Antwort auf: Tenor Giants – Das Tenorsaxophon im Jazz

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redbeansandrice

Registriert seit: 14.08.2009

Beiträge: 13,943

Auch spannend, Joe Henderson in der Ausgabe vom 15. Januar 1975, scheinbar eins der ersten laengeren Interviews… in der zweiten Haelfte kommen sie auch auf unsere Frage… (musste teilweise etwas raten, weil der scan nicht soo gut war)

[..] your style seemed to be a healthy fusion of Rollins and Coltrane.

Henderson: Well, that may be, but now we’re getting into something that has been a constant disturbance factor if and when I ever read articles about my playing.

Townley: Well, you know . . .

Henderson: Let me just continue. Of the saxophone players that I’ve heard recently, say, within the last two or three years, more sound like me than any other player around. Granted. I’m not hearing ever saxophone player around. But this is what I’ve observed from the small minority that I have heard. At one point. Sonny Rollins influenced me quite a bit. But I think the same people who influenced Newk, also influenced me. As a result, we both came out sort of the same. Naturally, I can appreciate him. Wow, it’s like seeing somebody walk down the street who looks exactly like you but has a different mother and a different father, all total. You dig. But I strongly feel that as recently as five, six, maybe seven years ago, I developed elements about my playing that are very uniquely my own.

Townley: Oh, yeah . . .

Henderson: Because the saxophone players that I heard that sounded like me, they didn’t sound like Newk, they didn’t sound like
John. I heard things that I know I developed over a period of years.

Townley: Well . . .

Henderson: And I’m just flattered that somebody could use some thing that I just really don’t think twice about.

Townley: How did you get into the . . .

Henderson: I was saying that when people talk about saxophone players today, I honestly don’t hear any that sound like Sonny Rollins. I hear people today who possibly sound a little more like John say, than Newk. But there’s a big difference. There’s not this thing going on today where one man is exerting a total influence over the horn, like Bird did on the alto. Newk may have had a large share of influence on a lot of saxophonists; Ben Webster, too, for that matter John, the same thing. But, today, players are primarily into their own thing. People are playing their own music. The only time saxophone players sound like other saxophone players is when they’re playing the same tunes. A lot of writers tend to associate my name with whatever influences they think I had. Okay, but they haven’t picked up on the fact that I, too, may have evolved. Now, I hear a lot of comments from people like, “A lot of saxophone players, Joe, sound like you.” I’m not on an ego trip or anything like that, but, anyway, I cut you off from your statement.

Townley: No, I just wanted to clarify it, so that you understood where I said I heard Trane and Newk in your playing.
Henderson: Listen, the music scene is far greater for having had John around to exercise the amount of influence that he did, and Sonny Rollins as well. So let me firmly establish that.

Townley: To me, Sonny seems to be melodically oriented. In other words, constantly creating melodies, ceaselessly reworking them in little patterns; while Trane was doing interesting things harmonically, breaking out of old harmonic limits to reach a broader and loftier plateau. You could say Sonny’s going horizontally and Trane vertically.

Henderson: Yeah, right, when you say horizontal, that to me is the foundation. Sonny’s always been very iconoclastic in terms of rhythm. He plays a melodic instrument, but there’s rhythm to it as well. He seems to have been more involved in rhythm than any other saxophonist of his time. On the other hand, Trane seemed to be more involved with harmonies.

Townley: All kinds of overtones. A lot of the cats who are trying to develop Trane’s later ideas, especially cats in New York, are hung up on overtone patterns to the detriment of the rhythms and melodies of the horn. In other words, screech patterns—take a high note and try to develop pure overtones from it. In my own personal opinion

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