Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

I learned recently that the record companies look the other way when bloggers post a single track from a record and urge their readers to buy the whole album. Consider yourself so urged. Speaking of urges, today’s track, El Barrio, is from Joe Henderson’s album Inner Urge recorded on November 30, 1964.

The album, one of Henderson’s very best, features Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone, McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums and Bob Cranshaw on bass. If you don’t understand the magnitude of that lineup, then I’m not sure what I can do for you other than urge you to have a listen and find out. I picked El Barrio itself because it’s fairly short and is not as well known as some of the other tracks on the record such as Inner Urge or Isotope. I think it captures some of the brutal passion of Joe Henderson quite well and is very good listen. Click here for the tune.

On a personal note, Joe Henderson is one of my musical heroes. He had a completely unique sound that digs into the inner recesses of your soul if you just let it. He’s a guy who’s playing I always used to torture myself with by making the most brutal of comparisons between my own playing and his. When I was in college I spend a few weeks transcribing some his solos from his album State of the Tenor, which brought me near the brink of a total meltdown. His phrasing and sense of time are so very peculiarly his and so very intricate that sometimes a few measures would take hours just to decipher cleanly on manuscript paper. What an experience though.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 20th, 2005 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.