COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Blue Note
WORKS: The State of the Tenon Live at the Village Vanguard
PERFORMER: Joe Henderson (ts), Ron Carter (b), Al Foster (d)
CATALOGUE NO: CDP 8288792
Recorded in November 1985 to mark Joe Henderson's return to Blue Note, this is one of a select band of live jazz recordings where everything — selection of repertoire, each individual's form on die three-night gig - can be heard to have been absolutely right. Henderson has undergone something of a positive critical reappraisal of late, his mature tone and intelligent approach to improvisation striking a chord in the late Eighties, coinciding as it did with the music's reassertion of its traditional acoustic strengths at that time.
Though the tunes are provided by such luminaries as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver and Duke Ellington, they are by no means hackneyed choices, and the trio explores their rhythmic and harmonic possibilities with a beguiling mixture of respect and brio. In short, the title says it all. Chris Parker