6. “Mode for Joe,” Joe Henderson, from Mode for Joe (1966)

Tenor sax player Joe Henderson is often thought of as a gifted journeyman musician, fitting himself to a variety of settings and projects. From 1963 to 1968, Henderson appeared on a whopping 30 albums for Blue Note records—from pianist and founding Jazz Messenger Horace Silver’s classic bossa nova-tinged hard bop album, Song for My Father (1965), to composer Andrew Hill’s intense, eccentric, thoroughly modern debut, Black Fire (1964).
 
But Henderson was an important modern jazz voice in his own right, both for his compositions—many of which became standards—and for his distinctive approach to soloing. In his songs, Henderson relied on traditional forms like the 12-bar blues, but always included unusual chord changes and harmonic surprises. His playing was similarly rooted in bebop traditions, but full of idiosyncratic expressive choices, particularly in his instrument’s upper altissimo register.
 
Mode for Joe was Henderson’s last date as a bandleader for Blue Note records in this decade, and it highlights both the saxophonist’s distinctive yet malleable voice and his position hovering between hard- and post-bop, old music and new. Pianist Cedar Walton composed this title track, and it serves as a showcase for fine extended playing from vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and trumpeter Lee Morgan, but it’s Henderson’s schizophrenic opening solo—at turns melodic, bluesy, honking with overtones, and atonally sideways—that commands attention.