“Diamond in the rough” doesn’t begin to describe the number of carats this long-lost jazz treasure wields, nor the depths of its humble origins. Originally released in 1982 on the budget Everest label, Jazz Patterns was all-too-carelessly assembled collection of 1970 live recordings from saxophonist Joe Henderson’s Quintet, re-titled to give trumpeter Woody Shaw co-billing to capitalize on his subsequent commercial success. A few copies were made, sold for under 5 bucks each, and that was that. But, as Skip Heller’s liner notes (which we’ve added) reveal, what this shoddy little package (it didn’t even have the correct song titles for two of the tracks and misspelled the one it got right) actually contained was, get this, previously unreleased performances from the same September 24-26, 1970 stand at The Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach that yielded Henderson’s revered 1970 release If You’re Not Part of the Solution, You’re Part of the Problem! Turns out Milestone label head Orrin Keepnews had turned around and sold these 2-track reference mixes (recorded by Bernie Grundman!) to Everest owner Bernie Solomon, who went ahead and did his usual down-market, take the money and run thing. That’s George Cables on electric piano, Ron McClure on bass, and Lenny White (using a bass drum fashioned from an oil can) on drums, by the way. We’re reissuing this fantastic post-bop find for the first time ever, complete with the aforementioned liner notes, the correct song titles, and a new remastering job by Kevin Chubirka that sounds about a hundred times better than the original. Dig you must!
