Joe Henderson

[danasgoodstuff]

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

That’s a great record. Possibly the greasiest out there.

Here 'Tis may be the greasiest Lou ever made, but nowhere near the artery clogging grease fest that Grant, Baby Face, and Ben Dixon made with Fred Jackson on Baby Face's Face to Face.  There's always something a little bit prissy about Lou, even at his greasiest.

(92) Brown Sugar - Freddie Roach - YouTube

Joe Hen at his greasiest with Freddie Roach, just one of many reasons I prefer Joe as a sideman.

[Rabshakeh]

3 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Here 'Tis may be the greasiest Lou ever made, but nowhere near the artery clogging grease fest that Grant, Baby Face, and Ben Dixon made with Fred Jackson on Baby Face's Face to Face.  There's always something a little bit prissy about Lou, even at his greasiest.

(92) Brown Sugar - Freddie Roach - YouTube

Joe Hen at his greasiest with Freddie Roach, just one of many reasons I prefer Joe as a sideman.

Face to face and Brown Sugar are both great records, but I think that the fire dries some of the grease into calorific crust. Here ‘Tis is pure lukewarm grease. The prissiness adds to it. Scrape it off the top and put it back in the tub.

Thinking it through, perhaps Green Onions by Milt Buckner, though… 

[Mark Stryker]

Hey gang -- here's something I've heard but never seen a reference to. Someone once told me that Joe had a Swahili name given to him by Mtume, like all the cats in Herbie's Mwandishi band. Anybody know if that's true about Joe and what the name was?

[Daniel A]

In Herbie Hancock's autobiography, he says Mtume came up with names for everybody, but he doesn't say what Joe's was.

Edit: by googling the other's names I found a reference: "Keytu", in Jimmy Heath's autobiography.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Daniel A

[Mark Stryker]

17 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

In Herbie Hancock's autobiography, he says Mtume came up with names for everybody, but he doesn't say what Joe's was.

Edit: by googling the other's names I found a reference: "Keytu", in Jimmy Heath's autobiography.

So to be clear, Jimmy says that Joe's name given by Mtume was Keytu?

[T.D.]

Keytu doesn't look like a Swahili word to me (don't speak the language, but lived in Kenya for a couple of years).

Kitu is a more likely spelling, but "thing" or "object" perhaps an odd nickname.

[JSngry]

Joe was the Key To playing good tenor? 

[Daniel A]

15 hours ago, Mark Stryker said:

So to be clear, Jimmy says that Joe's name given by Mtume was Keytu?

I don't own Heath's book and can only see a couple of pages in Google's cache, but it seems to be Mtume telling the story:

"I was with Organization US in L.A. then, and I gave Swahili names to some of the cats. They came down to the organization meetings and heard lectures by Karenga. I started with Herbie Hancock, who I named Mwandishi. Billy Hart took the name Jabali, and Buster Williams, Mchezaji. Don Cherry got a name too, and so did Joe Henderson, Keytu. Most importantly, the Swahili names had to do with the whole cultural identity changes that were happening."

Edited August 26, 2022 by Daniel A

[felser]

On 8/25/2022 at 5:13 PM, JSngry said:

Joe was the Key To playing good tenor? 

I object to that.

[JSngry]

I shoulda said DiMaggio? 

[felser]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

I shoulda said DiMaggio? 

Kitu is a more likely spelling, but "thing" or "object" perhaps an odd nickname.

[Late]

Up for good Thanksgiving reading.

[Holy Ghost]

On 11/27/2025 at 11:51 PM, Late said:

Up for good Thanksgiving reading.

Love the picture. After BN viz WB it was Joe on Fat Albert, then Bennie Maupin afterwards, right? Maybe a rare live date? When did Joe adopt a Swahili name? 

 

Somwhere above this comes up, sorry for mashing numorous posts into one sloppy post.

[JSngry]

It was Mtume who gave Herbie's band Swahili names. Not sure if Joe was there for that or not.

[Holy Ghost]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

It was Mtume who gave Herbie's band Swahili names. Not sure if Joe was there for that or not.

Silly for asking, who's Mtume? Sorry still, messed up the spelling, sigh. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Holy Ghost

[Niko]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mtume

[Holy Ghost]

7 minutes ago, Niko said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mtume

Lols. Googled, but did not get the Wiki hit, thank you Niko. 

[Pim]

Mtume plays on a lot of great records. Part from his own Mtume Umoja Ensemble - Alkebu Lan i've found him as sidman on these of my albums:

Albert Tootie Heath - Kawaida

Buddy Terry - Awareness

Buddy Terry - Pure Dynamite

Harold Land -  New Shade Of Blue

Harold Land - Damisi

Jimmy Heath - The Gap Sealer

McCoy Tyner - Song for my Lady

McCoy Tyner - Asante

Pharoah Sanders - Love in us All

[JSngry]

 

[felser]

BTW, Mtume was Jimmy Heath's son.

[clifford_thornton]

.

Edited 31 minutes ago by clifford_thornton