![]() ![]() The sound is thin but acceptable.ġ969's Power to the People (Milestone MSP 902) features an outstanding band, with Mike Lawrence on trumpet, Herbie Hancock on piano and Fender Rhodes, Ron Carter on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. His subsequent recordings for Milestone, Red, Enja, Contemporary, and MPS reveal a fertile, restless composer who embraced new sounds and styles within magnetic compositions and an increasingly avantgarde style.ġ968's The Kicker (Milestone MSP 9008) sounds like a lost Blue Note album, presenting deeply felt hard bop explorations alongside covers of "Nardis" (Miles Davis), "Chelsea Bridge" (Strayhorn), and "Without a Song" (Eliscu, Rose, Youmans). 1 Are you listening, Blue Note?ġ968 marked the end of Henderson's contract with Blue Noteregrettable, since his music fit well therebut his career lasted decades longer. Grab yours while you can, though: It's a limited edition, and if you want a physical copy of this music (as opposed to streaming), it's hard to find elsewhere. Mastered from 24-bit transfers from Rudy Van Gelder's original tapes, the discs all sound clear, rich, and dynamic, and the box is still available. Such Henderson standards as "Blue Bossa," "Recorda Me," "Caribbean Fire Dance," "Punjab," and "A Shade of Jade" share the rare quality of sounding eternally fresh, inner seams bristling with energy and Henderson's unique sonic logic. Henderson's music on Blue Note is cerebral but earthy his dark, arid saxophone gusts soar with friendly ferocity. Mosaic Records has gathered those records Page One, Our Thing, In 'n Out, Inner Urge, Mode for Joeplus Henderson's sideman dates and alternate takes for Blue Note for a limited-edition, five-CD box set, The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions (Mosaic Records MD5-271). One of the best jazz albums to re-emerge in recent years.Called "the phantom" by fellow musicians and dubbed the "bearded, goateed astronaut of the tenor sax" by a close friend, trumpeter Kenny Dorham, the enigmatic Joe Henderson recorded five albums for the Blue Note label that are uniformly regarded as jazz classics. Though it is a much overworked claim, the seven pieces could easily be regarded as movements of a jazz concerto.īefore jazz fusion was to degrade into the clumsiness and lack of subtlety of "Headhunters" and "The Mahavishnu Orchestra" advances like "Power To The People" as much as "In A Silent Way" signposted vital new directions forward for jazz which only now in the hands of today's innovators such as Dave Douglas are again coming to fruition. "Foresight and Afterthought", becoming again free and touching atonality, acts as an interesting final question mark on the future. Fronting a superb line up recruited direct from Miles' groundbreaking experiments with "In A Silent Way"- Herbie Hancock (piano and Fender Rhodes, Ron Carter (bass and electric bass), Jack DeJohnette (drums)- and adding trumpeter Mike Lawrence on two of the tracks ("Power To The People" and "Afro-Centric"), this is a fine journey from the easily accessible ("Black Narcissus, "Afro-Centric", "Opus One-Point-Five") into the reaches of atonality ("Isotope", "Power To The People") and back out again into a more reassuring tonality ("Lazy Afternoon"). Having said that, it represents a distinct break from "In 'N Out" or "Inner Urge" by taking up the challenge laid down by Miles Davis to make a music that was recognizably jazz but could stand alongside the breakthroughs signposted by Jimi Hendrix. This is yet another great album highlighting Joe Henderson as an important jazz composer and great jazz saxophonist. It is just as well from the 80's on that he finally received the recognition he had so clearly merited or this groundbreaking album may only have seen the light of day as part of an inaccessible box set. "Power To The People", released for the first time on CD (now in re-mastered form) is yet another example of how the finest achievements of Joe Henderson's early career went un-noticed and he was undervalued.
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