Saxophonist Joe Henderson died of heart failure in San Francisco on June 30th; he was sixty-four. Henderson carved out a career that spanned more than four decades, including an unexpected creative and popular resurgence in the Nineties.
Born in Lima, Ohio, on April 24, 1937, Henderson first began playing professionally in Detroit in the late-Fifties before serving a two-year military stint. In 1962, Henderson began playing with trumpeter Kenny Dorham, who helped him land a contract with Blue Note records. Henderson became a prolific player, leading sessions, as well as doing side work with Lee Morgan on his classic The Sidewinder, Andrew Hill (Point of Departure) and two year periods with pianists Horace Silver (1964-66) and Herbie Hancock (1969-70). It was during this period that Henderson signed with Milestone Records, and moved to San Francisco when the company was acquired by Fantasy in 1972. Henderson recorded for Milestone for ten-years, but his albums failed to find a larger audience. He briefly returned to Blue Note in the mid-Eighties before signing with Verve, which would prove to be a pivotal point in his career.
In 1991 Henderson released his first album for Verve, The Standard Joe , followed later that year by Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn, a modern classic. In addition to raising Henderson's public profile, it also marked the beginning of a rediscovery of the work of Strayhorn, a Duke Ellington sideman, whose genius remained sheltered during his lifetime. It was the first of a string of Henderson's tributes to jazz innovators that would include Miles Davis (1992's So Near, So Far (Musings for Miles) and Antonio Carlos Jobim (Double Rainbow).
Henderson's Nineties output earned him four Grammys, the last of which he won for his 1996 album, Joe Henderson Big Band. Due to health problems that included emphysema, he stopped performing a year ago.
ANDREW DANSBY
(July 2, 2001)