Detroit, and that his first experience of hearing Charlie Parker live was also to witness dancers gyrating to fast bop improvisations on Indiana and Cherokee, the dance versions of jazz music that came from rhythm 'n' blues, rather than swing roots, struck him as more repetitive, and harder to improvise inventively with.
Impatient with the narrowing opportunities for uncompromising jazz improvisors during the 1970s, he moved to San Francisco, and became active in music education. He also worked with Freddie Hubbard and others in a group variously known as Echoes Of An Era, and the Griffith Park Band.
Henderson appeared on 34 Blue Note albums between 1963 and 1990, alongside some of the most creative musicians in American jazz - including McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Chick Corea, Ron Carter and Al Foster. But 1985 was re-emergence year for this often overlooked artist. He played with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams at the televised concert, One Night With Blue Note (the relaunch of the famous Blue Note label), and also recorded the adventurous double-set, The State Of The Tenor, alongside Carter and Foster. A series of thematic recording opportunities followed when he changed to Verve Records - including the lyrical Lush Life (devoted to Billy Strayhorn), and 1992's So Near, So Far (Musings For Miles), a tribute to the recently-departed Miles Davis by a supergroup that included former Miles sidemen John Scofield, Dave Holland and Al Foster.
Henderson loved improvising; taking a musical chance was his reason for artistic existence. He once remarked, in an interview in the Guardian, on how invaluable a quality adaptability was. "If, in a musical situation, you've got to do all that talking, and explaining . . . jeez, man, it can just go on and on. But you get a certain group of people, you just have to count the tune in, or call the tune, or sometimes not even that, just start playing . . . and everything that's supposed to fall in place does just that. I was at a rehearsal with Miles once that was like that; he just walked around with a can of beer, talking in that barely audible voice, didn't hand out any parts.
"But then it dawned on you, same as it was with Monk. If he had you there, that underscored how he felt about you, that was the confidence that he had. When mother's not there, telling you what to do, it's sink or swim. But once somebody tells you, convincingly enough, that this is now your style - that's all you need to know."
Joe Henderson, saxophonist, born April 24 1937; died June 29 2001
Joe Henderson
(1937-2001)
Biography by Scott Yanow
Joe Henderson is proof that jazz can sell without watering down the music; it just takes creative marketing. Although his sound and style were virtually unchanged from the mid-'60s, Joe Henderson's signing with Verve in 1992 was treated as a major news event by the label (even though he had already recorded many memorable sessions for other companies). His Verve recordings had easy-to-market themes (tributes to Billy Strayhorn, Miles Davis, and Antonio Carlos Jobim) and, as a result, he became a national celebrity and a constant poll winner while still sounding the same as when he was in obscurity in the 1970s.
The general feeling is that it couldn't have happened to a more deserving jazz musician. After studying at Kentucky State College and Wayne State University, Joe Henderson played locally in Detroit before spending time in the military (1960-1962). He played briefly with Jack McDuff and then gained recognition for his work with Kenny Dorham (1962-1963), a veteran bop trumpeter who championed him and helped Henderson get signed to Blue Note. Henderson appeared on many Blue Note sessions both as a leader and as a sideman, spent 1964-1966 with Horace Silver's Quintet, and during 1969-1970 was in Herbie Hancock's band. From the start, he had a very distinctive sound and style which, although influenced a bit by both Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, also contained a lot of brand new phrases and ideas. Henderson had long been able to improvise in both inside and outside settings, from hard bop to freeform. In the 1970s, he recorded frequently for Milestone and lived in San Francisco, but was somewhat taken for granted. The second half of the 1980s found him continuing his freelancing and teaching while recording for Blue Note, but it was when he hooked up with Verve that he suddenly became famous. Virtually all of his recordings are currently in print on CD, including a massive collection of his neglected (but generally rewarding) Milestone dates. On June 30, 2001, Joe Henderson passed away due to heart failure after a long battle with emphysema.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/joe-henderson/
Joe Henderson
The tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson was born on April 24, 1937 in a small city called Lima Ohio midway between Dayton and Toledo. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Lima in a family of 15 children where he was exposed to a variety of musical styles. By the time he was a high school student he was already arranging and writing music for the school band and other local outfits. It was in high school that a music teacher introduced him to the tenor saxophone. After graduation he enrolled first at the Kentucky State College to study music and then moved on to Wayne State University in Detroit. There he had as classmates several future jazz greats such as Yusef Lateef and Donald Byrd. From 1960-1962 he enlisted in the US army where he led several small jazz groups and won first place in a musical competition and was sent on a tour to entertain the troops all over Japan and Europe where he met a few of the expatriate musicians.
Early career: the Blue Note years
After being discharged from the army he traveled to New York and sat in at Birdland with Dexter Gordon and other local musicians. During one of these sessions he was introduced to the trumpeter Kenny Dorham who was so impressed by his musicianship that he arranged for Joe Henderson’s first recording session as a leader with Blue Note Records. This resulted in the record Page One (1963) which to this day remains one of his most critically acclaimed albums. This recording also spawned the standard Blue Bossa. During the following four years he led 4 other sessions for Blue Note and recorded as sideman on over to 2 dozen albums for the same label. Some of these records are today classics of not only the label but also of jazz music. Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure, Larry Young’s Unity, Horace Silver’s Song For My Father and Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder are just a few examples of those fruitful years. In addition to creating timeless music Joe Henderson’s style also evolved during this period to incorporate all genres of jazz from hard bop to avant garde from latin to soul-jazz.
Middle period: the Milestone, Verve and experimentation years
From 1967-1979 he recorded primarily for the Milestone label with occasional sessions as a leader for the Verve label and one, sorely underappreciated, record for the Enja label called Barcelona. Over this “middle period” of his career his style gradually evolved from the powerful acoustic style of post bop to fusion, electric music, avant garde and back to post-bop. Through all the changes, however, his virtuosity remained intact even when the some of the later records from this period were overall not as creative as his other works. During these years he also composed prolifically and co-led groups with Freddie Hubbard and Herbie Hancock. His forays outside of the realm of jazz led him to play with Blood Sweat and Tears and other rock and R and B groups. In the early seventies Joe Henderson became involved in teaching as well and moved to San Francisco.
The latter period: the 80s and the tenor trio.
The highlight of the 80s in Joe Henderson’s career was the recording of the phenomenal live session at the Village Vanguard released on a two disc set as The State of the Tenor Live at the Village Vanguard. It is a live trio set with bass and drums similar to Sonny Rollins’ landmark recordings of over 2 decades before. Despite garnering critical accolades the record remains underappreciated and not as well known as it should be.
The latter period: the 90s, Verve, awards and commercial success .
During the 90s Joe Henderson recorded 3 tribute sessions for Verve that were not only critically acclaimed but were also commercially highly successful. He won multiple Down Beat music awards in 1992, including the international critics and readers polls, was named jazz musician of the year and top tenor saxophonist. The first of the tribute albums Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn, named album of the year and went on to sell more than 450,000 worldwide in one year (1992); 100,000 copies of it in the United States. The success of those records launched his international career and he performed at many an international jazz festival and concert hall. The second of these albums So Near So Far: Musings for Miles won him a Grammy for best jazz performance. The decade also saw him recording as a sideman with a number of up and coming jazz musicians such as Renee Rosnes, Rebecca Coupe Franks, Stephen Scott and Holy Cole just to name a few.
