Joe Henderson

Debut records rarely leave two permanent standards behind. This one did. June 3, 1963, Van Gelder's, Alfred Lion producing, and Henderson walks in with Kenny Dorham on trumpet, McCoy Tyner on piano, Butch Warren on bass and Pete La Roca on drums. Look at the front cover and you will not find Tyner's name anywhere on it. He was signed to Impulse!, so Blue Note listed him as ETC. and buried the real credit on the jacket: McCoy Tyner performs by courtesy of Impulse Records.

The two standards are Henderson's "Recorda-Me" and Dorham's "Blue Bossa", and Blue Note knew what it had, pulling a 45 with one on each side, 45-1901. Dorham is all over this record in ways the billing does not show. He wrote two of the six tunes, Henderson wrote the other four, and Dorham wrote the original liner notes on top of that. A veteran handing a newcomer a launch pad and then writing the copy on the back of it.

What lands is how settled Henderson already sounds. The tone has a dry center with grit at the edges, and he phrases like a man who decided in advance where the chorus was going to land. La Roca is the other pleasure here, playing around the beat instead of on it, which is most of what keeps "Blue Bossa" from becoming the lounge tune a thousand later versions turned it into. Tyner comps with the same weight he was bringing to Coltrane's band that same season.

One housekeeping note, since it circulates. Wikipedia credits Scott Yanow with the AllMusic review of this album, but the AllMusic page itself is bylined Rovi Staff, so do not put that quote in Yanow's mouth. Whoever wrote it, the record needs no endorsement. If you own exactly one Joe Henderson album and it is this one, you started in the right place, and the four Blue Notes after it make more sense for having heard it first.

Three months after Page One, same room, same trumpet player, different piano chair. September 9, 1963, and the man at the keyboard is Andrew Hill, with Eddie Khan on bass and Pete La Roca back on drums. Hill was two months from cutting Black Fire, the record that made his name, and the approach is already forming here. He does not comp so much as interrupt, dropping clusters into the gaps a more polite pianist would have filled with chords.

Kenny Dorham out-writes the leader again, and by a wider margin. Three of the five tunes are his and two are Henderson's, on Henderson's own record. Nothing here turned into a standard the way "Blue Bossa" did, and Scott Yanow says so plainly in the review Wikipedia quotes, while still hearing what was coming: "Even at this relatively early stage, Joe Henderson showed his potential as a great tenorman." That is the fair reading. This is a very good record that produced no hits.

What it has instead of hits is friction. Hill and Henderson pull in slightly different directions the whole way through, and Dorham sits between them sounding like the only adult in the room. That tension is the reason to own it. Page One is the record to hand a newcomer; this is the one that pays off on a fourth listen, because the parts do not quite fit and nobody involved seems interested in making them fit.

Two things to know before you shop. The liner-note credit is contested: Discogs and AllMusic both name Leonard Feather, while Wikipedia says Kenny Dorham, which looks like a carryover from Page One. Two sources to one, so I would go with Feather. The release month is a mess too, with Wikipedia putting it at the end of May 1964 and Discogs saying April, so the year is the only date anybody should be printing, sellers included.

Two fifths of the Coltrane quartet turn up on a Blue Note session in April 1964, and the jacket does not hide it: McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones perform by courtesy of Impulse Records. Richard Davis takes the bass chair, Dorham is back on trumpet, and the date went down April 10 at Van Gelder's. Whatever you make of the record, that is a rhythm section built for a heavier weight class than most hard bop sessions were carrying that year.

Elvin is the story. He plays the way he played for Coltrane, in waves rather than in bars, and Henderson answers by stretching phrases across the barline until you lose track of where one sits. Henderson wrote three of the tunes and Dorham two. jazzdisco shows that "Short Story" had already been attempted and rejected at an earlier date before it got recut for this album, which is a small window into how much studio time Alfred Lion would spend to get a take right.

The Penguin Guide, quoted on Wikipedia, names the one thing that keeps this out of the top rank: "while in general the temperature seems rather lower than on Henderson's other Blue Notes, it's fascinating, profound music." That is fair. The playing is deep and the record runs cool. Nobody reaches for the ceiling here the way they do on Inner Urge seven months later. Call it a musicians' record more than a listeners' one, and mean it as a compliment with an asterisk.

One small thing that trips up searches and dealer listings. The jacket and the label both print it "In 'N Out" with a capital N. Wikipedia's article title lowercases it, even though the tracklist on that same page uses the capital. You will find the record typing it either way. Just do not assume a seller who capitalizes it is describing a different pressing, because plenty of people have talked themselves into that.

