Joe Henderson Blue Note 1963-1966

[gmonahan]

It does seem to me like they're doing exactly what some of you suggest if they pair a nice selling Joe Henderson or Lee Morgan BN set  with the much more obscure and *very* connoisseur driven Black and White label set. Jim won't ever get his Bill Baron box unless Mosaic can sell Blue Note sets to pay the freight.

 

 

 

gregmo

[JSngry]

There will be no Bill Barron set, even if they do a Norah Jones set.

[ejp626]

That's fine if it actually works, but I think there is a very real issue of running up against existing product, such as this:

https://www.amazon.com/5-Original-Albums-CD/dp/B01KL0L9DA

https://www.amazon.com/5-Original-Albums-CD/dp/B07C8Q5873

The Mosaic treatment makes sense for things that were actually hard to obtain or were out of print, but Lee and Joe?  I'm not convinced obviously.

[David Ayers]

I tend to agree it looks unpromising but if they could sell Mobley it’s likely they could sell Henderson. Personally I’ve heard all these Blue Notes so many times - good and not-so-good, in great or not-so-great sound - that I’m a bit tired of them. Plus I like the covers. Ahem. 

[JSngry]

8 hours ago, David Ayers said:

I tend to agree it looks unpromising but if they could sell Mobley it’s likely they could sell Henderson.

Maybe...but Joe got his bouquets while he was alive and actively playing. Hank, not even remotely so.

Hank will forever have "cult appeal". Joe...maybe not so much? Especially since you can still get most of the records in some form or fashion.

Business-wise, really - who is the target market for this set, in this format, at this price? And how many are they going to have to sell to break even?

Ok, if you can make your money back, there's that. But then what?

[Lyin' Wolf]

There are only 5 Joe Henderson albums from 1963 - 1966.  While that might make a nice LP set,  in terms of CDs is far short of what has become the more common format of release 7+ CD sets.  I have not done the math relative to consolidating multiple LPs onto a single CDs, but even 5 individual CDs doesn't seem to jibe with their current practice.  Could there be that much unreleased material or could this be filled with endless alternate takes?

Also wondering if they might do something like the Complete 1963 Blue Note recordings of Joe Henderson.  IMHO, that would be a very interesting set based on the artists and titles represented 10 in all -

• Henderson's Page One and Our Thing
• Kenny Dorham's Una Mas,
• Grant Green's Am I Blue and Idle Moments
• Johnny Coles' Little Johnny C
• Blue Mitchell's Step Lightly
• Andrew Hill's Black Fire
• Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder
• Bobby Hutcherson's The Kicker. 

Or maybe some other subset of his collective work from this period

[Rooster_Ties]

Some questions... How did Joe come to pull away from Blue Note? / sign with Milestone (MS)? — and why specifically *WHEN* he did? Did he leave BN, and then (after he was no longer under contract to BN), was he then sought after by MS? *OR* — did MS ‘woo’ him away from BN?

Then Joe came back for one (just one) BN session after his first two MS albums — namely The Prisoner (‘69). Was that perhaps in exchange for Herbie appearing on Joe’s Power To The People that same year? (Assuming Herbie was still under contract to BN at the time — the two albums were recorded almost exactly 1 month apart, in April and May ‘69 — Herbie’s album being the one recorded first).

Joe had such a phenomenal record of sideman appearances on BN, were they stingy giving him enough leader-dates?? (Or enough promotion?)

Looking again just now, the span of time between the recording dates of Joe’s five leader-dates for BN was about a week less than 2 years and 8 months (early June ‘63 thru late Jan ‘66).

I think of Joe as being one of less than a dozen “quintessential” Blue Note artists — and yet his total time under contract w/ BN was ~4 years, 4.5 years tops.

The Real McCoy (BN) was recorded in April ‘67 — and The Kicker (MS) in Aug ‘67.  Was Joe still under contract with BN while The Real McCoy was being recorded?

