Haitian Sensation Radio: Stardust/Old Folks

I’ve never been much of a free-jazz guy. I mean, I respect and even dig some of the work that falls into the category, like the efforts of Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders and others. But the place where I instinctively go as a jazz fan has always been to hard bop. Hard bop, as the name suggests, came out as an evolution of be-bop but worked in more elements from rhythm & blues, gospel and blues sources. Hard bop didn’t trade away the intellectualism of be-bop but was less concerned with the technicalities of the songcraft, and homed in more on communicating certain sensibilities.

A friend once mocked my jazz preferences by basically saying, “Ha ha, youuuu like structure!” in that sing-songy playground teasing way. But you listen to this track by Joe Henderson and the way he plays with the structure of these two standards is indicative of what a fertile imagination can do within the strictures of melody and tunefulness. (It’s the fourth track on the album.)