Wow! The more you hear this dynamic Jazz band play, the more you love them. I have featured them before, specifically “The Freedom Album” which was recorded “live” in 1966. This one of course, is live also and was recorded even earlier, in 1962. The name of this featured album is “The Jazz Crusaders at the Lighthouse” and is a real beauty! The extraordinary aspect of the Jazz Crusaders and separates them from the others is their trombone lead style. Wayne Henderson is not a household name when it comes to Jazz greats but after hearing him, anyone in their right musical mind will immediately begin to match and compare him to the well known trombonists. Come to think about it, the Jazz Crusaders, as a whole could match up with any other band in the history of Jazz, Outstanding!! Check the schedule link for play times and enjoy, you will!!
About the Album:
Recorded in 1962, before Buster Williams joined the band, Victor Gaskin fills the bass chair here and is not credited on the front sleeve with the other members. The program for At the Lighthouse is a series of tunes mostly by the band’s members including the hard swinging hard bop of Wayne Henderson’s “Congolese Sermon,” Joe Sample’s fine “Weather Beat,” and Stix Hooper’s “Blues for Ramona.” There is also a fine read of Jackie McLean’s “Appointment in Ghana,” with its killer head, originally written for trumpet and alto, done beautifully here by Henderson’s tough trombone and…….Learn More
Wayne “Trombone” Henderson Biography:
From his formative years in the Lone Star Republic (Texas) to his present international recording artist status, multi-instrumentalist and producer/composer Wayne Henderson is identified by his ebullient persona and scintillating trombone style. Without sounding rhapsodic, we’re also compelled to emphasize that Henderson’s effervescence, combined with the legendary Jazz Crusaders many smash hit-recordings, is in large part responsible for the cosmic success of these musical icons since the group’s inception in 1961.
More than forty-years ago, Wayne Henderson, along with childhood buddies Wilton Felder, Joe Sample, and Nesbert “Stix”¨ Hooper, formed the nucleus of the Jazz Crusaders/Crusaders. As a fledgling, attending Houston’s Phyllis Wheatley Jr. High School, the precocious Henderson took the lead in sculpting the group’s dazzling style into one that was ground breaking, with considerable eclectic overtones. By fusing elements of jazz, funk, soul, R&B, rock, Latin, and gospel, an iridescent sound emerged with such impact that a musical revolution was unearthed. As the quartet’s cornerstone, Henderson’s objective was to accentuate the straight-ahead (often restrained) jazz sound with other musical styles that, ironically, are the offspring of generic, or classic jazz. As a result of exposure to all of the above-mentioned forms while growing up, Henderson’s transcendent……Read More
