Booker Little, Joe Henderson, and Woody Shaw

Abstract

The compositions of Booker Little, Joe Henderson, and Woody Shaw use characteristic harmonies of tonal jazz (major seventh, minor seventh, dominant seventh) that nevertheless progress in ways that do not always reflect earlier tonal jazz practices. Booker Little’s career, if short-lived, offered compositions with formal and harmonic ambiguity. His “We Speak” (Out Front) combines the faster harmonic rhythm of postbop jazz with slower harmonic rhythm characteristic of modal jazz, and his three-horn scoring reflects the manner in which Little negotiates both. Joe Henderson’s “Punjab” (In ’n Out) uses axis progressions in an 18-bar form with built-in metrical ambiguities. Woody Shaw’s “Beyond All Limits” (Larry Young, Unity) exhibits a melodic structure characterized by pentatonic and perfect fourth designs, appearing within an AABA form consisting of 14-bar A sections and a 12-bar B section.