Inner Urge cover

Inner Urge

Released

Henderson’s fourth album for Blue Note was his most intense and hard-bitten. The band included pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and drummer Elvin Jones, and the compositions were sometimes little more than sketches. On the album’s best track, “El Barrio,” he asked them to “play something with a Spanish feeling” using just two chords while he improvised a melody (and a raucous, crying solo introduction). The result is astonishing for 1964; in some ways, it points to what David S. Ware would be doing in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
We Are Sent Here by History cover

We Are Sent Here by History

Shabaka & the Ancestors
I Can See Your House from Here cover

I Can See Your House from Here

Pat Metheny, John Scofield
Without Deception cover

Without Deception

Johnathan Blake, Kenny Barron, Dave Holland
Super-Sonic Jazz cover

Super-Sonic Jazz

The Sun Ra Arkestra
REVERENCE cover

REVERENCE

Muriel Grossmann
Street Talk cover

Street Talk

Joe Lovano, Greg Osby, Saxophone Summit, David Liebman
Sacred Ceremonies cover

Sacred Ceremonies

Bill Laswell, Wadada Leo Smith, Milford Graves
Back East cover

Back East

Joshua Redman
Canyon Lady cover

Canyon Lady

Joe Henderson
Phoenix cover

Phoenix

Lakecia Benjamin