Tenor Saxophonist Joe Henderson's debut as a leader is a classic in every sense. 60's jazz, saxophone jazz, or Blue Note jazz, in every sense of the word it is just fantastic.Of all the saxophonists who emerged in the late 50's and early 60's, Henderson is the one that sound the least like John Coltrane to me.
It's obvious to me that Joe sounds more like Sonny Rollins, or perhaps Dexter Gordon.
Ironically enough, Dexter who was older than Coltrane, yet was influenced by younger Trane judging by his own 60's Blue Note albums like GO and Our Man in Paris, Coltrane was the one who was most most influenced early Gordon.
Henderson has his own husky sound, that while reminiscent of Rollin's or Gordon never comes off as a clone. In fact, his tone is pretty original and has influenced more than a few saxophonists of today. Joe Lovano is the one I always think of today that brings the Henderson influence to mind the most.
Page One, released in October of 1963 is quite simply a perfect hard-bop record. McCoy Tyner on piano, Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Butch Warren on bass, and Pete La Roca on drums offer some fine support.
Henderson plays what would be become 2 future jazz standards, Dorham's "Blue Bossa", which pre-dates Horace Silver's Song For My Father" by a couple of years, with it's gorgeous humble theme. and his own 'Recorda Me", both are hard-bop/bossa nova fusion at their best.
They don't have that forced over produced Bossa Nova sound; you know, trying to be what the consumer thinks is Bossa, instead of offering an authentic fee. This album never sacrifices the jazz for a homogenized brand of island music? Page One is hip, and it's hard-bop jazz.
I love the cookers "Homestretch" and "Out of the Night", these both display Henderson's stream of conscious, on-his-feet quick-whit style. Dorham's ballad 'La Mesha" also displays the Lester Young/Dexter Gordon influence of Henderson.
LP, CD, OR Download:
You can get an original 1963 New York USA vinyl copy of Page One on eBay these day for around $500.00, it's a tough one to find right now in top condition. You can always find late 60's Liberty addressed issues though for around 50 bucks.
No shame in collecting those by the way, they sound nearly as good in my opinion as the originals and cost a fraction of the price. The current reissues aren't that bad either, just stay away from the Scorpio pressings.
I do prefer vinyl over CD when it comes to acoustic jazz especially, but I am not a vinyl snob at all. I believe CD's and downloads serve a purpose, If you only want CD's, perhaps older non RVG editions would be your best choice.
For what ever reason those RVG edition CD's can sound very brittle or tinny sounding, it's the darnedest thing, you would expect those to be the top notch remasters?
They aren't all bad though, I haven't had the chance or lack of life to cross compare all of them. I do know that the Page One RVG edition sounded good
You can always tweak your home system to sound the way you want. I am right now listening to the RVG Page One that was ripped to my PC, I am now playing it on my iPod.
Mosaic Records puts out fantastic box sets that you can get on the secondary market that have the best sound on CD in my opinion, and the physical product is of the highest quality, with booklets full of commentary and photos. Page one, no matter what format, should be in your jazz collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment