Joe Henderson - State Of The Tenor - Live at the Village Vanguard - Volume Two

I can't believe the only Joe Henderson record I own is this one: Live at the Village Vanguard vol 2. It is a great record, don't get me wrong, but Joe has some iconic blue note records from the 1960's.  I have a ton of blue note cd's that feature Joe as a sideman (maybe my favorite is Larry Young's Unity).

I wish I had volume 1 of this series, which contains a reading of the Sam Rivers tune "Beatrice," a song I have become interested in after finding a lead sheet in a fake book a couple of years ago. I'm surprised that Sam Rivers, who has recorded many very avant garde recordings, has written such a melodic tune, which has become standard repertoire in the jazz canon.

This record does not have "Beatrice," but many other standards by Monk, Parker, Horace Silver, and some Henderson originals. Y Ya La Quiero is a cool latin number with a cool bass vamp. It's very rhythmic, and Al Foster does a good job of laying down unique latin rhythms without crowding up the song and getting in Joe's way. Ron Carter puts on a clinic of bass accompaniment for this entire record. No complaints at all with Mr. Carter on this record. Everything is in its right place.

This record also touches on a bit of nostalgia for me. In high school, prior to becoming a jazz nerd, a friend of mine showed me a DVD of One Night with Blue Note. The DVD was a performance celebrating the re-launch of Blue Note records in 1985. Many classic Blue Note session musicians perform in the concert (including Joe Henderson, an amazing version of "Recorda Me," which is not on this record)

The concert performance also weaves in a narration/quasi documentary of the history of Blue Note records. The record sleeve for this Joe Henderson is almost like a newspaper article of Blue Note records at this point of time; a neat little artifact. An article about Stanley Jordan is called "Tops in Taps."