EDDIE HENDERSON - MAHAL - CD - SOUL BROTHER - NEW - £12.99
Eddie Henderson reached his Commercial peak with the Mahal album in 1978, which made no 21 in the USA jazz charts, and contained the UK pop chart top 50 and club hit ‘Prance On’. This album is heralded in the UK as one of the great Jazz-Funk Albums. The funky grooves of ‘Prance on’ and excellent up-tempo cover of Herbie Hancock’s ‘Butterfly’ featuring the man himself on keyboards epitomise the genre.
The track ‘Cyclops’ also became a big UK jazz-funk club track, when the original slower album cut was played at 45 by the famous DJ Froggy at the Royalty in Southgate and was eventually released as a 12” single in the UK . We feature both the original and ‘sped up’ versions on this CD.
However it is on the brilliant mid tempo ‘Amoroso’ written by Bennie Maupin that Eddie really excels, this is my favourite track on the album and one of Eddie’s best recordings. This track goes through many changes and Eddie’s playing us superb. Eddie is also very lyrical in his blowing on the ballads ‘Ecstasy’ and ‘Emotions’.
On ‘Mahal’ Eddie is joined by the crème de la crème of contemporary jazz musicians including Herbie Hancock, Paul Jackson, Bennie Maupin, Mtume, Hubert Laws and Bill Summers.
Eddie had previously recorded two albums for the Capricorn label Inside Out’ and ‘Realization’ with the Herbie Hancock Mwandishi sextant , two hard hitting funky jazz albums for Blue Note ‘Sunburst’ and ‘Heritage’ and a jazz funk album for Capitol ‘Comin Through’.
All of these albums including Mahal were produced by Skip Drinkwater.
Since releasing the Eddie Henderson Anthology in 2000, I have had the pleasure of meeting Eddie many times and have organised many gigs featuring him, most notably our 10th anniversary gig at Shepherds Bush Empire in 2001, and three great gigs with Gary Bartz in 2006. Eddie’s knowledge of jazz music is incredible, and his experiences from having Miles Davis staying in the family home when he was a teenager to playing in Herbie Hancock’s sextet to being a leader in his own right are evident in his performances.
Eddie is now in his 70’s and is still recording and performing today.
We are delighted to release Mahal on CD for the first time, remastered from the Original Master tapes, in our classic albums series. It still sounds very fresh today, 33 years after its original release.
Laurence Prangell
November 2011.
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