Joe Henderson
Tenor Sax Solo on
The Kicker

About

Joe Henderson's eight-chorus tenor saxophone solo opens the improvisation on this hard-driving blues by Henderson himself, featured on Silver's Song for My Father album. At 261 BPM over the 12-bar blues in B-flat, Henderson leads off his own composition with a commanding statement of angular melodic ideas and rhythmic ingenuity, building a solo of sustained intensity and intellectual rigor across eight choruses. As the first of four solos and the composer performing his own tune, Henderson sets a high bar with a performance that demonstrates the kind of invention that would make him one of the most important voices in post-bop jazz.

Joe Henderson was 26 to 27 years old at the time.