In 1997 he recorded his last album Porgy and Bess and a year later he suffered a stroke that kept him from performing and in poor health. The world of jazz lost one of its great composers and most accomplished musicians on June 30th 2001 when Joe Henderson passed away from emphysema in San Francisco.
Jazz at 100 Hour 76: The Arrival of Joe Henderson (1963 – 1967)
Joe Henderson
Joe Henderson may have been the most significant tenor saxophonist to emerge in the 1960s. Gary Giddins wrote that he is “…an irresistibly lucid player, whose adroitness in conjuring stark and swirling riffs contributed immeasurably to two of the most durable jazz hits of the ’60s, Horace Silver’s ‘Song for My Father’ and Lee Morgan’s ‘The Sidewinder.’” In addition to those tunes, in previous programs in this series, we have also heard Kenny Dorham’s ‘Blue Bossa’ from Henderson’s first release Page One, his own composition ‘Caribbean Fire Dance’ from his Mode For Joe release and two tunes from Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure. In this hour of Jazz at 100, we will continue to explore Henderson’s solo work and his role as a valued sideman, mining the seams between hard bop and the avant-garde as the 1960s progressed.
Joe Henderson, Page One.
“One of the last great tenormen of the original hard-bop generation, who
it’s hard to imagine not in the middle of some grand, involved solo,
Henderson was a thematic musician, working his way round the structure
of a composition with methodical intensity, but he was also a masterful
licks player, with a seemingly limitless stock of phrases that he could
turn to advantage in any post-bop setting; this gave his best
improvisations a balance of surprise, immediacy and coherence few other
saxophonists could match. His lovely tone, which combines softness and a
harsh plangency in a similar way, is another pleasing aspect of his
music. Page One was his first date as a leader, and it still stands as
one of the most popular Blue Notes of the early ’60s. Henderson had not
long since arrived in New York after being discharged from the army, and
this six-theme set is very much the work of a new star on the scene. ‘Recorda-Me’,
whose Latinate lilt has made it a staple blowing vehicle for hard-bop
bands, had its debut here… Everything here, even the throwaway blues ‘Homestretch’ is impressively handled.” – Brian Morton & Richard Cook
Recorda-Me. Joe Henderson Quintet
(Kenny Dorham-tp, Joe Henderson-ts, McCoy Tyner-p, Butch Warren-b, Pete LaRoca-d). From Page One. 6/3/1963
Composed by Joe Henderson.
Homestretch. Joe Henderson Quintet
(Kenny Dorham-tp, Joe Henderson-ts, McCoy Tyner-p, Butch Warren-b, Pete LaRoca-d). From Page One. 6/3/1963
Composed by Joe Henderson.
Joe Henderson, Inner Urge
Norman Weinstein describes Henderson’s fourth solo release, Inner Urge
as “Joe Henderson’s most emotionally urgent album” and suggests that it
might be “the ultimate showcase of his distinguished career.” He writes
that “The deference to Coltrane is obvious: pianist McCoy Tyner and
drummer Elvin Jones are on board on every selection, although shifting
their styles to mesh with Henderson. The deference to [Stan] Getz is
more subtle, coming clear on Henderson’s stingingly lyric ballad
feature, ‘You Know I Care,’ and his melodic recasting of Cole Porter’s ‘Night and Day.’
Weaving a path between Coltrane’s fiery sermonizing and Getz’s singable
romanticism, Henderson displays a wholly individual sense of phrasing
that alternates molten passionate engagement with cool reflection… ‘El Barrio’
digs as deeply into the Latin mode as Henderson ever went, again
emphasizing a nearly strangulated, gruff sax sound interrupted by
beautifully full tones. The empathy with Tyner and Jones is palpable
throughout the album. They’re egging him on, but oh so gently, giving
Henderson tons of space to sink or swim in… The album seems like an
apotheosis of hard bop, a ruthlessly probing amplification of a typical,
hard-blowing, Blue Note bop session, pushing bop formulas as far as
they could be pushed. [It is] not only one of the best dozen Blue Note
sessions ever released, [but] one of the major statements of jazz in the
’60s… An absolutely essential listen and a major masterpiece.”
You Know I Care. Joe Henderson Quartet
(Joe Henderson-ts, McCoy Tyner-p, Bob Cranshaw-b, Elvin Jones-d). From Inner Urge. 11/30/1964
Composed by Duke Pearson.
El Barrio. Joe Henderson Quartet
(Joe Henderson-ts, McCoy Tyner-p, Bob Cranshaw-b, Elvin Jones-d). From Inner Urge. 11/30/1964
Composed by Manny Albem.
Joe Henderson with Bobby Hutcherson, McCoy Tyner & Larry Young.
Throughout his career, Joe Henderson was in demand as a sideman and
recorded frequently with the best players around, despite having his own
regular solo releases.
“The Kicker wasn’t made available until 1999. Even if Hutcherson’s standing was thought to be marginal, the presence of Joe Henderson should have been enough to see this fine, imaginative session into the light of day. The saxophonist is the main composer… [His] ‘Kicker’ and ‘Step Lightly’ are cracking tunes and blistering performances from all concerned. Hutcherson’s fleet, ringing lines have rarely sounded more buoyant and persuasive…” – Brian Morton & Richard Cook
The Kicker. Bobby Hutcherson Sextet
(Joe Henderson-ts, Bobby Hutcherson-vib, Duke Pearson-p, Grant Green-g, Bob Cranshaw-b, Al Harewood-d). From The Kicker. 12/29/1963
Composed by Joe Henderson.
“Larry Young was the first Hammond player to shake off the pervasive influence of Jimmy Smith and begin the assimilation of John Coltrane’s harmonics to the disputed border territory between jazz and nascent rock… Unity is a modern jazz masterpiece, whipped along by Jones’s ferocious drumming and Henderson’s meaty tenor” – Brian Morton & Richard Cook
If. Larry Young Quartet
(Woody Shaw-tp, Joe Henderson-ts, Larry Young-org, Elvin Jones-d). From Unity. 11/10/1965
Composed by Joe Henderson.
“[Joe Henderson] was the great saxophone-playing linker of bop and free-jazz, even more than Coltrane. He had a tonal range similar to Coltrane’s in its guttural urgency, ranging in this album’s ‘Passion Dance’ from a classic, dapper tenor richness to a pinched shrieking sound. Yet it was his own sound, with the grease of R&B players; he connected notes with a rubbery, portamento slide. He took his time; he sounded more joyful than Coltrane, as if he had less to lose. His sound was less self-conscious, happy to be a work in progress.” – Ben Ratliff.
Passion Dance. McCoy Tyner Quartet
(Joe Henderson-ts, McCoy Tyner-p, Ron Carter-b, Elvin Jones-d). From The Real McCoy. 4/21/1967
Composed by McCoy Tyner.
“Although he appeared on some of the biggest-selling recordings in the history of the Blue Note label (Song for My Father, The Sidewinder), Henderson never became mesmerized, as did many of his contemporaries, by the commercial potential of soul and funk-oriented music.” – Ted Gioia
Joe Henderson recorded a series of records for Milestone through the 1970s, made a major record The State of The Tenor for Blue Note in the 80s and finished his career with an outstanding series of releases on Verve including tributes to Billy Strayhorn, Miles Davis, and Antonio Carlos Jobim. He recorded his version of Porgy and Bess in 1997, made one more record with Terrence Blanchard in 1998 and died in 2001.
