Trumpeter Eddie Henderson Celebrates 50th Anniversary Of Debut Album With Career-Spanning ‘Witness To History’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

Few individuals have led three different talented lives as the octogenarian jazz trumpeter Eddie Henderson, a practicing physician, a championship figure skater earlier in life, and a five-decade-plus career in jazz that began under the tutelage of Louis Armstrong. We will learn more from the pending documentary Dr. Eddie Henderson: Uncommon Genius due on PBS in 2024.  In any case, making the documentary has caused Henderson to take a career perspective and the resulting Witness to History is a much more dynamic and varied album than his two previous finely crafted Smoke Session releases, 2018’s Be Cool and 2022’s Shuffle and Deal (covered here). Henderson has indeed been a witness to the burgeoning movement of jazz from the ‘50s through the ‘70s that exposed him to greats such as Miles, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Booker Little, Woody Shaw, and even Coltrane. One of Henderson’s more famous stints was as part of Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi ensemble in the early seventies. It’s across this kind of backdrop that the album unfolds. 

The album comes fifty years after his debut, 1973’s Realization and features lifelong collaborator, pianist George Cables, fellow frontliner in The Cookers, NEA Jazz Master Donald “Chief” Harrison on alto, and frequent band member, bassist Gerald Cannon. Drummer Lenny White, who hasn’t recorded with Henderson since that debut, anchors the quintet. The opening “Scorpio Rising” dates to Henderson’s debut where White was paired with Billy Hart on drums, Bennie Maupin on reeds, Buster Williams on bass, and Herbie Hancock on the keys. Here, Mike Clark, a veteran of another Hancock fusion group, The Headhunters, joins as the second drummer. Cables plays Fender Rhodes and Henderson unearths the echo effects, long since discarded, on his trumpet while White’s hip hop beats and his interplay with this new cast breathes new life into the tune.

Next is a Cables original “Why Not?” that Henderson has often played live with the pianist, finally consummating his long-held wish to record the tune, originally conceived as a trio, but brimming with a classic Blue Note era sheen here in unison lines and interplay of Henderson and Harrison. The final original “I Am Going to Miss You, My Darling” was penned by Henderson’s wife, Natsuko. It’s an endearing, gorgeous ballad characteristic of the kind of offerings Henderson brought on Shuffle and Deal that features his muted trumpet, sympatico melodic lines from Harrison and ever so subtle and delicate support from the rhythm section.

The remaining five tracks are essentially tributes hailing his major trumpet influences. “Sweet and Lovely” with its alternating hard and soft edges nods to trumpeter and frequent Eric Dolphy collaborator Booker Little, with Henderson transforming the original ballad into a fiery swinger in ¾ time. Two are associated with Miles – the Rodgers and Hart standard “It Never Entered My Mind” which echoes those muted trumpet Miles Prestige recordings of the late ‘50s; and “Freedom Jazz Dance,” composed by Eddie Harris, but famously part of the classic Miles Smiles that featured the Second Great Quintet (Miles, Herbie, Wayne, Ron, and Tony).  Henderson retains the sweet, chillingly languid feel of the former as Harrison sits out while injecting via White and Harrison a NOLA shuffle groove in the latter which ends with a definitively abrupt climax. 

Speaking of classic albums, “Totem Blue” stems from Lee Morgan’s soul-jazz Sidewinder, rendered here as a bossa nova with short and elongated jabs from Henderson matched by Harrison’s spiraling, fluid runs to a brisk, tight in-the-pocket rhythm.  The closer, Mel Torme’s “Born to Be Blue,” links to Freddie Hubbard. While melancholic in Hubbard’s version, Henderson embraces the defiant, swinging aspect of the blues in his mid-tempo reading, tailor-made made of course for Harrison’s soloing as well. 

Henderson is very much in peak form. This gem of an album along with the upcoming documentary may well steepen the trajectory of his late career resurgence. 

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