McCoy Tyner / Joe Henderson: Forces Of Nature: Live At Slugs'

How does one go about nominating Zev Feldman for a Nobel Peace Prize? Time and again, the intrepid "Jazz Detective" tracks down unknown, unheard, un-even-hoped-for sonic artifacts, painstakingly brushes away the audio dust and grime, and puts us front and center at events that rewrite the history of jazz. Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs' another Feldman's project, in collaboration with Blue Note President Don Was, is quite possibly his greatest, a double album of such excitement, beauty, and power that we can only marvel and give thanks to engineer Orville O'Brien, who recorded it with a professional-quality Crown tape deck one night in 1966 at 242 East 3rd Street in Manhattan.

That was the Alphabet City address of Slugs' Saloon, one of the most storied clubs in jazz and home to many other important live documents including those by Albert Ayler, Charles Lloyd, Rashied Ali, and Charles Tolliver, as well as the site of trumpeter Lee Morgan's tragically fatal shooting. O'Brien—stepfather of Guy O'Brien, later famous as Master Gee of the pioneering hip hop group The Sugarhill Gang—was well-known for recording a variety of live jazz gigs and was in the right place at the right time to capture pianist McCoy Tyner, tenor sax man Joe Henderson, bassist Henry Grimes, and drummer Jack DeJohnette playing in this long, narrow, rough 'n' tumble club as if their lives depended on it. While O'Brien's master tape has not been recovered, DeJohnette wisely requested a 7 ½ inch per second copy reel, which he kept safe for nearly 60 years before handing it over to Feldman, Was and mastering engineer Matthew Lutthans, who cut the vinyl release with his typical care (A CD set is also available, as are digital download options). The sound quality is mostly excellent, barring some momentary distortion, and well-balanced, allowing us to hear clearly what these still-young master musicians (Henderson was turning 30, Tyner was 27, Grimes 30, and DeJohnette 23) laid down across an 80-minute set.

The album opens with a bit of club ambiance and chatter before the band rips right into "In 'N' Out," title track of Henderson's third Blue Note album (1964). The saxophonist, spurred on by DeJohnette's typically propulsive fast swing, plays 80 choruses across 12 minutes, wave after wave of impassioned sound crashing onto the foundation laid down by compatriot Tyner, who had played on the studio version. A similarly long solo by the pianist follows, with all the hallmarks of his playing with the classic John Coltrane quartet, which he had left only months prior, an inimitable style he would soon develop further on his own 2967 Blue Note debut, The Real McCoy, with Henderson in tow. This is followed by a typically probing bass solo by Grimes, a small amount of it lost due to a tape reel change necessitated by the tune's 27-minute run time. "We'll Be Together Again," a Fischer-Laine ballad standard, follows and features DeJohnette's sensitive brush playing, a humorous quotation of an Irish fiddle tune by Henderson, and a gorgeous Tyner solo with polytonal development of the tune.

At over 300 beats per minute, the 28-minute minor blues jam titled "Taking Off" here is a testament to the band's endurance and power. Grimes, astonishingly, maintains a rock-solid walking line throughout responding to each soloist with sympathetic support. The young drummer imposes a dancing polyrhythmic feel at this fast tempo that recalls the kind of thing that the even younger Tony Williams would do with Miles Davis. This performance is the kind that can elicit head shakes, gasps of disbelief, and shouts of joy in many listeners—if, that is, they are even able to take it in all at once. The final two tracks cool things down to a dapper pace and feature tunes that will be well-known to many fans. Tyner's blues waltz "The Believer" was recorded by his future employer Coltrane in 1958 for Prestige, while Henderson's "Isotope," rather reminiscent of Thelonious Monk, had just come out on his second Blue Note LP Inner Urge (1966), featuring, as does this live version, a beautiful piano solo by Tyner. This is a group obviously in sync and comfortable with each other, each man having played with one or more of his compatriots in a variety of different configurations and settings.

In addition to the music, the release features a lovely and extensive booklet, with commentary by Feldman, Lutthans, DeJohnette, pianist Jason Moran, saxophonists Joe Lovano and Joshua Redman, bassist Christian McBride, and drummers Nasheet Waits and Terri Lyne Carrington. For jazz enthusiasts, this holiday season could scarcely deliver a more thrilling gift.

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