Joe Henderson

[Mark Stryker]

Detroit Free Press

JULY 3, 2001

JOE HENDERSON: JAZZ MAN PUT FREEDOM TO WORK

BYLINE: MARK STRYKER FREE PRESS MUSIC WRITER

For most of his career, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, who perfected his craft in the crucible of Detroit's jazz scene of the late 1950s, had the unfortunate distinction of being the most underrated jazz musician on the planet. His peers revered him as an innovator, lining up three-deep at the bar to catch him in a club; students memorized his licks like scripture. Yet the wider jazz audience shrugged, and so did most critics, who should have known better. Then fate did a somersault.

After 30 years in the trenches, Henderson -- who died Saturday at age 64 in San Francisco from heart failure brought on by emphysema -- became an unlikely star in the 1990s. A minor backlash against the young-lion craze in jazz prompted industry giant Verve to sign Henderson. Powered by major-label marketing muscle, he found an audience.

The CDs -- crafty concept albums that included tributes to Billy Strayhorn, Miles Davis and Antonio Carlos Jobim -- flew out of stores, and Henderson suddenly found himself on the cover of jazz mags, pocketing headliner bread, polishing four Grammy Awards on his mantel and flying first-class, where he could stretch out his lanky frame.

The irony was monumental. This was a musician known to colleagues as "the Phantom" because of his elusive personality, quirky behavior and analytical mind. On stage he played long solos, dense with ideas, with a soft, reedy sound as mysterious as smoke. He rarely spoke, not even to introduce tunes or sidemen. He just played his butt off. Every night. Every set. For 40 years.

"I always wanted to be an improviser of the likes that hasn't been seen out here," Henderson told the Free Press in 1996. "And I learned one thing along the way that served me pretty well: I considered it a sin, in the same way God might consider an act a sin, to ever play an idea more than once. If the world didn't hear it that one time, well, too bad."

Henderson was born in Lima, Ohio, on April 24, 1937, but came of age studying at Wayne State University from 1956 to 1960. He haunted the city's jazz temples like the Blue Bird and the Bohemian Club, rubbing shoulders with Yusef Lateef, Barry Harris, Terry Pollard and other local heroes. "It was a powerful scene," Henderson recalled. "One of the best learning, growing, getting-it-all-sorted-out scenes you could've been in on at that time."

Detroit was a bebop town. If you didn't speak the language of Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, you didn't survive. Henderson arrived with his own sound; Detroit taught him harmony, tunes and the rules of bebop. But Henderson's ears were also open to the radical ideas of saxophonist Ornette Coleman, then upsetting the jazz world by throwing away the traditional rules of harmony and form. Henderson credited his Wayne State studies of Hindemith, Stravinsky and Bartok with keeping his mind flexible.

Henderson's early records revealed a synthesis of the discipline of bebop with the exploratory freedom of the avant-garde. Henderson played free within structure. A whole gang of young musicians was working along similar lines in the '60s -- Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Bobby Hutcherson among them -- and their artistic victories became the basis of today's jazz mainstream.

Henderson offered an alternative to the laser-like sonorities, modal improvisations and devotional manner of John Coltrane, the era's leading saxophonist. Henderson's roots were in the rhythmic freedom and wit of Sonny Rollins. No one played with more flexible rhythm than Henderson; he was a drummer channeling through the saxophone. His solos came out of his horn like Silly String. He'd suspend time and harmony in a fog of flickering trills and whirlwind arpeggios. He'd swoop from his high register to the basement of the saxophone in the blink of an eye. He'd start a phrase in a veiled corner of the beat, hold it up to the sun and then bury it again. He'd play anything at any time.

Henderson's Blue Note albums from the '60s -- "Page One," "Inner Urge," "In 'n' Out," "Mode for Joe" -- contain much of his best work. He also recorded as a sideman with most of the key musicians of his time, including McCoy Tyner, Lee Morgan, Kenny Dorham, Larry Young, Horace Silver and Chick Corea.

Several of Henderson's compositions have become talismans for musicians because of their beguiling structures, including "Recorda-Me," "Inner Urge," "Isotope" and "A Shade of Jade." And large chunks of his style can be heard in the playing of saxophonists ranging from stars like Branford Marsalis and Joe Lovano to fresh conservatory graduates.

Henderson's final appearance in metro Detroit came in January 1997, when he performed at the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor with bassist George Mraz and drummer Al Foster. The last tune was Strayhorn's ballad "Lush Life," which the trio deconstructed in rubato time. Henderson wandered phrase by phrase through the song, ending each melodic cell with a symphony of improvisation lasting anywhere from 10 seconds to more than a minute. His playing made old men out of almost every other musician in jazz, and when it was over he slipped into the shadows without saying a word.

{END}

HENDERSON ON DISC Looking for the essential Joe Henderson on CD? Start with the the classics recorded for Blue Note in 1963-67.

"Inner Urge" and "In 'n' Out" both feature pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones and are favorites of musicians. "Mode for Joe" features a septet and Henderson's most finely wrought compositions. "Page One," his debut, documents his partnership with trumpeter Kenny Dorham and includes two calling cards, Henderson's "Recorda-Me" and Dorham's "Blue Bossa."

Henderson contributed to dozens of other Blue Note sessions. Don't miss Dorham's "Una Mas," Lee Morgan's "The Sidewinder," Larry Young's "Unity," Andrew Hill's "Point of Departure," Tyner's "The Real McCoy," Horace Silver's "Song for My Father" and "Cape Verdean Blues."

