1970 · Album
Jazz Patterns
Recorded September 1970 · Milestone Records (original session); Everest Records (1982 release) · Produced by Orrin Keepnews (original session); Real Gone Music (2025 remaster)
Live Outtakes That Found Their Moment
A glimpse of Shaw and Henderson in real time, unpolished and searching, from a session that never quite saw the light.
Jazz Patterns arrived as a curiosity — live outtakes from Joe Henderson's Quintet, recorded in September 1970 but shelved for over a decade. For Woody Shaw, this wasn't a defining moment in his career, but rather a document from his mid-period, when he was still finding his voice as a bandleader and composer. By 1970, Shaw had already released several albums and was becoming known for his technical command and modal approach. These recordings catch him in ensemble, working through material that didn't make the cut for If You're Not Part of the Solution, You're Part of the Problem, which means they're worth hearing precisely because they're incomplete — still in the workshop.
The album exists because Orrin Keepnews, who owned Milestone Records, sold the masters to Everest Records in the early 1980s. So Jazz Patterns came out on Everest's Archive of Folk & Jazz label in 1982, decades after the session, when Shaw's reputation had solidified elsewhere. It's not the record to start with if you're new to Shaw. The sound is live and rough, the takes are alternative versions, and there's no narrative arc. But for listeners who already know his work, these tracks offer something real — unvarnished playing from a band working through ideas without the safety net of a finished release.
The 2025 remaster by Real Gone Music gave the album new clarity, making it easier to hear what Shaw and Henderson were after in that room. It's still a secondary document, a footnote to a more important session. That's honest, and it's fine. Not everything needs to be a masterpiece.
Who's playing
Ron McClurebass
George Cableselectric piano
Joe Hendersontenor saxophone
Woody Shawbrass
Lenny Whitemembranophone
Where next?
More by Woody Shaw
All 36 albums →
The musicians on this record
Power To The People 1969
Joe Henderson
plays tenor saxophone here
plays tenor saxophone here
Venusian Summer 1975
Lenny White
plays membranophone here
plays membranophone here