No trumpet: that is the first change and the one that matters. November 30, 1964, and for the first time on a Blue Note leader date Henderson has no Kenny Dorham beside him, just McCoy Tyner, Bob Cranshaw and Elvin Jones. Nine days later Coltrane recorded A Love Supreme in that same room with two of the men who played this session. Put the two records on back to back sometime and hear how differently the same rhythm players can be aimed.

Henderson told Nat Hentoff in the liner notes how "El Barrio" got built, and it is about as plain as composition gets. He handed the band two chords, B minor and C major 7, asked for a Spanish feeling, and improvised the melody over the top of whatever came back. He tied the tune to growing up in Lima, Ohio. Also from Hentoff's notes: "Isotope" is a Monk tribute, and the target is specifically Monk's sense of humor rather than his harmony.

The quartet format is what pushes this past the two Dorham records for me. With no second horn there is nowhere to hand off, so Henderson plays longer and further out, and Tyner fills the space underneath instead of waiting his turn. Two of the five tunes are not Henderson's at all, "You Know I Care" by Duke Pearson and Cole Porter's "Night and Day", and both work as breathing room between the originals rather than as filler.

Blue Note sat on it. The session is November 1964 and the album did not appear until 1966, which is why it gets listed under either year depending on who is selling. Sources cannot even agree on the month, with AllMusic saying March and Discogs saying April, so the year is the only date worth printing. This is the Henderson record I reach for most, and the one I would put in front of anybody who thinks he was a hard bop specialist.

Seven pieces, the biggest band Henderson ever fronted on Blue Note. January 27, 1966, and the room holds Lee Morgan on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone, Cedar Walton on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Joe Chambers on drums. It is also the end of something. He would not make another Blue Note record as a leader for roughly twenty years, not until three November nights at the Village Vanguard in 1985.

The writing is spread wider than on any of the earlier dates. Henderson contributed three of the six tunes, Cedar Walton wrote the title track and "Black", and Lee Morgan wrote "Free Wheelin'". AllMusic's Eric Starr, who gives it four and a half stars, makes a point worth stealing: Morgan's tune is the only straight hard bop number on the album, and everything else is essentially an open vehicle for soloing. That is exactly why a septet record never once sounds crowded.

Hutcherson is the reason the arrangements breathe. Vibraphone in a front line with trumpet and trombone should turn to mush, and instead it works like a hinge, ringing under the horns and then answering them. Worth noting that AllMusic credits him with marimba as well; Wikipedia and the original Discogs entry both say vibraphone only, and that is what I would go with until somebody turns up a session sheet that settles it.

One pressing note, offered as a warning rather than a tip. Discogs transcribes the mono runout on this title as BNLP 4277 against a catalog number of 4227. Nobody has resolved that, so do not let anyone sell you a copy on the strength of it in either direction. Buy it for the music. Then go find out what Henderson did with the next twenty years, because the answer is mostly other people's records.

Six years after Page One and Henderson has plugged in. Two sessions at Plaza Sound Studios in New York, May 23 and May 29, 1969, with Orrin Keepnews producing and George Sawtelle engineering for Milestone. Jack DeJohnette on drums, Ron Carter on bass, Herbie Hancock on keyboards, and Mike Lawrence adding trumpet to two tracks. Wikipedia states it outright: these are the first electric instruments to appear on any Henderson album, which for a player this deep into the Blue Note catalog is a real line to cross.

The electricity gets applied with a scalpel rather than a switch. Hancock plays Fender Rhodes on "Black Narcissus", "Afro-Centric" and the title track, and acoustic piano on "Opus One-Point-Five", "Isotope" and "Lazy Afternoon". Carter goes electric on two tunes and plays upright everywhere else. Hancock is not credited on "Foresight and Afterthought" at all. So this is not a fusion album, it is an album that picks up a different instrument when a specific tune asks for one.

"Black Narcissus" shows up here first, eight years before he used the name for an album, and this is the version to know. "Isotope" is back too, five years on from Inner Urge and rebuilt around DeJohnette, who does not keep time so much as comment on it. Two of the tunes are not Henderson's: "Opus One-Point-Five" belongs to Ron Carter, and "Lazy Afternoon" comes from the musical The Golden Apple, written by Jerome Moross and John Latouche.

Pitchfork went back and gave it a 9.1, calling it an essential document of a moment when everything in jazz seemed up for grabs. That is the right frame for it. The old rules were dissolving in 1969 and Henderson is one of the few players who handled that without either digging in or throwing the whole vocabulary out. If Mode for Joe closed a door, this is what he found on the other side of it.