What other related questions am I not thinking of?

(PS: my CD copies of most of these albums are a bit scattered at the moment, or else I’d look for “so-n-so appears courtesy of...” type language in the liners for said albums — in terms of a few of my “date-related” and “who-was-under-contract-to-who” type questions.)

Edited January 19, 2021 by Rooster_Ties

[Chuck Nessa]

Alfred Lion sold BN in 1966. That might have something to do with it.

[ghost of miles]

1 hour ago, Lyin' Wolf said:

There are only 5 Joe Henderson albums from 1963 - 1966.  While that might make a nice LP set,  in terms of CDs is far short of what has become the more common format of release 7+ CD sets.  I have not done the math relative to consolidating multiple LPs onto a single CDs, but even 5 individual CDs doesn't seem to jibe with their current practice.  Could there be that much unreleased material or could this be filled with endless alternate takes?

Also wondering if they might do something like the Complete 1963 Blue Note recordings of Joe Henderson.  IMHO, that would be a very interesting set based on the artists and titles represented 10 in all -

• Henderson's Page One and Our Thing
• Kenny Dorham's Una Mas,
• Grant Green's Am I Blue and Idle Moments
• Johnny Coles' Little Johnny C
• Blue Mitchell's Step Lightly
• Andrew Hill's Black Fire
• Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder
• Bobby Hutcherson's The Kicker. 

Or maybe some other subset of his collective work from this period

The 1963 idea is interesting!  Wouldn't be surprised if Mosaic's planning to fold the two Dorham leader dates (Una Mas and Trompeta Toccata) w/Joe into the set, if it's a Joe Henderson 1963-66 Blue Note box, on the grounds that he and Kenny worked together so much during that period.  Dorham's on three of the five Blue Note Henderson albums iirc.  What would really be awesome would be a rehearsal session or some other recording of the Dorham-Henderson 1966 big band... but that's a holy grail too far, I'm sure.  

Edited January 19, 2021 by ghost of miles

[romualdo]

3 hours ago, Lyin' Wolf said:

There are only 5 Joe Henderson albums from 1963 - 1966.  While that might make a nice LP set,  in terms of CDs is far short of what has become the more common format of release 7+ CD sets.

Would have worked in the Mosaic Select days - 5LPs on 3CDs

Loved the cover to the 4CD JH Compilation from 1993

[BFrank]

1 hour ago, romualdo said:

Would have worked in the Mosaic Select days - 5LPs on 3CDs

Loved the cover to the 4CD JH Compilation from 1993

That's a great and creative collection. Some of his best BN work regardless of who's name was on the album cover.

[romualdo]

1 hour ago, BFrank said:

That's a great and creative collection. Some of his best BN work regardless of who's name was on the album cover.

has a track on it that's only had a digital (CD) release in this set ie "Don't Get Sassy" from Jazz Wave Ltd On Tour, Vol. 1 - AFAIK this LP has never made it to CD.

[Daniel A]

Re: The Prisoner album, I believe Joe was in Herbie's working group at the time and Herbie was still with Blue Note if I am not misremembering, so nothing mysterious with his appearance there. 

[Mark Stryker]

Are we even sure it's a BN related box? Despite the thread title, Brad's initial post says he got no info from Scott other than "Joe Henderson." Granted, it's hard to think of a label oriented package other than BN that Mosaic could do as it would apply to Joe, but still, I'd like to find out what exactly they're planning before having a cow. Having said that, a straight up Joe as a leader on BN in the 60s (or even with the 80s included) would be a drag considering how available all of that music has been. Then having a cow is a reasonable response -- unless they hire me to do the liner notes, in which case such a box would be the greatest idea ever. . 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

Hey, if it's some real  "finds", hell yeah, I'd be all in. I'd take that cow to the butcher and fill the freezer with it.

