Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Joe Henderson, Inner Urge



     I'm finally back writing about jazz! The last stuff I left off on was some modern jazz and even some rock: Pat Metheny, Ornette Coleman, St.Vincent, that kind of stuff. I really want to get into free-jazz albums. The only free-jazz albums I own is this great one by David S. Ware, one of the best saxophonists I've heard in my life. The other one is by this group called Dimensions in Space in Muisc, something like that. Anyways, this is a return to writing about jazz albums. This one is a straight-ahead album that pretty much all jazz fans should know, or at least they know the tune that the album is named after, 'Inner Urge', a fantastic jazz standard written by Joe Henderson, a great tenor saxophone player who recorded on the Blue Note record label in the 1960's. He would go on to play with many other famous jazz musicians and he even had a big band at some point later in his career.  
 This is the main info about the album: Inner Urge is an album by jazz saxophonist Joe Henderson released in 1966, the fourth recorded as a leader for Blue Note Records. It was recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on November 30, 1964. It features performances by pianist McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones on drums, both associated with John Coltrane, bassist Bob Cranshaw and Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone. The Penguin Guide to Jazz gave the album a four-star rating (of a possible four stars), describing the music as "dark and intense". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Urge
     Let's start with the first tune which is also my favorite tune on the album. It's called 'Inner Urge'. The first thing that you hear is the piano, bass, and drums playing this great melodic motif. The melody is played on the bass and sax and it is very melodic. What really stands out is how straight-ahead this sounds to my young modern jazz ears today. This is that classic sound from the 60's that jazz fans refer to as straight-ahead or post-bop. I would say the tune is modal and follows a form of chord changes over and over again, allowing the musicians to stretch out on familiar territory rather than improvising over new lines of chord changes. As they keep playing its like the whole song is reaching a musical climax, especially the drumming of Elvin Jones, who is arguably one of the greatest jazz drummers of all time. His style is so unique. The way he hits the cymbals and the bass drum are particularly Elvin Jones. He doesn't do that standard cymbal snare hit stuff that all jazz drummers do. Instead, his style is a flurry of notes all over the kit, complicated but somehow not sounding like he's showing off throughout the whole tune. There's some lines of tenor saxophone from the leader on this recording date, Joe Henderson, after the head. His solo here is very post-bop, it has some of the influences of the greats before him like Charlie Parker but his style is undeniably his own. This isn't a follower of Coltrane, this is a guy doing his own thing. McCoy Tyner was the pianist on this recording date and boy does he play! Its crazy how this album has two guys from the John Coltrane Quintet! McCoy's solo here is very smooth and shall I use the word coy? It's a melodic solo, that's for sure. After that there's an incredible drum solo by Elvin Jones. It's got a ton of licks and groove that all drummers can appreciate. His style is very complicated without sounding busy. It's really a marvel to hear. After that they play the main melody which is mainly played by the bass. Bob Cranshaw does a really great job with his bass tone here. The bass sounds like a great quality instrument in tune with great intonation. Before I end the discussion of this song I should say a bit more about the saxophone playing. Henderson's style is very professorial and chromatic yet full of melody and with precision on the sax. They used to call him the Professor. What I like about this song is that its become a jazz standard, and the mood is very dark, although the ending chord is a beautiful one. 
     Next, we have the tune 'Isotope', a very scientific name which could of came straight from Chem 101. This one has a straight-up bebop type head that is very chromatic and bluesy. Apparently this tune is suppose to be a tribute to Monk because of Monk's use of humor in his tunes. It has a playful atmosphere, especially in Henderson's solo. But it also has the virtuosity of a true bebop player as well. His lines here are very melodic, fast, and technical but he still has a great sense of melody and feel. By feel I mean to say that it never sounds like he's trying to put too many notes into one particular section. It's a bluesy solo, that's for sure. McCoy's solo here is very classic. There are some Monk-isms in there but for the most part he's following the chords harmonically. After that there is a trading bars part where the sax is playing some improvised lines and the drums are responding to it, a call and response, which is a part of blues as well as jazz. Elvin Jones was on fire on this recording. After that they repeat the head. It's such a Monk type melody, it's great to hear someone do a tribute to him. Thelonious Monk wrote, recorded, and performed some of the greatest jazz in the world.
     Then, is the tune 'El Bario', which is a tune Henderson wanted to have a Spanish musical ethos. It sounds like some simple chords over and over again and the band is just playing off that creating some great off the cuff music with a Spanish vibe. Henderson doesn't play any particular main melody or theme but rather an improvised musical performance with tons of musical phrases on his sax. His saxophone tone is very tenor-y. It sounds like he doesn't like overblown notes, or at least he just does it very rarely, and he likes to play all of his notes perfectly in tune. At the end Henderson does hit a few overblown notes, which is cool. I always liked when sax players hit the notes really hard, loud, and brashly. Reminds me of John Coltrane but also the great saxophonist with Sun Ra named John Gilmore.
     The next tune is 'You know I Care', which is a ballad, something that every straight-ahead jazz album should have. The head could have been written in the 40's. It's very beautiful and 'jazzy', it follows some standard jazz chord changes before the rise of bebop. I tried to find this song online and I believe it is an old standard. It's interesting hearing them play something so old school after hearing the other cuts before this. Joe's saxophone playing here takes you way back to that time. The melodies, the licks, the phrasing, its all straight from the jazz book. I've never heard McCoy play a tune like this before. He really can do it all. He restrains himself on this piece, not playing as much as he did on the other tracks. He doesn't really get a solo on this piece, he just comps and plays beautifully.
     Lastly, we have a tune by Cole Porter entitled 'Night and Day'. This one has more of a bebop stride to it. The saxophone solo just hits all the changes with great rhythmic and melodic content. He's really swinging his notes. That swing rhythm is hard to explain with words but once you hear it you'll know exactly what it is. It is one of the most essential elements of straight-ahead jazz. In more far out stuff like free-jazz sometimes the rhythm is unclear, or non-existent in some cases.  This last tune doesn't really stand out as much to me as the other tunes. 
     Finally, I have to say that this was a great album. I don't think you can really rate albums like this because the stuff recorded during this time was technically all great to me. All those guys had something to say back then and they were all great. I'd always heard of Joe Henderson because I'm a huge jazz fan, but more of straight-ahead and avant-garde side of jazz. I'd seen a few videos of Joe Henderson online playing with his big band and I thought it was amazing stuff. Once I went to see the CSUN college jazz band perform and they did mostly all Joe Henderson tunes with one of their sax teachers playing Henderson's parts with their school big band. It wasn't exactly amazing like seeing Henderson on YouTube but it did open my ears to more of Henderson's material. His style is great and he's one of those classic jazz saxophonists. This is such a cool laid-back album, I'm surprised I haven't heard it until now. There's going to be a lot of those classic records like this one that I'm going to have to go back and check out thanks to the Internet. Check this one out.

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