Miles Davis, through his adoption of modal music, participated in the gradual liberation that resulted in the free music of the jazz avant-garde. Yet, although he continued to explore broadly, he was public in his discomfort with free jazz. Despite this reluctance, the new quintet that he began to build in 1963 resulted in the freest music of his career and became legendary as his Second Great Quintet. Miles Davis and The Second Great Quintet, in the next hour of Jazz at 100.
Recordings.
Joe Henderson. Page One. Blue Note BLP 4140
Joe Henderson. Inner Urge. Blue Note BLP 4189
Bobby Hutcherson. The Kicker. Blue Note CDP 7243 5 21437-2
Larry Young. Unity. Blue Note BLP 4221
McCoy Tyner. The Real McCoy. Blue Note BLP 4264
Resources.
Giddins, Gary. 1998. Visions of Jazz: The First Century. New York. Oxford University Press.
Chapter 70. Joe Henderson (Tributes)
Morton, Brian & Cook, Richard. 2011. Penguin Jazz Guide, the History
of the Music in the 1001 Best Albums. New York, NY. Penguin Books.
Joe Henderson. Page One
Bobby Hutcherson. The Kicker
Larry Young. Unity
McCoy Tyner. The Real McCoy
Ratliff, Ben. 2002. The New York Times Essential Library of Jazz. New York. Times Books.
Chapter 78. McCoy Tyner, The Real McCoy (1967)
Weinstein, Norman. “Joe Henderson: Inner Urge.” All About Jazz.
7/2/2004.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/inner-urge-joe-henderson-blue-note-records-review-by-norman-weinstein.php
Annotated playlists and streaming links for all the Jazz at 100 broadcasts: Jazz at 100
https://3rdstreetjazz.com/recalling-joe-henderson-birthday-tribute-to-a-jazz-master/
Recalling Joe Henderson:
Birthday Tribute to a Jazz Master
April 24, 2023
Today, we celebrate the life and achievements of the tenor saxophone maestro, Joe Henderson. In a career spanning four decades, Henderson left an indelible mark on the world of jazz. On this special day, we’ll walk through his journey, highlighting his triumphs and incredible music.
Joe Henderson was born in Lima, Ohio, in 1937, into a musically inclined family. Early on, he developed a passion for jazz, admiring the artistry of Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and Ben Webster. Henderson also found inspiration in classical music, with the likes of Bartok and Stravinsky contributing to his musical palette.
Henderson’s journey into professional musicianship began at Kentucky State College and Wayne State University in Detroit. He soon shared the stage with the legendary Sonny Stitt and eventually led his own band in Detroit. Henderson’s career took a detour during his military service, but he continued playing in an Army band, touring the world.
Throughout his career, Joe Henderson collaborated with a constellation of jazz stars. His discography, both as a leader and sideman, has left an enduring impact on jazz history. Two of his albums, “In ‘N Out” (1964) and “Mode for Joe” (1966), stand out as masterpieces that showcase his brilliance.
“In ‘N Out” marked Henderson’s third album as a leader. Featuring Kenny Dorham on trumpet, it’s a compelling blend of hard bop and introspective ballads. The title track’s rhythm section, with Elvin Jones on drums and McCoy Tyner on piano, evokes a Coltrane-esque feel. However, Henderson’s solo reveals his distinctive voice, rooted in deliberate construction and emotive power. The album’s intricate melodies and unyielding energy make it a cornerstone of Henderson’s career.
In 'N Out (Remastered 2003 / Rudy Van Gelder Edition)
Original recording by Joe Henderson in 1964. Blue Note label.
On “Mode for Joe,” Henderson shared the frontline with a fiery Lee Morgan on trumpet and a young Bobby Hutcherson on vibes. Curtis Fuller‘s trombone provided depth to the melodic statements. The opening track, “A Shade of Jade,” epitomizes hard bop at its finest. The ensemble’s unrivaled confidence and verve make it a treat for the ears.
Mode For Joe (Remastered 2003 / Rudy Van Gelder Edition)
“Caribbean Fire Dance” showcases Henderson and Morgan’s creative aggression. Henderson’s ability to weave in and out of the harmonic structure, while remaining firmly grounded, displays his mastery. Morgan’s solo, with its brilliant brass tone, complements the ensemble perfectly. The record’s closing track, “Free Wheelin’,” features a more structured melody, with Henderson’s solo restrained yet captivating.
By the 1990s, Henderson finally achieved the widespread recognition he deserved. After signing with Verve, he released three Grammy-winning albums: “Lush Life,” a tribute to Billy Strayhorn, “So Near, So Far,” honoring Miles Davis, and “Double Rainbow,” dedicated to Antonio Carlos Jobim. This late-career renaissance also saw Henderson claiming Down Beat magazine’s “triple crown” awards two years in a row.
Henderson’s improvisational skills and lyrical contemporary jazz style set him apart from his contemporaries. Often compared to Stan Getz, his sound was unique and instantly recognizable. His ability to connect with audiences on a deeply emotional level was a testament to his artistry.
As a composer, Joe Henderson’s work is equally remarkable. Notable compositions include “Recordame,” “Black Narcissus,” “Inner Urge,” “Isotope,” “The Bad Game,” and “Caribbean Fire Dance.” These works continue to inspire and challenge musicians today, solidifying his impact on jazz.
Henderson’s personal life took him to San Francisco, where he taught music and continued to perform. His passion for teaching and sharing his knowledge reflected his love for the art form. Despite the health challenges he faced later in life, which ultimately brought an end to his public performances, Henderson’s spirit remained unbroken.
Joe Henderson passed away in 2001, but his legacy lives on through his music and the countless musicians he inspired. As we celebrate his birthday, we’re reminded of the incredible impact he made on the world of jazz. His artistry, innovation, and unwavering dedication to his craft make him a true legend.
In honoring Joe Henderson’s life and work, we must also recognize the importance of preserving and promoting jazz as a vital art form. It’s crucial for future generations to discover the magic of Joe Henderson and other jazz greats. Through our appreciation and support of jazz, we keep their legacies alive and thriving.
As we raise a toast to the memory of Joe Henderson, let us rekindle our love for the music he created. We celebrate his life by listening to his timeless records and sharing them with others. By doing so, we ensure that the spirit of Joe Henderson and the jazz tradition he so passionately embodied continues to inspire and enrich the lives of many.
In closing, we remember Joe Henderson for his immense talent, his musical contributions, and his unwavering passion for jazz. Today, on his birthday, we celebrate a man who left an indelible mark on the world of music. Let us honor his legacy by continuing to enjoy and share the gift of his artistry for years to come.
Joe Henderson: Tetragon-1968
Milestone, 1968
by BEN RATLIFF
July 3, 2001
New York Times
Joe Henderson, one of the great jazz saxophonists and a composer who wrote a handful of tunes known by almost every jazz student, died on Saturday in San Francisco. He was 64 and lived in San Francisco.
The cause was heart failure after a long struggle with emphysema, The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Henderson was unmistakably modern. ''Joe had one foot in the present, the other in the future, and he was just a step away from immortality,'' said the saxophonist Benny Golson. His tenor saxophone sound was shaded, insinuating, full of layers, with quicksilver lines amid careful ballad phrases and short trills. He had a clean, expressive upper register and a talent for improvising in semi-abstract harmony, and when the far-out years for jazz arrived in the mid-60's, led by musicians like John Coltrane and Miles Davis, he was well positioned to take part. He made a series of records for Milestone that used studio echo, Alice Coltrane's harp, violins, wood flutes and other exotic accouterments.
