Jazz Patterns

Description

"Diamond in the rough" doesn't begin to describe the number of carats this long-lost jazz treasure possesses, nor the depths of its humble origins. Originally released in 1982 on the budget label Everest, Jazz Patterns was a carelessly assembled collection of live recordings from 1970 by the quintet of saxophonist Joe Henderson, known for giving trumpeter Woody Shaw co-billing to capitalize on his later commercial success. A few copies were made, sold for less than $5 each, and that was it. But, as revealed in the liner notes by Skip Heller (which we have included), what this little low-quality package (it didn't even have the correct song titles for two of the tracks and misspelled one it got right) actually contained were, hold on to your hats, unreleased performances from the same stand from September 24 to 26, 1970, at the Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach that gave birth to Henderson's revered 1970 version, If You're Not Part of the Solution, You're Part of the Problem! It turns out that the director of the Milestone label, Orrin Keepnews, turned around and sold these 2-track reference mixes (recorded by Bernie Grundman!) to the owner of Everest, Bernie Solomon, who went ahead and did his usual down-market thing, took the money and ran. It's George Cables on electric piano, Ron McClure on bass, and Lenny White (using a kick drum made from an oil drum) on drums, by the way. We are reissuing this fantastic post-bop find for the very first time, with the aforementioned liner notes, the correct song titles, and new remastering work by Kevin Chubirka that sounds about a hundred times better than the original. Dig in, you must!