Significant Albums: Eddie Henderson's Inside Out

 

The end of Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi-era team lineup is officially an Eddie Henderson album due to Eddie's leadership (initiative, funding, and role as principle composer), and it's another great one. (The next of Eddie's album's, 1975's Sunburst, again has a great lineup of young and seasoned jazz musicians--including Bennie Maupin and George Duke--but there is a radical shift in musical styles toward a more radio- and sales-friendly "smooth" or "funky/disco" jazz fusion that became popular in the mid-70s.) Recorded in San Francisco in October of 1973, the album wasn't mastered and released until 1974--long after Herbie had called it quits on the head-in-the-clouds, atmosphere-exploring Mwandishi septet. (Herbie recorded his first album with a new funk/R&B lineup of four in September, 1973. The album, Head Hunters, was released on October 13 or October 26 [depending on sources] to become the biggest selling jazz album of all-time--until George Benson's Breezin' laid claim to that title in 1976.) How the recording sessions for Inside Out happened after Herbie had dismantled the Mwandishi septet and after he had already recorded his new pop-oriented album is a mystery to me. If any one out there knows how this happened, please let me know! 

L to R: Buster Williams on double bass, Billy Hart on the drum kit, Bennie Maupin on flute, Eddie Henderson on the trumpet, Bill Summers on congas, Julian Priester on the trombone, and band leader Herbie Hancock on the keyboards. The legendary Mwandishi lineup circa 1973. 

It has become my firm belief that this album from Herbie Hancock's final Mwandishi lineup, under the leadership of trumpeter and principle composer Eddie Henderson, is the absolute peak expression of all that the jazz and rock musicians of the 1960s were trying to achieve with their attempts to "fuse" (or "infuse") the two musical forms with one another. The band is incredibly tight in every aspect of performance. Under the leadership of Doctor (M.D.in Psychiatry) Henderson, these songs are very precisely crafted with incredibly rigid rhythm and foundational tracks, yet the soloists were somehow offered, encouraged, and nurtured to "wander" or "meaner" over the top, forming very fluid, almost surreal, weaves that are constantly but ever-so-subtly morphing above and around the foundations. To my puny little brain, listening to the exquisitely beautiful songs of Inside Out is similar to sitting on the banks of a woodland stream and getting lost in the mesmerizing flow of the water with the play of light and sound. It is an almost-disorienting experience the likes of which I can only compare to musics that have transported me into spiritual experiences or altered states of consciousness; it is music that Siddhartha and his Ferryman mentor/friend would have loved!

Line-up / Musicians:

- Eddie Henderson / trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn
With:
- Herbie Hancock / Fender Rhodes, clavinet, organ
- Patrick Gleeson / synthesizer
- Bennie Maupin / clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, alto flute, piccolo, tenor saxophone
- Buster Williams / acoustic & electric basses
- Eric Gravatt / drums
- Billy Hart / drums

- Bill Summers / congas

1. "Moussaka" (8:59) Patrick Gleeson and Bennie Maupin get first crack at opening this album: it sounds like the real-time sounds of a sunrise. At the end of the first minute Buster Williams' bass and Bill Summers congas start us off on a journey across the desert but then we slow way down as if to examine the scenery from some carapace high up above the desert floor. But then at 2:40 the journey recommences--exactly the same way it began at the one minute mark--this time allowing Eddie time to solo with his muted cornet. Then Herbie gets a turn in the fifth minute with his Fender Rhodes. Such a nice Caravanserai groove going beneath it all. Eddie retakes the reins with a muted flugelhorn at 5:30. A second track is given to Eddie for the intermittent dipersal of flourishes from his unmuted trumpet until at 7:30 that instrument takes the lead where he is joined by a legion of other horn and wind instruments (Obviously Eddie, Bennie, and Patrick have become enamored of multi-track overdubbing.) (18/20)

2. "Omnipresence" (2:14) another display of circling instruments that sounds/feels like the presence of something. The two drummers are busy as Eddie and the rest fill the cauldron with more ingredients in order to make the soup. (4.375/5)

