About

The virtuoso saxophonist’s 1969 album with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Jack DeJohnette is an essential document of a transitional moment in which everything in jazz seemed up for grabs. Henderson surrounded himself with a few of the world’s best players for Power to the People. Two, keyboardist Herbie Hancock and bassist Ron Carter, were veterans of Davis’ band, and one, drummer Jack DeJohnette, was just joining up with Miles at around the same time; Henderson also recruited up-and-coming trumpeter Mike Lawrence on two of the seven tracks.

Across the album, Hancock switches between acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes, and Carter between upright and electric bass, choices that mirror the album’s fluid stylistic approach. Carter’s choice of bass, in particular, is a rough indicator of where a given track will fall on the spectrum. On upright, his primary instrument, he tends toward traditional walking lines, outlining the chords with a steady pulse that the rest of the players are free to improvise around. On electric, he dances more freely around the outskirts of the pocket, jabbing in and out in search of new rhythmic possibilities, nudging the music away from the jazz’s well-worn solo-and-accompaniment format and toward more open-ended group improvisation. If “Black Narcissus” is the tune on Power to the People that fans are most likely to know, the title track is the best reason for those who haven’t heard the album in full to seek it out. Nearly nine minutes long and ferociously groovy, it is an astounding showcase for the communal intimacy of these five musicians, many of whom had long histories working together in other configurations. Near the end, to punctuate things, Hancock reaches over the keyboard and strums a chromatic cluster of notes directly on the strings of the piano, an eerie and highly specific sound that seems somehow outside the boundaries of the tune as we’ve come to understand it so far. Both out of place and perfectly intuitive, it bears an important message: In this music, anything is possible. — (via Pitchfork, Best New Reissue)



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Label: Milestone
Series: Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Stereo, Gatefold, 180g
Country: US
Released: Mar 15, 2024 / Original Release: 1969
Genre: Jazz
Style: Post Bop, Hard Bop
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File under: Audiophile Jazz