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
Uneasy cover

Uneasy

Tyshawn Sorey, Vijay Iyer, Linda Oh
Undercurrent cover

Undercurrent

Jim Hall, Bill Evans
Step It! cover

Step It!

Bill Connors
Giant Steps cover

Giant Steps

John Coltrane
Calls For Action cover

Calls For Action

Harish Raghavan
Infinity cover

Infinity

Michael Brecker, McCoy Tyner
Sonny Side Up cover

Sonny Side Up

Sonny Stitt, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins
Free to Play cover

Free to Play

Espen Berg Trio