Song of the Day: Joe Henderson-"Inner Urge"-Blue Note-1966-"Inner urge"

 

Joe Henderson (photo credit unknown)

Today’s song-of-the-day features the hard bop master of the tenor saxophone, Joe Henderson, on his fourth recording as a leader, the influential Inner Urge on Blue Note from 1966. The album is a vibrant, almost urgent album that finds Henderson teamed with members of the then John Coltrane’s quartet, McCoy Tyner on piano and Elvin Jones on drums. The recording band was completed with a member of Sonny Rollins’ band, bassist Bob Cranshaw. It’s hard to imagine a more talented, albeit combustible and perhaps even risky group that producer Alfred Lion could have matched to play with Henderson for this record, but he hit gold with this combination. The album included three Henderson originals the title cut “Inner Urge,” “Isotope” purportedly a nod to pianist Thelonious Monk’s, and “El Barrio,” which shows Henderson’s proclivity toward Latin music and its influences. The two remaining cuts include Duke Pearson’s “You Know I Care” and Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.”

This album was my portal into the music of Joe Henderson, and it made a lasting impression. A fieriest album, Henderson’s unleashing a muscular, urbanized sound to his saxophone, a sound that spoke to how this mid-westerner was relating to the frenetic life he found in NYC. The quartet left us with adventure and sensitivity on a sterling performance on the closing piece “Night and Day” The band was telepathic throughout, Tyner and Jones creating a turbulent backdrop upon which Henderson could improvise. Jones drum work was particularly on top of his game, and Cranshaw deftly maintaining stability and grounding the music like the roots of an oak.

While the entire album was a treat, the title cut, “Inner Urge” was Henderson’s salvo into the era of hard bop that was to dominate the jazz scene.