On the eve of his 80th birthday, the trumpet great Eddie Henderson is releasing his 26th album as a leader, and with over 100 appearances as a sideman, he is nearing a discography of 130. That’s impressive enough but Henderson continues to have two careers, one as psychiatrist and the other as a musician. With the title making a reference to card games, we may liberally sprinkle a few of those terms through this review, beginning with the four-of-a-kind aces in his quintet: pianist Kenny Barron, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, bassist Gerald Cannon and drummer Mike Clark.
Henderson is a master that shows no signs of aging, able to unleash blistering, agile runs on bop burners as well as explore ballads with an exquisite fragility in this traditional, straight-ahead effort. Henderson’s tone and phrasing throughout represents the highest echelon of trumpet playing and with this cast in tow, the sequencing of the burners and ballads, the familiar and unfamiliar makes for an exceptional listen. Listen closely and you will hear Henderson’s major influences at various points, they being Booker Little, Clifford Brown, Woody Shaw, and Miles Davis.
Henderson’s newly penned title track brims with the energy of a man decades younger, designed to induce dancing, or at least, some body movement with its insinuating shuffle beat (the actual source of the album’s title). The feel of the tune was inspired by Henderson’s early mentor, Miles’ shadowboxing rhythmic feel on Jack Johnson. “Miles just had this aura when he played,” Henderson explains, citing the goal he envisioned when playing the tune. “In the liner notes to My Funny Valentine they used the word ‘duende,’ which refers to the presence that matadors have, like they could walk on eggshells without breaking them. It’s a master’s approach; it leaves an indelible imprint on your memory. I always have some ideal in my mind when I play. I close my eyes and there’s a blank screen, but I envision elegance and purity. So, I know where I want to go, but I don’t know how I’m going to get there.”
Henderson described a similar approach to “Over the Rainbow,” which he was inspired to play after seeing Judy Garland perform the song in a documentary. The tragic life imbued the song with a different meaning than it possessed in the more innocent and whimsical context of her original version in The Wizard of Oz. That emotional resonance makes it a perfect companion piece with “God Bless the Child,” which is tough to imagine separate from Billie Holiday’s emotion-laden voice. Both are rendered with aching tenderness, ballad perfection if you will, by Henderson and the quintet, tightly knit by Clark’s delicate yet foundational brushwork. The album’s final standard is a lyrical evocation of the classic “It Might As Well Be Spring.”
The originals are composed by both Henderson’s musical and actual families – in addition to pieces by Barron and Harrison, the repertoire also includes pieces by the trumpeter’s wife Natsuko Henderson and his daughter, musician and educator Cava Menzies. The collection adds up to a blend of identities and voices that Henderson likes to refer to as a “collective portrait.” NEA Jazz Master and first-call mainstream pianist Barron contributed two pieces to the album. The sizzling bop “Flight Path” was the title track to the 1983 second album by his Monk-inspired quartet Sphere, while “Cook’s Bay” was originally recorded for 2000’s Spirit Song with Henderson on trumpet. The two men share a long history and a matchless chemistry, nowhere more elegantly evident than on their intimate album-closing duet on Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile.”
Menzies’ contribution is the smoldering, dark-hued “By Any Means,” which echoes the tone of “Nightride,” her contribution to Henderson’s previous album, Be Cool. A crisp call-and-response between Cannon and Clark ignites “Boom,” Natsuko Henderson’s soulful new piece. It’s as aptly named as “Burnin’,” reprised by Harrison from his own 2001 album Paradise Found (which introduced his young nephew Christian Scott on trumpet). Like much of the album, the tune was nailed in a single take – in this case, an off-the-cuff rendition captured when Harrison was unaware that tape was even rolling. “I thought we were just jiving around but everybody else thought it was killing.”
Take a few minutes and research Henderson’s discography to appreciate the stunning list of jazz royalty he has played with. His story is well documented as the son of a vocalist father and a mother who danced at the Cotton Club, young Eddie received his first trumpet lesson from Louis Armstrong. His parents’ coterie of friends included Miles Davis, who provided some typically sharp-toned mentorship. Henderson’s own remarkable career has included tenures with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi band along with his successful parallel life as a psychiatrist in the Bay Area. Henderson is one of the few trumpeters alive whose life has spanned the legacy of the four acknowledged trumpeters that defined jazz in last century – Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles.
These are five masters at work, reaching the pinnacle of traditional, mainstream jazz. It doesn’t get any better.
|
|
