Selmer Soloist

Selmer Soloist

Reminiscent of the vintage Selmer soloist mouthpieces of the middle century, the contemporary version also gives rise to an amazingly full and sweet tone. An idealisti mouthpiece for the classical player.

Joe Henderson has been called a supreme melodist by one music writer, a musical astronaut by another jazz musician, and by a lucky few he has been called teacher. Two of my saxophone teachers took lessons from him in San Francisco and I listen a good deal of cool stories in regards to him.

Joe Henderson genuinely personified musical greatness; he played the saxophone, drums, piano, flute, and bass as well as excelling at composition. It was by listening to jazz sax greats like Lester Young, Flip Phillips, Stan Getz, Lee Konitz, and Charlie Parker on his brothers record player that Henderson found his biggest inspiration.

In the mid-fifties, before he was even old sufficient to get started college, Henderson was active in the Detroit jazz scene and played with some visiting stars from New York. By the time he did get to college, he had transcribed and memorized an impressive number of Lester Young solos. Such an impressive amount, in fact, that his professors believed him to have that elusive skill known as perfective pitch.

Joe entered the U.S. Army in 1960 and entered an Army talent show with a four piece combo. The group took basi place, and the victory gave Henderson a chance to tour around the world agreeably diverting troops. He stayed in the army for two years, getting out in 1962. That same year he would record the biggest hit of his career, with the help of trumpeter Kenny Dorham. The song was called Snap Your Fingers and would hit #8 on the pop charts and #5 on the easy listening charts.

A few years later, this time as a sideman in Horace Silver’s band, Henderson would bestow his saxophone stylings to another hit record, Song for My Father. Joe plays his solo after the piano. After leaving Silver’s band in 1966, Henderson was the co-leader of a huge band with Dorham. His arrangements for this band would not get recorded until 1996 with the release of the album Joe Henderson Big Band.

Joe also performed as a freelancer for the duration of this time and played on various outstanding albums, including Herbie Hancock’s The Prisoner and Andrew Hills albums Black Fire and Point of Departure. In 1967, he played briefly with Miles Davis, however, none of those shows were recorded. Also in 1967, he signed with Milestone records and begun experimenting more with avant-garde techniques, electronic effects, and studio overdubbing. During this new phase in his career his song and album titles showed an increasing social awareness.

Joe Henderson had a brief stint with Blood Sweat and Tears in 1971 before moving to San Francisco and focusing on teaching. He continued to carry out into the 1980s, for the most part as a leader, but from time to time as a sidemen for Chick Corea and the Griffith Park Band. In the eighties, he concentered more of re-interpreting existent jazz standards and his older work than writing new music. In 1986, when jazz was facing a resurgence, Henderson freed a two volume album, State of the Tenor. It featured Ron Carter on bass and Al Foster on drums.

Verve Records took detect of him in the early 1990s and invented his 1992 comeback album Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn. The album, along with an broad marketing venture on behalf of Verve, positioned Henderson with resolute determination at the forefront of the jazz scene. The album was followed up by a tribute album to Miles Davis and Henderson’s version of the George Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess.

Henderson played a Selmer Mark VI saxophone through a Selmer Soloist D-facing mouthpiece with La Voz reeds.

Selmer Soloist Photo

Selmer Soloist Photo

Selmer Soloist Image

Selmer Soloist Photo