[Brad]

6 hours ago, Mark Stryker said:

Are we even sure it's a BN related box? Despite the thread title, Brad's initial post says he got no info from Scott other than "Joe Henderson." Granted, it's hard to think of a label oriented package other than BN that Mosaic could do as it would apply to Joe, but still, I'd like to find out what exactly they're planning before having a cow. Having said that, a straight up Joe as a leader on BN in the 60s (or even with the 80s included) would be a drag considering how available all of that music has been. Then having a cow is a reasonable response -- unless they hire me to do the liner notes, in which case such a box would be the greatest idea ever. . 

In a subsequent email I asked Scott if there were alternates takes, etc. but received no further info. I assume they’d like to keep that confidential until the set is announced. 

[ghost of miles]

I don’t have any other details, but I can confirm that my hunch about the inclusion of Dorham’s Una Mas and Trumpeta Toccata was correct.

[Brad]

8 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

I don’t have any other details, but I can confirm that my hunch about the inclusion of Dorham’s Una Mas and Trumpeta Toccata was correct.

If the set includes his sideman appearances, it’s going to be a very large set. 

[Dub Modal]

Hmmm...probably wont include those Morgan albums he worked on as sideman or will it? If so, then that cramps the idea of an eventual Morgan box right? 

 

[David Ayers]

Maybe they could include The Kicker - ?

[Joe]

I doubt it, but maybe this set will also include some of the rejected Horace Silver Quintet performances from Pep's? Or an officially official release of the Cork & Bib performances?

https://www.jazzdisco.org/horace-silver/discography/#640815

 

[Brad]

Looking his discography on jazzdiscography.com, I come up with the following leader albums on which he played (other than his own), which seem too many for a box set. Mosaic must be limiting in some way.

Kenny Dorham 2
Grant Green 3
Johnny Coles 2
Blue Mitchell
Andrew Hill 3
Lee Morgan 3
Bobby Hutcherson 2
Freddie Roach 2
Horace Silver 3
Duke Pearson 2
Freddie Hubbard
Pete LaRoca
Larry Young

Edited January 24, 2021 by Brad

[ghost of miles]

I didn't ask about the parameters of the set in my email (which was primarily a lobbying attempt for Mark to write the booklet notes, but turns out they've already been done by Bob Blumenthal).  My conceptual guess is that they're not including sideman dates in general, but putting the Dorhams in there because he and Joe were effectively co-leaders in that period, and because the official # of Joe leader dates would be a bit small to justify a standard Mosaic box set.  No idea about other material of any kind, released or unreleased.

[Niko]

26 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

I didn't ask about the parameters of the set in my email (which was primarily a lobbying attempt for Mark to write the booklet notes, but turns out they've already been done by Bob Blumenthal).  My conceptual guess is that they're not including sideman dates in general, but putting the Dorhams in there because he and Joe were effectively co-leaders in that period, and because the official # of Joe leader dates would be a bit small to justify a standard Mosaic box set.  No idea about other material of any kind, released or unreleased.

for the moment, that is my expectation as well (JH as a leader + the KDJH Quintet on BN, nothing new...)... after all those years, I read this set as Michael Cuscuna's way of saying "mission accomplished, goodbye", he reissues a chunk of prime BN albums - and it turns out that none of it is rare and sought after anymore... due to his years of putting in the good work at Mosaic and BN...  if there's 80 minutes of extra music, I haven't said anything except for the following:

here's a proposal for a grand finale to this era of jazz archival releases: Mosaic come in and sort out the legacy of Robert Sunenblick MD with one or two sets of everything he was still planning to release but didn't get around to...

[Dan Gould]

54 minutes ago, Niko said:

 

here's a proposal for a grand finale to this era of jazz archival releases: Mosaic come in and sort out the legacy of Robert Sunenblick MD with one or two sets of everything he was still planning to release but didn't get around to...

Now that's a great idea but I understand there are issues between the kids and who knows what could possibly be worked out. And who knows if there will be anything after that Dodo release.