But Mr. Henderson's greatest strengths were more traditional: the ballad, the uptempo tune, the standard. And by the early 1990's, when he was a respected elder, he made some of his greatest statements on a series of well-produced, nearly theatrical albums for Verve Records.
Born in Lima, Ohio, he was one of 15 siblings. His parents and his brother James encouraged him to study music because of the talents he displayed as a saxophonist in his high school band. He attended Kentucky State College for a year, then transferred to Wayne State University in Detroit, where he was among fellow students like Yusef Lateef, Curtis Fuller and Hugh Lawson. In Detroit he worked with the saxophonist Sonny Stitt, and eventually formed his own group before joining the Army in 1960. He played in the Army band at Fort Benning, Ga., and toured military bases in the Far East and Europe with a revue called the Rolling Along Show.
In 1962 Mr. Henderson, who soon became a distinctive presence with his rail-thin body, thick black glasses and bushy mustache, was discharged and headed for New York. He quickly joined the young musicians recording for Blue Note records, especially the trumpeter Kenny Dorham, who was acting as a talent scout for the label. He made his recording debut in 1963 on Dorham's ''Una Mas,'' one of the classic Blue Note records of the early 60's.
Mr. Henderson was entering jazz at a fertile moment, when a few ambitious, challenging albums, like John Coltrane's ''My Favorite Things'' and Miles Davis's ''Kind of Blue,'' had broken through to a wide audience. A new self-possessed intellectualism was widespread in black music, and the experimental and traditional factions hadn't yet hardened their positions. Within the same four-month stretch as a Blue Note session regular, Mr. Henderson found himself playing solos on Lee Morgan's ''Sidewinder,'' an album full of bluesy, hard-bop tunes, and Andrew Hill's album ''Point of Departure,'' with its opaque, knotted harmonies and rhythmic convolutions. He played more roadhouse riffs on Morgan's record, more abstract thematic improvisations on Mr. Hill's, and sounded perfectly natural in both contexts.
After making five albums with Dorham, Mr. Henderson replaced Junior Cook in Horace Silver's band from 1964 to 1966. Again he was on hand for a milestone album, ''Song for My Father.'' He was also a member of Herbie Hancock's band from 1969 to 1970.
During the 60's he made several first-rate albums under his own name, including ''Page One'' and ''Inner Urge,'' and wrote tunes -- among them the blues pieces ''Isotope'' and ''A Shade of Jade,'' the waltz ''Black Narcissus,'' the bossa nova ''Recordame'' and the harmonically complex ''Inner Urge'' -- that earned lasting underground reputations as premium modern-jazz improvisational vehicles.
Mr. Henderson briefly joined the jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat and Tears in 1971, and his albums for Milestone, where he recorded until 1976, started to change from mystical Coltrane-inspired sessions to grooves and near jazz-rock. By the end of the 70's, he was working with the pianist Chick Corea. Then, after a five-year silence, he came back with the two volumes of ''The State of the Tenor.'' The first of his moves to redefine his career, these excellent mainstream jazz sets were recorded live at the Village Vanguard.
In the early 1990's he signed a new contract with Verve, which led to three Grammys. ''Lush Life,'' from 1991, used Billy Strayhorn tunes. With its first-rate playing and narrative arc -- it began with a duet, expanded to a quintet and ended with a saxophone solo -- it has sold nearly 90,000 copies, reports Soundscan, a company that tracks album sales.
Other songbook albums, only slightly less successful, included ''So Near, So Far (Musings for Miles),'' a treatment of pieces associated with Miles Davis; ''Double Rainbow,'' an album of Antonio Carlos Jobim's music; and Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess,'' recorded with an all-star jazz lineup as well as the pop singers Sting and Chaka Khan. His 90's discography also included ''Joe Henderson Big Band,'' a lavish rendering of his compositions.
Mr. Henderson's survivors include a sister, Phyllis, and a brother, Troy.
http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2014/04/joe-henderson-1934-2001-major.html
Friday, April 25, 2014
Joe Henderson (1934-2001), Major Saxophonist, Composer, and Bandleader: A Tribute On His 77th Birthday
http://www.joehendersonsax.com/biography/
http://www.joehendersonsax.com/video/
Biography
Joe Henderson (tenor saxophonist) was born on April 24, 1937 in Lima, Ohio and passed away on June 30, 2001 in San Francisco, California.
Born in the small city of Lima Ohio between Dayton and Toledo, he spent his childhood and adolescence years in a family of 15 children where he was exposed to a variety of musical styles, and was encouraged by his parents and older brother James T. to study music. He dedicated his first album to them for being so understanding and tolerant during his formative years.
By the time he was a high school student he was already arranging and writing music for the school band and other local outfits. It was in high school that a music teacher introduced him to the tenor saxophone. After graduation he enrolled first at the Kentucky State College to study music and then moved on to Wayne State University in Detroit. There he had as classmates several future jazz greats such as Yusef Lateef and Donald Byrd. From 1960-1962 he enlisted in the US army where he led several small jazz groups and won first place in a musical competition and was sent on a tour to entertain the troops all over Japan and Europe where he met a few of the expatriate musicians.
The Blue Note Years
After being discharged from the army he traveled to New York and sat in at Birdland with Dexter Gordon and other local musicians. During one of these sessions he was introduced to the trumpeter Kenny Dorham who was so impressed by his musicianship that he arranged for Joe Henderson’s first recording session as a leader with Blue Note Records. This resulted in the record Page One (1963) which to this day remains one of his most critically acclaimed albums. This recording also spawned the standard Blue Bossa.
During the following 4 years he led four other sessions for Blue Note and recorded as sideman on over to two dozen albums for the same label. Some of these records are today classics of not only the label but also of jazz music. Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure, Larry Young’s Unity, Horace Silver’s Song For My Father and Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder are just a few examples of those fruitful years. In addition to creating timeless music Joe Henderson’s style also evolved during this period to incorporate all genres of jazz, from hard bop to avant garde, from latin to soul-jazz.
The Milestone / Verve Years
From 1967-1979 he recorded primarily for the Milestone label with occasional sessions as a leader for the Verve label and one, sorely underappreciated, record for the Enja label called Barcelona. Over this “middle period” of his career his style gradually evolved from the powerful acoustic style of post bop to fusion, electric music, avant garde and back to post-bop. Through all the changes, however, his virtuosity remained intact even when the some of the later records from this period were overall not as creative as his other works. During these years he also composed prolifically and co-led groups with Freddie Hubbard and Herbie Hancock. His forays outside of the realm of jazz led him to play with Blood Sweat and Tears and other rock and R & B groups. In the early seventies Joe Henderson became involved in teaching as well and moved to San Francisco.
The Latter Years: 80s & 90s
The highlight of the 80s in Joe Henderson’s career was the recording of the phenomenal live session at the Village Vanguard released on a two disc set as The State of the Tenor Live at the Village Vanguard. It is a live trio set with bass and drums similar to Sonny Rollins’ landmark recordings of over 2 decades before. Despite garnering critical accolades the record remains underappreciated and not as well known as it should be.
