Joe Henderson in Japan

In 1971, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson traveled to Japan without a band and recorded this album at the Junk Club in Tokyo, using well-regarded Japanese musicians: Hideo Ichikawa on electric piano, Kunimitsu Inaba on bass, and Motohiko Hino (brother of trumpeter Terumasa Hino, with whom Henderson had also played) on drums. Four tracks from that session appeared the same year in Japan as Henderson’s Habiliment on the Victor label; Milestone issued a different four-track selection from the session in the US in 1973. The quartet works through four songs in 45 minutes, including a version of Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight,” Henderson’s own “Out ’n’ In” (a retitling of “In ’n’ Out,” from his 1965 album of the same name), Kenny Dorham’s “Blue Bossa,” and a nearly 15-minute new piece simply called “Junk Blues,” which gives everyone the chance to solo at length and inspires whoops and hollering from the audience.