April 2025
Milestone Records / Craft Recordings—CR00845
Format: LP
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Jazz saxophonist Joe Henderson made his name with Blue Note Records, where he recorded five LPs as a leader between 1963 and 1966 and appeared as a sideman on many other sessions. He moved to Milestone Records in 1967 and in the ten years that followed recorded 12 albums for them. His Milestone years offered a mixed bag of approaches to jazz, and there were some gems among them. One was Power to the People (1969), which Craft Recordings reissued last year on vinyl and hi-rez digital as part of its Jazz Dispensary series.
Multiple (1973) moved Henderson slightly in the direction of jazz fusion, with electronic keyboards, multitracking, and, on some tracks, electric bass. There’s very little rock-music influence on Multiple, but it has a pronounced funk and Latin-jazz undercurrent. Craft has now added it to the Jazz Dispensary lineup, remastered by Kevin Gray for LP and hi-rez.
Henderson wrote “Tress-Cun-Deo-La” and sings the opening lines, supported by Arthur Jenkins’s Latin percussion and Dave Holland’s electric bass. Jack DeJohnette’s funk-accented drumming and Larry Willis’s sparkling electric piano put some meat on the arrangement, and Henderson adds an overdubbed tenor-sax line to shadow his vocals. He plays a multitracked horn arrangement in spots, consisting of him on flute, alto sax, and tenor sax.
Henderson soon takes off on a lengthy, exciting, hard-edged solo, injecting vocals here and there as Holland holds down the foundation and DeJohnette drives things along. Willis’s chords dance around and through Henderson’s solo, and things calm down a bit for Willis’s own feature, with Holland anchoring the music and DeJohnette becoming more intense and powerful as Willis’s solo develops. James Ulmer is listed on guitar on the track but is only slightly audible, playing rhythm in some quieter passages.
DeJohnette’s “Bwaata” contains a slight hint of early, pre-guitar Return to Forever, but Henderson’s playing balances cool melodicism with bursts of dark energy. Holland, on acoustic bass, plays a lively and invigorating solo and provides a fluid backdrop for the tune. He plays a simple but mesmerizing line on Henderson’s “Song for Sinners” that gives focus and grounding for the complex interaction of instruments and chanted vocals.
Holland’s “Turned Around” shows the influence of Miles Davis’s recordings during the late ’60s and early ’70s, on which Holland had played. DeJohnette, another alum from those Davis sessions, meshes with Holland’s hard-funk bass lines and Jenkins’s skittering electric piano. Henderson’s solo, full of fire and barely controlled passion, moves the music beyond any comparison with Davis and into its own space.
“Me, Among Others” is a roiling, emotionally turbulent piece by Henderson that he approaches with fearless intensity. Jenkins enters with a solo that at first seems an island of calmness, but Holland’s bass lines keep things at a full boil, and DeJohnette’s cymbal splashes push Jenkins into darker territory. Jenkins uses an echoplex in the final minute of the song to unsettling effect.
I have a copy of the eight-CD set Joe Henderson: The Milestone Years, which includes the tracks from Multiple. When I compared the two recordings, the CD sounded somewhat veiled. The tambourine in the right channel on “Tress-Cun-Deo-La” was brighter and sharper on the new vinyl reissue. Henderson’s voice was set off better throughout the song, and Holland’s bass had more punch and fullness. DeJohnette’s snare reverberated more soundly, and his hi-hat work cut through more resolutely.
Further comparison confirmed the better sound on the reissue. Holland’s bass had more attack and low-frequency presence, DeJohnette’s snare drum rang out more solidly and his kick drum moved more air, and the texture of Henderson’s sax and the subtlety of his playing were easier to hear.
I decided to download digital versions of Kevin Gray’s new master of “Tress-Cun-Deo-La” in 24-bit/192kHz and 16/44.1 resolutions from Qobuz. The CD-resolution download was more detailed and open sounding than the earlier CD box-set release, but the LP had more depth and a firmer low-end foundation. The higher-resolution version was much closer to the LP in its power, spaciousness, and presentation of small details, such as percussion accents.
Record Technology Inc. (RTI) pressed Multiple, and my copy was flat, quiet, and accurately centered. The cover is heavyweight cardboard with tipped-on artwork.
It would be easy to consider Multiple a product of the ’70s and a lesser entry in Joe Henderson’s recording catalog. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a powerful—at times angry—album full of burning performances from Henderson and brilliant, sympathetic support from the other musicians on the sessions. Kudos to Craft Recordings for reissuing it in such good sound.
. . . Joseph Taylor
josepht@soundstagenetwork.com