Henderson's Milestone sides (1967-1976) are collected in an eight-CD box. The music is inconsistent, but the best albums are indispensable: "Power to the People" straddles acoustic-electric sound worlds with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette. "In Japan" is a firecracker.

In the '80s, Blue Note released two volumes of "The State of the Tenor," a pair of sonically poor trio records taped at the Village Vanguard. The reissue repaired the sound and packaged both together.

"Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn" kicked off Henderson's Verve contract in 1992; unfortunately, it's overproduced and suffers from green sidemen. But the authority of "So Near So Far" and "Double Rainbow" -- tributes to Miles Davis and bossa nova giant Antonio Carlos Jobim -- is breathtaking.

Hearing 17 pieces play cockeyed Henderson licks makes "Big Band" (1996) a kick. But "Porgy and Bess" (1997), Henderson's last album, is again overproduced and flat.

Edited April 20, 2008 by Mark Stryker

[Guest Bill Barton]

Thanks for posting this article and the others, Mark. That was a really good idea that Larry came up with and I'm glad that you're following through. It's always good to see that some quality writing about jazz continues to appear in the dailies.

[Mark Stryker]

Thanks, Bill. Jazz is only part of my job here, but I have to say my Free Press editors have been very supportive over the years in recognizing how important jazz is to the cultural fabric here and allowing the space and resources to do the stories I think need to be done. The one area we don't do much of is live jazz reviews -- most of my concert reviewing is on the classical side -- because the profiles and features are a more efficient use of my time and provide a bigger swath of readers coverage that makes a greater impact. The one exception is that we review performances from our big Labor Day festival. I'll post a few of those as we go along.

Edited April 21, 2008 by Mark Stryker

[david weiss]

Nice piece Mark but there are some omissions (probably space considerations I imagine) I'd like to mention and a few comments...

First, how can you not mention "Our Thing" which in a lot of ways is my favorite Blue Note album and certainly one of the most interesting and best realized. I might put In and Out just above it but I still think it's one of his most important albums.

I never heard a lot of Joe in either Branford or Lovano (except perhaps channeled through Sonny Rollins) though I'm sure both listened extensively to him. Michael Brecker and a lot of the younger guys seem a lot more overtly influenced by him.

I'll have to go back to Lush Life and check it out again but I always thought it was the most successful of the concept albums and not overproduced and thought the young guys (even Wynton) did quite well but I'll have another listen. I also thought it was the last record recording in Van Gelder's studio to have really good sound.

I worked on the big band date (the second session) and the Porgy and Bess date. I think the big band date is one of the best records of the past 20 years, incredible stuff especially the Slide Hampton charts and Joe's of course.

As for Porgy and Bess, I recall him having to be talked into that one (I believe there was also talk of doing a blues record during this time). They called a session, got a young rhythm section and played the stuff right out of the songbook for Joe to get a feel for the material and see if he could get into it. I'm not sure if he was ever 100% convinced. I thought it came out OK, certainly not my favorite Joe date but it was great to hang out with him throughout these sessions.

Not to nitpick but lanky? I was always surprised as to how short he was, 5'8" maybe (standing straight up but he was always hunched over)......

[Mark Stryker]

David:

Reasonable points. Let me respond to a few. "Our Thing" was indeed a victim of space -- several things were cut on the fly and I recall dropping a reference to "Our Thing" because at the time it had temporarily fallen out of print and the others were all available and, as great at "Our Thing" is, at least one had to go and it got zapped.

I picked Joe and Branford as examples of well-known cats influenced by Joe partly because of their name value to readers (who were more likely to have heard of those guys than, say, Javon Jackson, who frequently sounds as if he swallowed every record Joe ever made) and also because both in various conversations had told me how much they had picked up from Joe. I agree that perhaps Joe's playing is less on the surface in Lovano and Branford than some others, but I still hear it very much in Lovano's fluttery looseness and the reedy darkness of his sound. Branford's playing has changed in the last 10-15 years; I hear less Joe in him today than before.

I never warmed to "Lush Life" but I, too, should probably give it another listen; it's been a long time. I loved the big band date. I know for a fact Joe had very ambivalent feelings about "Porgy" and touring with that material.

As for lanky -- only 5'8"? Are you sure? That's how tall I am and I recall standing next to Joe once and had the feeling of looking up, plus he was always thin as a rail,which led me to "lanky." I would have guessed 6'1, but you're probably right. My impression was always that he was taller --maybe it's that thing where you always think your heroes are larger than life and he definitely was a hero.

Addendum 1: I heard Branford sit in with Joe at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago around 1986. He and Kenny Kirkland (who did not sit in) had played a concert that night with Sting somewhere in the area. The rhythm section was Jodie Christian and Wilber Campbell and a bassist I can't remember, maybe John Whitfield. Another tenor player I didn't recognize and to this day have no idea who it was also sat-in. They played a fast "Tenor Madness" and when Branford soloed he played a bunch of Joe licks as a kind of homage -- a nice moment.

I also recall that when Joe came on the Tonight Show after "Lush Life" came out he played "Take the A Train" and Branford's studio band played some of Joe's tunes throughout the show as bumper music coming back from commercials. I specifically remember hearing "Inner Urge," which was pretty hip.

Edited April 24, 2008 by Mark Stryker