Hocus Pocus

Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Barry Harris (piano), Bob Cranshaw (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums). From the album The Sidewinder (1964).

Billy Higgins was an important and controversial jazz drummer who played in the hard bop and free jazz styles. A very versatile and intuitive performer, his agile rhythmic patterns achieved a perfect balance between function and form. In 1936 he began playing rhythm and blues in Los Angeles. In 1953 he formed with his friend Don Cherry the group Jazz Mesiash and then they met Ornette Coleman. In 1958 they recorded their first album Something Else!!!! The Music of Ornette Coleman and the controversy spread throughout the jazz community, dividing musicians, critics and fans alike. In 1959 the group moved to New York and became the focus of attention, and with the addition of bassist Charlie Haden, Coleman brought to life the sounds and structures he had pursued for years.

Their debut in 1959 with Atlantic Records The Shape of Jazz to Come marks a turning point in the avant-garde movement. In 1961 Higgins left Coleman and worked as a studio musician for Blue Note Records, appearing in major albums until Liberty Records bought the Blue Note label. Higgins continued to be highly sought after as an avant-garde drummer until he returned to Los Angeles in 1978. The following year he recorded his first album as a leader, but he also continued to work as a sideman. In 1987 he met again with Coleman and Cherry and they recorded a new album. Then he retired from the stage and devoted himself to teaching. He had to undergo a liver transplant and eventually died of pneumonia in 2001 at 64 years of age.

This theme is cheerful and fun, and after the exposition Henderson starts to make his solo with fast and smiling phrases that make you want to live. He is followed by Morgan with a slightly more moderate speech, but equally lively and playful. Harris then enters quietly by playing well-chosen phrases, but then accelerates his solo occasionally to make it more attractive. Then Henderson and Morgan take a riff of the original melody for Higgins to make four-bar solos before the group re-expose the theme.