During the 90s Joe Henderson recorded 3 tribute sessions for Verve that were not only critically acclaimed but were also commercially highly successful. He won multiple Down Beat music awards in 1992, including the international critics and readers polls, was named jazz musician of the year and top tenor saxophonist. The first of the tribute albums Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn, named album of the year and went on to sell more than 450,000 worldwide in one year (1992); 100,000 copies of it in the United States. The success of those records launched his international career and he performed at many an international jazz festival and concert hall. The second of these albums So Near So Far: Musings for Miles won him a Grammy for best jazz performance. The decade also saw him recording as a sideman with a number of up and coming jazz musicians such as Renee Rosnes, Rebecca Coupe Franks, Stephen Scott and Holy Cole just to name a few.
In 1997 he recorded his last album Porgy and Bess and a year later he suffered a stroke that kept him from performing and in poor health. The world of jazz lost one of its great composers and most accomplished musicians on June 30th 2001 when Joe Henderson passed away from emphysema in San Francisco.
https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2013/09/joe-henderson-revelatory.html
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Joe Henderson – Revelatory
JOE HENDERSON INTERVIEWED (1994):
A star to guide them
Joe Henderson: Lotus Blossom (from Lush Life, 1992)
Henderson smiles wanly and with the humility that has been his hallmark says maybe it was best he didn’t get acknowledged up until recently - perhaps God thought, “If I give it to him early, his head will swell up."
There is a ripple of laughter around the room, then Henderson, realising the intensity of the Eastern European interviewer, adds, “But seriously . . .” and embarks on a bland answer.
Another question comes his way: what does Joe think of the Verve label? It’s about the third time the question has been asked and this time the collective groan from other journos flown in from as far afield as Japan, New Zealand and Europe shuts the question down dead.
This is the 50th anniversary salute to the Verve record label, the label to which Henderson signed two years ago, and the shy, bearded saxophonist is just one of the star-studded panel which includes Herbie Hancock, Betty Carter, young trumpeter Roy Hargrove, Antonio Carlos Jobim and guitarist Kenny Burrell. Yet of all these, Henderson, of worryingly fragile and birdlike frame, is attracting the most attention.
That's what winning Grammy Awards does for your profile. Suddenly - after a lifetime in jazz - Joe is an overnight sensation for soundbite television and print journalists after a quick quote.
Henderson smiles warmly but, gentleman though he is, he deserves better. He possesses, in the heading of a recent profile in the influential jazz magazine Downbeat, “The Sound That Launched a Thousand Horns”, has a career that dates back 30 years, has been the consummate sideman on albums which featured jazz musicians as influential as pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones, trumpeters Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard . . .
The list goes on and Henderson's CV is crammed with the stuff of jazz legend. But more important for present
purposes is his commercial success.
In an art form where commercial success without artistic compromise is a rarity, Henderson has pulled it off. His Verve biography ludicrously overstates the case when it claims he is “the most celebrated jazz artist of the past 25 years”.
But there is no denying sales of 100,000 for his Verve debut Lush Life; The Music of Billy Strayhorn in '92 (his first Grammy and scooping multiple awards in Downbeat) or the even more successful follow-up, So Near, So Far; Musing for Miles of last year which pulled in Grammies for best jazz instrumental solo and best jazz instrumental performance.
Henderson's name was again at the top of Downbeat and Billboard readers and critics’ polls, and from New York‘s Village Voice and Times through USA Today to the Grand Rapids Press and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, his was the album that hit all the “best-of-the-year” lists. Thirty years after topping the Downbeat poll as a “talent deserving wider recognition," Joe Henderson was solidly placed at the top of the Billboard' jazz sales charts. A star.
Jazz success, however, can be easily won -- Kenny G, for instance -- but it usually doesn't sound like jazz. Kenny G, for instance.
But Henderson‘s albums are unmistakably jazz, crafted in the classical framework and tradition.
He plays on both recent albums with small groups (Wynton Marsalis appears on Lush Life, guitarist John Scofield on So Near, So Far) and the consistency of his vision has been reinforced by the reissue of some of his earlier albums in the wake of his current success.
The German label MPS recently reissued his 1980 album Mirrormirror and there is the magnificent four-disc box set The Blue Note Years which gathers together 36 tracks (mostly from the influential period in the Sixties).
All are testament to Henderson's unswerving musical integrity, his ability to play jazz without resorting to cliche or filibustering solos and to his deep immersion in the various threads of jazz throughout the decades. That sagging shelf of awards, trophies and plaques is much deserved.
And he has often - like Miles Davis, with whom he once played very briefly - worked with younger musicians.
“l like being with the ones who have done their homework,” he says once free of the dumb leading questions. "They deserve to be heard. They have to study the craft and take the music seriously. It’s not just getting up and looking hip on the bandstand; the music comes first and everything else comes after.
"There was a point where it seemed if you packaged it right and put it in the marketplace in the right places, whether it was ready or not, it seemed to be acceptable," he adds, referring to the Eighties when record companies went on signing sprees looking for the new Wynton Marsalis.
“Verve has at least moved away from that attitude and put some integrity back into the music. I'm happy to be recognised the way I have over the past year and a half, but I don’t do this for the recognition. I do it because it’s what I'm supposed to do on this planet, I enjoy what I do and I try to project that so the audience gets a lot of happiness.
"But we have to look at the whole picture. Miles [Davis] influenced this whole movement, just as Lester Young and others before did. And all those who never got recognised. I don’t appreciate them any the less for that [lack of recognition]."
What this late career success has meant, however, is that writers and critics, most of whom should know better, are writing Henderson up as the last survivor of his particular generation of jazz artists. Henderson is far too modest and knowledgeable to suggest that.
He sees himself as part of a tradition and his two Verve albums, the first a homage to the songwriter who for 30 years worked with Duke Ellington, the most recent a respectful nod to Miles Davis, were both projects he refers to as replanting the trees.
But this sudden flurry of attention for the albums, his invitation to play at the Clinton Inaugural Ball, a South Bank Show profile, numerous print interviews and sell-out live performances have cast Joe Henderson of Lima, Ohio, as some Anthony Hopkins of jazz -- the one who has always been there in workmanlike and creditable roles but has only lately been accorded his due for carefully crafted albums on his new label.
Hence the question: "What do you think of Verve, Joe?"
As the press conference winds down, Henderson takes his leave, grabs a salad off the amply stocked side-table and settles into a chair while television crews pursue Herbie Hancock for a soundbite. He seems delighted to be able to talk about music and, as his manager observes later, “You don’t get a five-minute interview out of Joe".
He is a gracious and generous talker, and a gentleman who is candid enough to admit the success now means he can get a good seat in a restaurant. He exchanges a few words in Spanish to a Mexican television crew and, like most jazz musicians who have found second homes in France,can
make small talk in French.
He has recorded in Japan, brought Afrocentrlc ideas to two famous albums in the Sixties (Black Narcissus and Power to the People, both with a hard political agenda), on the cusp of the Seventies spent six months in the jazz-rock band Blood. Sweat and Tears (which he hated – too repetitions, too many limos and too little music) and is now the elder statesman of the melodic, mature and confident sound of post-Davis bebop and ballads.
Joe Henderson has come a long way but he remembers it all.
"I had no input into that Blue Note compilation because I'm now signed to this other company,” he says, "but I take my hat off to them. They did a beautiful job. I had a two-hour interview flying between LA and Nice with the guy who did the liner notes and I was surprised, as he was; just how much I could remember.
