TT 522: An Evening With Joe Henderson

(Al Foster part 2)

Joe Henderson is well-documented as a young sideman and leader in the 1960s, mostly on a sequence of thirty bonafide masterpieces for Blue Note. Towards the end of that decade he moved to Milestone, and while the high points are still wonderful, his whole community was also reaching for new solutions involving electricity, beats, and world music, and not every experiment has stood the test of time.

After the Milestone contract petered out, Henderson experienced some wilderness years.

Fortunately the resurgence of the jazz business in the mid-’80s included a return of the Blue Note label. Joe Henderson got on back on track with two volumes of trio at the Village Vanguard with Ron Carter and Al Foster, The State of the Tenor.

This project was an intentional callback to Sonny Rollins at the Vanguard with Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones, the first live at the Vanguard date for Blue Note records in 1957. However, that old Sonny record was made on the fly and on the cheap, with little or no input from the label in terms of repertoire. It’s a masterpiece, one of the greatest things ever, but it’s also raw and unrehearsed, a snapshot of chemistry between three geniuses.

(Sonny talked over tunes last minute with Wilbur Ware. Ware agreed to all but said he didn’t know “Old Devil Moon,” which has a tricky form. Sonny said, “fine,” but then both the gig and the album started with “Old Devil Moon.”)

In 1985, The State of the Tenor was overseen by a think tank of Bruce Lundvall, Stanley Crouch, Michael Cuscuna, and Don Sickler. They knew who Joe Henderson was, they loved Joe Henderson, and they had undoubtedly heard JoHen’s output in the previous decade. (The three non-Milestone LPs as a leader were Barcelona, Relaxin’ at Camarillo, and Mirror, Mirror, all interesting but less essential.) It was time to take JoHen in hand and lead him back to traditional values. According to the liner notes, a live trio recording at the Vanguard was Crouch’s idea: he had heard Henderson, Carter, and Foster in a quartet in that club but really loved the music when the pianist laid out.

In hindsight, the project was almost too ambitious. While the musicians knew and understood each other, a whole book of fresh repertoire was a big ask, especially without a piano as a harmonic binding ingredient. The best thing from the session was a bonus track, “Stella By Starlight,” unreleased until the CD era. (Footnote.)

“Stella” is perfect shot of this fresh chemistry between Henderson and Foster on their first recording together. Foster had figured out how to utterly personalize bebop drumming, especially with his hi-hat, and you can hear it all over “Stella.” Early on, when Carter is playing a two feel, Foster does totally strange effects with his feet, a kind of staccato lurch that is still swinging.

(One time at Mezzrow, Ron Carter overheard a malfunctioning air conditioner bumping and fussing. He pointed at the unit and said, “Al Foster.”)

Once Carter goes into four, JoHen and Foster really get into it, almost like call and response from the tenor to the drums. After Henderson would play one of his marvelous convoluted phrases, Foster would respond with a blues shout at the drums. The balance of esoteric and earth was perfect, especially since Foster was also a modernist, someone who also knew every kind of popular fusion-to-funk idiom from Billy Cobham to Steve Gadd. It was “old school jazz” but hardly retro in outlook.

Blue Note and Joe Henderson did not continue working together, and Joe Henderson almost had a few more wilderness years — except no, he had found his drummer, and the music would radiate. The next two terrific albums were on Red Records, trio with Foster and either Charlie Haden or Rufus Reid on bass.

For me, An Evening with Joe Henderson with Haden and Foster is the peak, literally one of the greatest albums of all time. A desert island disc.

Don Sickler told me he found “Beatrice” by Sam Rivers and “Ask Me Now” by Thelonious Monk in the back drawer and brought them to JoHen for The State of the Tenor. The Vanguard performances on State of the Tenor are fine, but two years later in Italy, Henderson has made these pieces indelibly his own. “Beatrice” and “Ask Me Now” are in the active repertoire. We play these pieces not like the composers, but like Joe Henderson.

During this fertile time there was a fair amount of Henderson and Foster together with various bassists: Carter, Haden, Reid, Dave Holland, George Mraz. Everyone sounds good, but I especially love Haden, who is actually the odd man out in this roster. All the other bassists played a lot of modern jazz with sophisticated changes, while Haden was experienced in free form structures and other kinds of music with a relatively plain harmonic landscape. Haden rarely dealt with a lot of hard chords, and in fact, on the one tune with difficult changes, Henderson’s own “Serenity,” Haden gets lost in the form (about 4:30 minutes in) and Henderson squawks like a disgruntled chicken in response. That mistake could happen to anybody; most of the time Haden is right in there. It’s very traditional bass playing, mostly quarter notes in an unbroken line, but with a certain freedom, a kind of cosmic hillbilly beat, and vast amounts of personality.

This “basic” Haden bass holds it down, enabling JoHen and Al Foster to dialogue freely. Foster told me that when he listened back to the Henderson trios that he thought he was occasionally overplaying. With respect, I think Foster is playing just the right amount, living next to JoHen, two gladiators going at it with fire and love. Everything Foster plays is so clear, his snare commentary is a delightful sequence of flawless hard bop horn hits, and the chatter from the rest of kit is part of the same grand design.

(Jim McNeely played with Henderson and Foster occasionally in this period, and McNeely told me that he frequently laid out during the tenor solos “because Al Foster was playing perfect piano comping on the drums.”)

The major statements are “Beatrice” and “Invitation.” Just astonishing trio playing. As with “Ask Me Know” and “Beatrice,” everyone plays the 1950 movie theme “Invitation” by Bronisław Kaper in the manner of Joe Henderson.

In time An Evening With Joe Henderson came out with additional tracks; there is also a tremendous live set with the same personnel in Montreal where they play wonderful rhythm changes (“Passport'“) and something rather free (“In the Moment”). Bootlegs exist with “Confirmation” and other intriguing pieces.

The music with Carter, Reid, and other bassists is also excellent. Taken all together, this is the body of work I’m referencing when writing in the first Al Foster post, “The Joe Henderson with Al Foster trios in the '80s offered the greatest ‘straight-ahead’ jazz since the music's heyday in the '60s.”

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Footnote: There were two really amazing versions of “Stella by Starlight” from 1985; the other was Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, and Jack DeJohnette on Standards Live. That old chestnut from Ned Washington and Victor Young had a banner year!