This record has two names and you need both of them. Milestone issued it in 1970 as "If You're Not Part of the Solution, You're Part of the Problem", and the 2004 reissue retitled it At the Lighthouse, which is how most people find it now. Same music either way. It was cut live at the Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach, California, with Orrin Keepnews producing and Bernie Grundman, of all people, running the tape.

The band is the reason to be here. Woody Shaw on trumpet, George Cables on electric piano, Ron McClure on bass, Lenny White on drums and Tony Waters on congas. Cables plays the electric and nothing else across the entire engagement, so the group floats on a wash instead of standing on a chordal floor, and Waters keeps a second layer of pulse running under White. Shaw and Henderson push each other hard enough that you can hear the room reacting to it.

The Penguin Guide calls it a steaming live showcase and one of the most fondly remembered Henderson albums of the period, which is about right for where it sits. This is also the complete document of a band most people have only met in pieces, since half of In Pursuit of Blackness is built from outtakes of this same engagement. Hear the group whole here first and that other record reads correctly, as the leftovers it actually is.

The nights are contested. The jacket cites September 25 and 26, while jazzdisco and AllMusic both give the engagement as three nights running September 24 through 26. Nobody has squared that, so treat any listing that states one definite date with a little suspicion. What is not in question is that Henderson had a working band in 1970, and this is the only place you can hear it at full length rather than in scraps.

Two volumes, one review, because there is no honest way to split them. Blue Note recorded three nights at the Village Vanguard, November 14, 15 and 16, 1985, with Ron Carter on bass and Al Foster on drums, then released the results as BT-85123 in 1986 and BT-85126 in 1987. Same nights, same trio, same tapes. Stanley Crouch and Michael Cuscuna produced, David Baker engineered, and this put Henderson back on Blue Note as a leader for the first time in about twenty years.

No piano, no guitar, no chordal instrument anywhere in the building, which means every harmony you hear across these two records is one Henderson is implying with a single line. That is the premise and it is a brutal one. Carter can outline changes on the bass, but the second Henderson leaves a phrase unresolved the harmony goes with it. He almost never lets that happen, and the two albums live or die entirely on that one skill.

The repertoire is a good joke on the format. Four of the twelve LP tracks were written by pianists, three by Monk ("Friday the Thirteenth", "Ask Me Now", "Boo Boo's Birthday") and one by Horace Silver ("Soulville"), on a record with no piano on it. Carter contributes "Loose Change". Playing Monk without a keyboard forces you to state those odd intervals outright instead of leaning on a chord underneath to explain what you meant.

Penguin Guide core collection, and it earns that. Volume Two got the Tone Poet treatment in May 2019, mastered and cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent and pressed at RTI, so a good copy is not hard to come by. One buying note: the original LPs do not include "Stella by Starlight" or "All the Things You Are". Those turn up only on later CD editions, so a vinyl tracklist promising them is describing the wrong release.

The comeback record, and it was not Henderson's idea. Producer Richard Seidel brought him the Strayhorn concept after Henderson had spent most of the late eighties working as a sideman on other people's dates. Three sessions at Van Gelder's, September 3, 6 and 8, 1991, with Van Gelder himself engineering and Seidel producing alongside Don Sickler. The band is young and stacked: Wynton Marsalis on trumpet, Stephen Scott on piano, Christian McBride on bass, Gregory Hutchinson on drums.

What keeps a songbook album from turning into wallpaper is that the band changes shape on every track. A duo with McBride, full quintets, a trio with no piano, a duo with drums alone, a trio with no drums, and then the title tune as unaccompanied tenor with nobody else in the room at all. Worth flagging that this per-track map comes from Discogs; Wikipedia and AllMusic give no breakdown. It is audible either way, whoever did the work of writing it down.

That closing solo won him a Grammy. One, singular: Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards on February 24, 1993, for "Lush Life". He did not take the group category that night. You will see this record credited with more hardware than it earned, because his other Verve-era wins belong to So Near, So Far and Double Rainbow. The tunes are all Strayhorn except "Isfahan", which is co-credited to Ellington.

It held No. 1 on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums for roughly two months and had sold something like ninety thousand copies by the time he died in 2001, which for a tribute record built out of one composer's book is a serious number. Nearly thirty years after Page One, Henderson finally had the career the debut had promised. Start at the Blue Notes. Just do not skip the ending, because he plays here like a man who knows what he waited for.