“When he was asking questions. the recording sessions seemed like they'd happened the day before. But because they were so long ago - the first one came from my first recording in 1963 - I can now be objective about them."
Henderson's recall easily encompasses his first paying gig in New York City. He'd previously studied at Kentucky State University for a year and spent four years at Wayne State in Detroit where he played alongside multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef and trumpeter Donald Byrd.
During two years in the military he spent time in France where he met jazz expatriates Bud Powell and Kenny Clarke. On his discharge in '62, he settled in New York and hooked up with a bassist from Detroit, Bernard McKinney, who showed him the ropes.
"I didn't know anything about the city but three months later I was working my first gig and at the end the guy says, ‘Here Joe, here’s your money.' It was $10 . . . and that went a long way in ’62. I’d gotten out of the military in August, so the gig would have been in the Fall. There weren’t a lot of people there, but just the fact I'd been hired for a gig in New York! I couldn’t believe it and I’ll never forget it.”
Within months Henderson was playing alongside trumpeter Kenny Dorham on a Blue Note recording session -- another coup, given that label's special place in jazz of the period. His own Blue Note debut, Page One, was recorded in mid-1963 and Henderson was on his way.
He played on 30 albums by others and recorded seven under his own name during that exciting decade of jazz where there seemed to be few boundaries. Vying for eartime in the jazz community of the time were the sounds of free jazz -- spontaneous improvisation which took as its starting point Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz album of 1960 -- and straight ahead hard bop. There was Third Stream with its classical influences, the Afro-driven spiritual sounds of John Coltrane, restrained experiments with time signature by Dave Brubeck and his acolytes building on his Take Five album of '58 . . .
A broad freedom of expression was available in the jazz vocabulary. And Henderson says he misses it these days.
“I’ve done some free things because there’s a part of me that is a bit of an iconoclast and was especially so at that time. Part of the spirit then was just to reject all that stuff like bar lines and key signatures. We didn’t want to know about it.
“So part of the thing then was just to get up on the bandstand. I became a little self-conscious about people coming in with their own music and parts written out for everyone to play and totally displacing what others might want to bring. I just said, ‘Let's play' and didn’t want to interfere by even suggesting a title for a tune.
“We'd just start playing and see what came out of it. We'd be able to deal with it and figure out afterwards what we did. It was such an interesting time and I don’t understand why that spirit didn’t have a longer life.
"People like Albert Ayler [the seminal avant-garde tenor player who died in 1970] aren’t around any more, of course. But Ornette still is, although he’s much more traditional and conservative than he was . . . and I‘m surprised by that. I was asking someone just a week ago, ‘Whatever happened to ...’ and a whole list came out of people who were connected with that free movement who just seem to have evaporated ir vanished.
"Today there doesn't seem to be too much interest in that free spirit of jazz where you just play and you don’t have to have gone to this or that university to ensure we all know similar things so we can make music together.
“That idea of saying, 'If you play saxophone, come on up and we’ll figure out something’ seems gone now," he concludes ruefully.
Doubtless that spirit of spontaneity was crushed in the Eighties by what has become known as the “neo-conservative” movement which had as its figurehead hot trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, whose insistence on the correct, respectful attitude to the music often took on the appearance of a political dogma.
Having sat out the Seventies after his Blood, Sweat and Tears encounter as a low-profile jazz player, Henderson steadily worked his way back to the forefront in a series of trio recordings during the neoconservative Eighties.
As one who was there for that particular jazz the first time round, he is surprised and saddened at the attitude of these younger musicians whose market profile he hinted at it whose music often doesn't match the claims made for it.
“I'm just surprised they seem so easily satisfied,” he says, shaking his head with a bewildered smile. “They are satisfied just to become the clones of the musicians of the previous generation. They only want to be as good as that. In the Sixties we were interested in pushing back those boundaries and adding something new and coming up with ways and undiscovered avenues of interpreting and improvising.
“We were young and excited by the possibilities - but today so many younger musicians appear to be satisfied with just being as good as the previous generations.
"I don't understand that spirit. I'm used to a much more dissatisfied climate out of which comes some great melodies and works of art oftentimes.
“The state of the art recording now is at a high level, although some things about it haven’t really changed as far as my ear is concerned. Sure, it’s gone from analogue to digital, so now it's nothing for these young musicians to have their music in stores right alongside the masters who are the mentors and influences. But how could it be that you would put something out which isn’t quite as good as that - but maybe just sounds better?
“I simply don’t understand that.”
If the neo-cons have been lining up to pay homage to those mentors and influences – notably Duke Ellington (in the case of Marsalis and his followers) and the early Miles Davis - then so, too, are many of the more mature musicians tipping their berets towards Henderson.
Dumb leading questions by interviewers notwithstanding (“What do you think of Joe Henderson?" directed to trumpeter Roy Hargrove. Answer: "Well, he’s always been recognised by musicians . . ."), Henderson cops acclaim whichever way he turns.
Guitarist John Scofield - one of the finds of the Eighties who didn't fit the neocon mould calls him “the essence of jazz” who embodies “all the different elements that came together in his generation: hard-bop masterfulness plus the avant-garde."
Branford Marsalis considers Henderson “one of the most influential saxophone players of the 20th century" and young pianist Stephen Scott, who plays on Lush Life, notes: "Joe uses so much space when he plays and, as a piano player, you have to learn to play in the cracks so that you won’t get in the soloist's way. Joe starts in the cracks!"
Respect from peers has always been more important in jazz than Grammles and critics' polls -- welcome though they may also be.
Tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, himself a musician like Henderson who swam against the neo-con tides of the Eighties, offers the most telling tribute to a man whose particular path has been unique in a music that is by definition individual and unique.
“He's always had his own voice,” says Lovano. "He's developed his own concepts with inspirations of the people he dug but without copying them. I hear Joe in other tenor players. I hear not only phrases copped from Joe but lately I hear younger cats trying to cop his sound. That's who you are as player: your sound.
“It's one thing to learn from someone, but to copy his sound is strange. Joe’s solo development live is a real journey - and you can't cop that! He’s on an adventure whenever he plays.”
But it’s an adventure with the attendant pitfalls of success at this point. For a musician whose career spans the breadth of jazz expression, he has latterly become known for his two most recent tribute albums using the music of others.
He is scrupulous about according those musicians their due, but the question remains: Where's Joe going with this?
"I’m thinking about another album right now,” he says thoughtfully, "but we haven't settled on how we want to approach it. If it’s another tribute, well, I’d have to say that formula has worked well for me.
“They are great projects - Lush Life and Musing for Miles couldn’t have been better, just beautiful music regardless. But if I did another it would definitely have to be the last and I'd make a l80-degree turn because there is such a danger in being typecast.
“And I’ve done so many different things in jazz over the years.
“People say to me, ‘Look, that was all right - but we want to hear your music now.’ I get that more often than anything else these days. And when you‘ve had the success I`ve had recently, you have to plan things out a little more. Unfortunately you can't just go out there like a carefree spirit any more and have at it like you used to."
He offers a broad smile and the lines around his eyes etch in deeper.
Not like you used to?
“Yeah,” he laughs. “That's what success does for you!”
Joe Henderson's next album for Verve was in fact a tribute to Antonio Carlos Jobim (who also appeared at the Verve festival in his last live performance), and he also released his interpretation of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. He died of heart failure due to complications from emphysema in 2001.