3. "Discoveries" (5:08 ) multiple horns are tracking while Buster and the drummers are providing a kind of DEODATO version of "A Love Supreme" but then things veer right and we've got a more train-like cannonball racing downhill so that Bennie's clarinet, Herbie's clavinet and Fender Rhodes, Patrick's burbling saw synths, and Eddie's trumpets (muted and unmuted) can weave their off-set flourishes of melody. Very interesting and progressive. The music on this album is definitely exploring new, expanded ideas of what is linear and how melodies can be delivered by all of the instruments of a large ensemble while being out of sync with one another. I like this one more for its innovation than its engaging qualities. (8.875/10)

4. "Fusion" (3:33) a veritable continuation of the previous song (there is no break between the two) sees a shift in the rhythm track coming from both the bass and drums. Over the top Eddie, Bennie, and Herbie manage the melody delivery with subtle collaboration and admirable discipline. (8.875/10)

5. "Dreams" (7:21) drums and bass going rogue while the lead instruments hold the melody together simultaneously and smoothly. Interesting! The recording and engineering is so perfect: with every subtle sound captured and balanced gently into the mix. I can't recall hearing a jazz album on which each song's soundscape is so egalitarianly distributed. Rather amazing. And beautiful! (14/15)

6. "Inside Out" (9:25) It's Buster again to lead the way out of the gates. Drummers and clavinet follow as Eddie's horns and Bennie's tenor saxophone start their own journeys. Clavinet gets a little "me" time before multiple horns give a loosely banked MILES-like pepper spray--a pattern of delivery that Eddie continues to reinforce with his trumpet's own first foray as sole soloist. This is a really fun song to listen to while paying attention to any and every one of the individual musicians--listening for their subtle expressions of unrepressed individuality. Even the two drummers are playing so subtly off of one another, creating something that is spiraling around Buster's bass lines, feeding the other instrumentalists into explorations and expressions of their own creative heights.

      In the sixth minute Bennie gets the second extended solo with his tenor sax. I like the relaxed length of times given between soloists. Herbie's wah-ed Fender Rhodes gets the next solo, filling the eighth minute. Bennie and Eddie come squawking out of the pond like two geese (or more as each is given multiple tracks) to try to cut Herbie off but Herbie just continues on with both his Fender Rhodes soloing and his clavinet (multi-tracked or played simultaneously?--or, more likely, taken on by Bennie Maupin?) Very cool song to listen to over and over. (19/20)

7. "Exit #1" (2:54) the bookend opposite of the album's opening four minutes: this must be the sunset. Perfect! (5/5)

Total Time: 39:34

The music on this album is so much more experimental, feeling innovative on several fronts, than any of the previous Mwansishi-era albums. While not as melodic, the weaves are incredibly complex for the fact that it feels as if each individual musician has been set loose on his own path and journey with the same map and destination but with the freedom to follow their own independent paths and means to get there. It's really a breath-taking and marvellous to watch (and listen). If this isn't the peak of the experimentalism that was the spirit and intent of the Mwandishi albums, then I don't know what is.  

91.91 on the Fishscales = A/five stars; musically this may be a minor masterpiece but to my ears there are developmental things going on here that, for me, proclaim an evolutionary jump in the progress of jazz-rock fusion--a jump that is in direct opposition to the pervasive tendency toward favoring smooth audience accessibility over mathematical and creative exploration and experimentation. A Top 10 Favorite J-R Fuse Album from prog's "Classic Era."

I know of no other albums in my vastly limited listening experience that offer such cohesive and coherent whole-band expression of such a synthesis of the solid rock foundation operating within the reality-bending fluidity of moving water, reflecting light, and soothing sound perpetrated by the rest of the band. Inside Out is an unique album for the way its songs keep offering more and more of their nuanced delights with each and every listen. If only you try one song, I would recommend the nine-minute epic title song: I consider it a microcosmic example of the absolute peak of the best that was Jazz-Rock Fusion.