Joe Henderson feat. Alice Coltrane - The Elements (2017 Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf 180g Vinyl LP)

Joe Henderson feat. Alice Coltrane - The Elements | 180g Vinyl LP - Milestone/Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series (MIL00001)

If you know Henderson from his Blue Note work (Inner Urge, Page One, In 'n Out), this album may come as a surprise. He signed with Milestone in 1967 and spent the early 1970s experimenting with studio effects, overdubbing and longer, more open-ended compositional forms. The Elements is the furthest he went. "Fire" opens the album with Henderson's tenor over Ndugu Leon Chancler's drums and Michael White's violin, Coltrane comping on piano before switching to harp as the piece builds. Henderson's saxophone is processed through effects (reverb and echo layers that thicken his tone into something closer to a synthesiser), and the ensemble builds in density as Nash adds congas, gong, Chinese and African bells and sakara drum. "Air" strips the percussion back and lets Coltrane's tamboura create a drone underneath Henderson's flute and alto flute. "Water" on side B is the sparest piece, with Nash playing wood flute alongside Henderson. "Earth" closes with the fullest ensemble, Chancler returning on drums, White on violin, and Nash narrating a text over the rhythm before Henderson and Coltrane push the music to its most intense passage.

This was a one-off. Henderson never made another album like it. He returned to more conventional post-bop settings and eventually moved to Verve in the 1990s, where he found mainstream success with Lush Life and So Near, So Far. The Elements went out of print and stayed there for over four decades.

This is the first ever vinyl reissue, catalogue number MIL00001, the inaugural release in the Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series. Kevin Gray remastered from the original analogue tapes and cut the lacquer at Cohearent Audio. Pressed on 180g vinyl at Quality Record Pressings.