THE DOZENS: ESSENTIAL JOE HENDERSON
by S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson, by Jos L. Knaepen
So many tenor saxophonists who came of age in the 1960s adapted heavily from both Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, but none exceeded the success that Joe Henderson had in forging his own inimitable style from two such familiar influences. Henderson’s “inside-outside” approach was nuanced enough to bring vitality to tender ballads and abrasive enough to set more dynamic songs afire.
First making an impact as a member of Horace Silver’s Song for My Father quintet, Henderson also appeared on such other notable records as Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder, Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure and McCoy Tyner’s The Real McCoy, just to name a few from early in his career. Many of Henderson’s own records of that time were of nearly equal quality: the Blue Notes from Page One to Mode for Joe, and the following Milestone era that produced such great works as Tetragon, Power to the People, and live In Japan.
Despite his outstanding recordings, Henderson spent much of the next couple of decades sharing roughly the same status to most jazz listeners as, say, Curtis Fuller or George Coleman: a talented and valuable Blue Note sideman. That finally started to change in the fall of 1985, when a pivotal live performance helped Henderson achieve in the jazz public’s mind the lofty standing that his playing had already earned more than 20 years earlier. The Verve years of the 1990s, with tributes to Miles Davis, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Billy Strayhorn, cemented his legend and belatedly brought him the commercial returns scant few who toil in uncompromised jazz enjoy.
And if anything, that’s perhaps Henderson’s overarching accomplishment: stubbornly sticking to his undiluted approach, he nudged the boundaries of hard bop when he could have effortlessly pursued the crossover success that most of his contemporaries sought. Instead of Joe Henderson finding an audience, the audience found Joe Henderson. He died in 2001 at age 64 and at peace in knowing that he had persevered.
The following 12 selections provide a representative cross section of Henderson’s work as a leader, in varying settings, eras and song styles. Since most of his artistic fulfillment occurred in the 1960s, there’s a preponderance of selections from that period, with a notable performance apiece from each of the three succeeding decades.
And if anything, that’s perhaps Henderson’s overarching accomplishment: stubbornly sticking to his undiluted approach, he nudged the boundaries of hard bop when he could have effortlessly pursued the crossover success that most of his contemporaries sought. Instead of Joe Henderson finding an audience, the audience found Joe Henderson. He died in 2001 at age 64 and at peace in knowing that he had persevered.
The following 12 selections provide a representative cross section of Henderson’s work as a leader, in varying settings, eras and song styles. Since most of his artistic fulfillment occurred in the 1960s, there’s a preponderance of selections from that period, with a notable performance apiece from each of the three succeeding decades.
Joe Henderson: Blue Bossa
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Kenny Dorham (trumpet), McCoy Tyner (piano), Butch Warren (bass), Pete La Roca (drums).
Composed by Kenny Dorham
.Recorded: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, June 3, 1963
Rating: 96/100 (learn more)
As the title advertises, "Blue Bossa" is bossa nova with blues
overtones. An eminently catchy tune (even non-jazz fans recognize it),
it's Kenny Dorham's rightful entry into the jazz standards canon. In
original form here as the first track from Joe Henderson's debut album, a
strong composition is given strong treatment. After the two horn
players state the theme in unison, Dorham takes the lead, restating his
theme with a succession of rapid-fire tremolos that sound like he's
playing his trumpet behind an electric fan. The rest of the way, he
stays close to the theme in a clean and relaxed manner. Henderson's
ensuing solo introduces his warm tenor from the Sonny Rollins school,
finding notes that aren't always obvious but always fit. Foreshadowing
his affinity for Antonio Carlos Jobim's music, Tyner already sounds
right at home with the Brazilian form. Warren makes his own solo
statement concise.
"Blue Bossa" introduced the world to Joe Henderson in fine fashion. This
classic piece remains the place to start for discovering the treasure
trove of Henderson's body of work.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: Recorda Me
Track
Recorda Me [aka Recordame, Recorda-me]
Artist
Joe Henderson (tenor sax)
CD
Page One (Blue Note BST-84140)
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Kenny Dorham (trumpet), McCoy Tyner (piano), Butch Warren (bass), Pete La Roca (drums).
Composed by Joe Henderson
Recorded: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, June 3, 1963
Rating: 97/100 (learn more)
Like its more recognizable album mate "Blue Bossa,"
"Recorda Me" is bossa nova at its core. However, this Joe
Henderson-penned tune boasts a shiftier rhythm underneath and busier
thematic lines out front. Another difference is that Henderson leads off
the soloing this time, and it's here that his careful phrasing and
modulation of intensity testify to his tenor mastery. Kenny Dorham
contrasts nicely by holding his notes where there might be spaces.
Tyner's own lead shows off a little bit of his familiar detached,
right-hand arpeggios before a horn line signals the transition back to
the head.
"Recorda Me" became a longtime staple in Joe Henderson's live
performances and has been covered by acts as diverse as the fusion
supergroup Steps Ahead and avant-garde giant Anthony Braxton. This early Henderson composition has stood the tests of both time and presentation quite well.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: Our Thing
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Andrew Hill (piano), Pete La Roca (drums),
Eddie Khan (bass)
Composed by Joe Henderson
Recorded: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, September 9, 1963
Rating: 93/100 (learn more)
With its variable beats and hot bop lines, "Our Thing" could be considered something of a precursor to the better-known "The Kicker,"
which Joe Henderson would record the following year with the Horace
Silver Quintet. But even more than with the song he lent to Silver,
Henderson tests the limits of hard bop with "Our Thing."
The time signature changes from double-time to a leisurely gallop and
back again. The main theme that rides on this rocky rhythm might be a
gauntlet for most horn players to negotiate alone, much less in perfect
unison with another musician as Henderson and Dorham do here. Henderson
swings superbly on his solo, and Dorham lays down some Clifford
Brown-type phrasing before turning matters over to Hill and his rhythmic
precision.
"Our Thing" shows Henderson the composer constructing complex harmonics and tempos, even near the beginning of his career.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: Punjab
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Richard Davis (bass), Elvin Jones (drums).
Composed by Joe Henderson
.Recorded: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, April 10, 1964
Rating: 95/100 (learn more)
Like many of Joe Henderson's songs, "Punjab" is the kind of modern jazz composition that arose in the wake of harmonic innovations introduced in Coltrane's Giant Steps and Miles's Kind of Blue. There's a lot of root movement in the thematic line declared by Henderson and Dorham. While the tune is a blues at its core, it's a longer form than the standard 12 bars. But since it's still the blues, Henderson sounds right at home, producing an endless wellspring of articulations that employ both lightning-fast arpeggios and easygoing, rhythmic phrases, all gliding over a melody with strange chord changes. And oddly enough, it's a melody that's hard to shake once it gets inside of you. "Punjab" succeeds in making the complex simple to digest.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: Inner Urge
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Bob Cranshaw (bass), Elvin Jones (drums).
Recorded: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, November 30, 1964
Rating: 95/100 (learn more)
"Inner Urge" is a hard-swinging vehicle for a torrid blowing
session. Joe Henderson lined up Coltrane's pianist and drummer (as well
as Rollins's bass player) to back him, just nine days before Trane's two
sidemen joined their boss (and bassist Jimmy Garrison) to record A Love Supreme.
Clearly Henderson was seriously intent on showing he could measure up
to two of his primary tenor influences, and doesn't disappoint.
