Eddie Henderson so What

This series of live discs mark the first recordings of what became the regular working quintet of the criminally underrated saxophonist, composer and bandleader Billy Harper. With bassist Louie Spears the new addition to the line-up, three distinct concerts were recorded on Harper's spring, 1991 tour of the Far East and released separately without any duplication of material. Volume One comes from Pusan, Korea on April 27 and while the sound isn't the best – the bass and drums are muted and lack crispness – the extremely high quality of the music and interaction between the players more than compensates.

Billy Harper - On Tour, Vol.2 (1993) {SteepleChase SCCD31321 rec 1991}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 328 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 156 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 7 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1993 SteepleChase | SCCD 31321
Jazz / Modal Music / Post Bop / Saxophone

This Taiwan performance predates the Korean performance on Volume 1 by five days and it may be the best of three releases (maybe) that collectively function as an audio verite documentary of a jazz group on the road. The cohesive way the four pieces here complement each other makes it sound like a complete performance. The recording quality again isn't optimal – it's Harper's saxophone and Eddie Henderson's trumpet which suffer slightly in clarity this time – but no way should that serve as an excuse to avoid savoring these snapshots of a great jazz unit in the process of coming together.

This DVD from Al Foster is from a July 25, 2007 concert, taped at the New Morning nightclub in Paris. For the gig, Foster's usual quartet, featuring bassist Doug Weiss, saxophonist Eli Degibri, and one of several pianists, has been augmented to a quintet with the addition of trumpeter Eddie Henderson. The piano chair is actually filled by two different players; Aaron Goldberg plays on the first five tracks, George Colligan on the last five.

This is an attractive eight-CD set (+ Bonus CD), whose discs are also available as eight separate releases, that could have been a great reissue but settled for being merely quite good. To celebrate the 80th anniversary of the first jazz recording, RCA released a disc apiece covering each of the past eight decades. In listening to the music straight through, one becomes aware of RCA's strengths and weaknesses as a jazz label. Victor was one of the most important jazz labels during the 1920s, '30s and '40s, catching on to bebop a little late (1946) but still documenting many classic recordings. By the 1950s, the label's attention was wandering elsewhere; it missed free jazz almost completely in the '60s, and in the last three decades has only had a few significant artists, mostly Young Lions whose output sounds conservative compared to the earlier masters…