Joe Henderson: Power To The People (Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf series) [CRAFT]

Why you'll love it

This Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf edition was cut AAA from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI and housed in a gatefold tip-on jacket. Musically, it's the first Henderson album with electric instruments, Hancock's Fender Rhodes and Carter's electric bass.

This edition

• Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf series
• 180g vinyl
• AAA lacquers cut by Kevin Gray
• Pressed at RTI
• Gatefold tip-on jacket
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the USA

About the album

By 1969 Joe Henderson had already made a run of hard bop classics for Blue Note, and he could easily have kept making them. Instead, for his first Milestone sessions, recorded at Plaza Sound Studios in New York on May 23 and 29 with Orrin Keepnews producing, he leaned towards something looser and more searching, and he wrote five of the seven tunes himself.

The band is a dream: Herbie Hancock on piano and Rhodes, Ron Carter on double and electric bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and trumpeter Mike Lawrence on two tracks. "Black Narcissus" is one of Henderson's loveliest melodies, "Afro-Centric" and the title track groove hard on Carter's electric bass, "Isotope" swings with a sly wink, and Carter's own "Opus One-Point-Five" is a nimble trio showcase. "Lazy Afternoon," from Jerome Moross and John Latouche, is pure late-night beauty, and "Foresight and Afterthought (An Impromptu Suite in Three Movements)" closes with the band at full stretch.

It's a record that sits right at the hinge between post-bop and fusion, and it has aged beautifully. The title sounds like a placard; the music, rather more politely, just asks you to sit down and listen.

Also at Kops: more Joe Henderson on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Milestone / Craft (cat# CR00655), a reissue of the 1969 album.