Henderson's two solos here are extended, but he keeps things flowing by
liberally mixing pleasantly tuneful passages with exciting, turbulent
ones. Cranshaw and Tyner also sparkle during their turns. Elvin Jones,
however, nearly steals the show with peerless, thunderous polyrhythms
that rank among his better drum solos on record.
As a supremely confident saxophonist already running out of things to
prove at this stage, Henderson again upped the ante with "Inner Urge."
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: Mode For Joe
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Bobby Hutcherson (vibes), Cedar Walton (piano), Ron Carter (bass), Joe Chambers (drums).
Composed by Cedar Walton
Recorded: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, January 27, 1966
Rating: 100/100 (learn more)
Cedar Walton is no minor composer, but he may have reached the
pinnacle with "Mode for Joe." Chords gracefully ascend and descend, and
optimal use is made of spacing and timing. The expanded horn ensemble
along with Hutcherson's vibes gives the song the elegant heft it
demands, without being too large to play nimbly.
This song isn't perfect just because Walton scored it flawlessly,
though. "Mode" is a signature Joe Henderson performance as well. In the
midst of the call and response between Henderson and the rest of the
front line, the leader shocks the listener by inserting some rough,
dissonant lines that he repeats precisely as played the first time. His
solo that follows is likewise a mixture of cool, precise phrasing with
loosely conceived statements punctuated by coarse honks.
Like the great painter Picasso, Joe Henderson combines the odd with the beautiful to create something oddly beautiful.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: Tetragon
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Kenny Barron (piano), Ron Carter (bass), Louis Hayes (drums).
Composed by Joe Henderson
.Recorded: New York, September 27, 1967 and May 16, 1968
Rating: 91/100 (learn more)
"Tetragon" is a modernized bebop tune, with the head demonstrating
Joe Henderson's flair for imaginative chord progressions. This time,
it's a series of descending chords and a start-stop melody that gives
the song distinction. Another distinction is Henderson's sheer speed in
running through scales even through chord changes. While he had the
ability to modulate brilliantly between hot and cool from one phrase to
the next, it's almost all hot blowing in this instance, and it's top
notch. Henderson gets some solid comping from Kenny Barron, who was just
starting to come into his own around this time. The pianist steps out
shortly thereafter into a fine solo, followed by Ron Carter's blues
walking on his standup bass.
Though inspired largely by postwar jazz, Joe Henderson's blues-based "Tetragon" is a timeless display of artistry.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: Waltz For Zweetie
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Don Friedman (piano), Ron Carter (bass), Jack DeJohnette (drums).
Composed by Walter Bishop
Recorded: New York, September 27, 1967 and May 16, 1968
Rating: 94/100 (learn more)
"Waltz For Zweetie" provides a contrast from the more advanced compositions that Joe Henderson was then tackling. The inaugural recording of Walter Bishop's tune casts the tenorman in more conventional 3/4 time, showing off his knack for the sweet, romantic style that waltzes typically call for. The piece is also more democratic, as Friedman's impressionistic stylings get fully articulated and Carter's bass work is outstanding in its range and lyricism. The leader himself solos last, steadfastly in the Rollins tradition and making excellent use of space. "Waltz For Zweetie" hasn't been covered much since, which is a shame. It's got a light, buoyant melody that's memorable. In any case, it would be hard to beat Joe Henderson's rendition.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: Black Narcissus
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Herbie Hancock (electric piano), Ron Carter (bass), Jack DeJohnette (drums).
Composed by Joe Henderson
.Recorded: New York, May 29, 1969
Rating: 96/100 (learn more)
Jazz was changing rapidly as the '60s turned into the '70s, and Joe
Henderson was present for much of it; he participated in Freddie
Hubbard's Red Clay and Herbie Hancock's Fat Albert Rotunda,
after all. But while Henderson was open for electric instrumentation in
his own work, he also steadfastly refused to commercialize his music.
Henderson's first departure from an all-acoustic format as a leader came
in the guise of a beautiful tone poem he wrote called "Black
Narcissus." The only plugged-in instrument may have been Herbie
Hancock's Fender Rhodes, but it was critical in giving the song a warm
glow. Combined with Ron Carter's delicately plucked high notes, the song
has an ethereal soundscape upon which Henderson quietly drops his
notes.
"Black Narcissus" is less about Henderson's considerable sax skills than
about his acumen in sketching atmospheric pieces. As far as those go,
this is one of his best.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: 'Round Midnight
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax),
Hideo Ichikawa (electric piano), Kunimitsu Inaba (bass), Motohiko Hino (drums)
.Composed by Thelonious Monk
.Recorded: live at The Junk Club, Tokyo, Japan, August 4, 1971
Rating: 92/100 (learn more)
In the early '70s, Joe Henderson had Monk's most celebrated tune at
least semi-regularly in his live rotation, as evidenced by its
inclusion in At the Lighthouse, recorded almost a year earlier. This time, however, there's no trumpet player, and Henderson allows himself to stretch more.
And stretch he does. Starting the song unaccompanied, he combines trills
with trips to the altissimo register, playing coyly and summoning up
Coleman Hawkins. Never in this a cappella performance does
he lose track of the melodic line. As the local backing players enter
three minutes later, Henderson glides right into the groove. Hino is
playing with an ear close to what the leader is doing, and Inaba is rock
solid. Ichikawa doesn't shrink from the challenge of following
Henderson, bringing much humanness to his electric piano.
Joe Henderson could spin magic no matter what he played, where he played, or with whom he played.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: Isotope
Musicians:
Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Ron Carter (bass), Al Foster (drums).
Composed by Joe Henderson
.Recorded: live at the Village Vanguard, New York, November 16, 1985
Rating: 92/100 (learn more)
"Isotope" first appeared on Joe Henderson's 1964 album Inner Urge,
but this version is of special interest because of the way he
deconstructs the tune down to the root. In the 1964 version, he played
the advanced bop thematic line in unison with a piano. This 1985 version
takes the piano out of the equation, leaving it up to the remaining
three to fill in the void left by the absence of a comping instrument.
Luckily, he's got Ron Carter to help out. Carter finds the crucial notes
for filling out the melody on the bottom end, while Henderson performs
that task for the higher registers while simultaneously blowing out
quick arpeggios and other expressions. Foster keeps a beat at about
double-time the original, adding his accents in appropriate spots to
prod along the other two.
"Isotope" was a long-time staple in Henderson's live performances; it
was only fitting that he included this in his pivotal performance at the
Vanguard. It was a firm signal to the world that through changing
tastes in jazz he remained the same old Joe he'd always been.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
Joe Henderson: Lush Life
Track
Lush Life
Artist
Joe Henderson (tenor sax)
CD
Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn (Verve 314 511 779-2)
Recorded: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, September 3, 6 & 8, 1991
Rating: 99/100 (learn more)
Joe Henderson was not just a great composer and technician, he was
also a fine interpreter of standards. You can find examples of that
throughout his career, but it was the major focal point of the final
recording period of his life during which he recorded for Verve.
The first Verve project tackled the lofty music of Ellington cohort
Billy Strayhorn, using varying band configurations. Right at the end of
the record is Henderson alone scaling the most magnificent of Strayhorn
compositions, "Lush Life." The melody flows from his horn without any
equivocation, the transitions between shapes are effortless and the
phrasing is creative but never too cute.
Joe Henderson's flawless solo presentation of "Lush Life" is the kind of
performance that only a first-ballot Hall of Fame tenor player can
give.
Reviewer: S. Victor Aaron
