Joe Henderson - biography and Chelsea Bridge interpretation

Early life
From a very large family with five sisters and nine brothers, Henderson was encouraged by his parents and an older brother James T. to study music. Early musical interests included drums, piano, saxophone and composition. He was particularly enamored of his brother's record collection. He listened to Lester Young, Flip Phillips, Stan Getz, Lee Konitz, Charlie Parker and Jazz at the Philharmonic recordings. By eighteen, Henderson was active on the Detroit jazz scene of the mid-'50s, playing in jam sessions with visiting New York stars. The diverse musical opportunities prompted Joe to learn flute and bass, as well as further developing his saxophone and compositional skills. By the time he arrived at Wayne State University, he had transcribed and memorized so many Lester Young solos that his professors believed he had perfect pitch. Classmates Yusef Lateef, Barry Harris and Donald Byrd undoubtedly provided additional inspiration.

Early career

After a two year spell in the U.S. Army (1960-1962), Henderson moved to New York where trumpeter Kenny Dorham provided valuable guidance for him. Although Henderson's earliest recordings were marked by a strong hard-bop influence, his playing encompassed not only the bebop tradition, but R&B, Latin and avant-garde as well. He soon joined Horace Silver's band and provided a seminal solo on the jukebox hit "Song for My Father". After leaving Silver's band in 1966, Henderson resumed freelancing and also co-led a big band with Kenny Dorham. His arrangements for the band went unrecorded until the release of Joe Henderson Big Band (Verve) in 1996.

Blue Note
From 1963 to 1968 Joe appeared on nearly thirty albums for Blue Note, including five released under his name. The recordings ranged from relatively conservative hard-bop sessions to more avant-garde explorations. He played a prominent role in many landmark albums: most of Horace Silver's swinging and soulful Song For My Father, Herbie Hancock's dark and densely orchestrated The Prisoner, and Andrew Hill’s avant-garde albums Black Fire and Point of Departure. In 1967, there was a notable, but brief, association with Miles Davis's famous quintet featuring Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. Although the band was never recorded, Henderson is reputed to have occasionally stolen the show. Henderson's adaptability and eclecticism would become even more apparent in the years to follow.

Milestone
Signing with Orrin Keepnews's fledgling Milestone label in 1967 marked a new phase in Henderson’s career. He co-led the Jazz Communicators with Freddie Hubbard from 1967-1968. Henderson was also featured on Hancock's Fat Albert Rotunda. It was during this time that Henderson began to experiment with increasingly avant-garde structures, jazz-funk fusion, studio overdubbing, and other electronic effects. Song and album titles like Power To the People, In Pursuit of Blackness, and Black Narcissus reflected his growing political awareness and social consciousness, although the last album was named after the Powell and Pressburger film of 1947. After a brief association with Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1971, Henderson moved to San Francisco and added teaching to his résumé. He continued to record and perform as always, but seemed to be taken for granted by jazz audiences.

Later career and death
Though he occasionally worked with Echoes of an Era, the Griffith Park Band and Chick Corea, Joe remained primarily a leader throughout the 1980s. An accomplished and prolific composer, he began to focus more on reinterpreting standards and his own earlier compositions. Blue Note attempted to position Joe at the forefront of a resurgent jazz scene in 1986 with the release of the two-volume State of the Tenor. The album featured the most notable tenor trio since Sonny Rollins's in 1957 (including Ron Carter on bass and Al Foster on drums) and established his basic repertoire for the next seven or eight years, with "Ask Me Now" becoming a signature ballad feature.

It was only after the release of An Evening with Joe Henderson, a live trio set (featuring Charlie Haden and Al Foster) for the Italian independent label Red Records that Henderson underwent a major career change: Verve took notice of him and in the early 1990s signed him. That label's 'songbook' approach to recording him, coupled with a considerable marketing and publicity campaign, more successfully positioned Henderson at the forefront of the contemporary jazz scene. His 1992 comeback album Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn was a commercial and critical success and followed by tribute albums to Miles Davis, Antonio Carlos Jobim and a rendition of the George Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess.
On June 30, 2001, Joe Henderson passed away due to heart failure after a long battle with emphysema.
(wikipedia)

Mike Lawrence (tp)
Grachan Moncur III (tb)
Joe Henderson (ts)
Kenny Barron (pf)
Ron Carter (b)
Louis Hayes (ds)
Recorded at Plaza Sound Studios, NYC, August 10, 1967