• The New York Jazz Album 9 (2009)

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Tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry has become widely known in NY for his work both as a leader and sideman. Born in Blue Hill, ME in 1972, McHenry entered Michigan's Interlochen Arts Academy in 1986 and then attended New England Conservatory in 1990, studying with George Garzone, Jimmy Giuffre, and John McNeil. He relocated to NY in the fall of 1992 and became active in the jazz scene. During part of 1996 he lived in Barcelona, collaborating on a live album with pianist Ben Waltzer titled Jazz Is Where You Find It.

McHenry's debut as a leader was 1997's Rest Stop. The follow-up, titled Graphic, was released in 1999 and was one of New York Times critic Ben Ratliff's top ten "alternative picks" for that year. Since then McHenry has recorded and performed with Ethan Iverson, Rebecca Martin, Ben Waltzer, John Stech, Reid Anderson, Ben Monder, the Chris Lightcap Quartet, and the Guillermo Klein Big Band. His own group, the Bill McHenry Quartet, boasts Ben Monder on guitar, Reid Anderson on bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums.

Source: All Music Guide

What does Bill McHenry have that the majority of his saxophone-playing peers lack? An individual voice, for one thing. This quick-witted young tenor saxophonist is joined here by the open-minded septuagenarian drummer Paul Motian, the bassist Reid Anderson (of Bad Plus Trio fame) and the guitarist Ben Monder. New York Times By Ben Ratliff

Bill McHenry Quartet Featuring Paul Motian

The tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry has a thick, untroubled sound, and his sense of melody descends from Ornette Coleman. (The idea is that a line should be pretty and make internal sense, but it's done when it's done; it's not counted off within measures.) Here, along with the bassist Reid Anderson and the guitarist Ben Monder, he appears with the drummer Paul Motian, another musician who takes his time and phrases how he wants to in the service of a complete thought. It's a loose record (for Fresh Sound) with a mixture of swing and free rhythm; it's evidently made as records were 40 years ago, with little preparation. The songs leave off when it feels good for the musicians to do so; all the empathy gotten at seems real. There's some beautiful harmony between Mr. McHenry and Mr. Monder's glowing chords, and in one tune, "Dimensions," there are a few tape splices dissolving frenetic playing into slow playing and vice-versa: a weird, good idea. This band, with Mr. Motian, plays on Thursday at the Village Vanguard (178 South Seventh Avenue, at 11th Street); Mr. McHenry is to play at the Vanguard again on Sunday, with Mr. Motian on drums and Charlie Haden on bass. Music Editor Time Out New York

The tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry started the first set of his first week of his first engagement at the Village Vanguard with a series of long tones, as if he were testing the acoustics. They were plump and buttery, and as his band started making a textural buzz around him, the first melody of the night seemed to spill forth on its own. It was Idea No. 1, one of a half-dozen originals played on Tuesday that showed Mr. McHenry adhering to a singsong melody-to-melody compositional style of plainspoken rapture developed by Ornette Coleman, Paul Bley, Dewey Redman, Keith Jarrett and Paul Motian, among others. As it happened, Mr. Motian, who is now 73, occupied the back of the Vanguard's stage, playing drums in the 31-year-old Mr. McHenry's band. (The quartet will continue at the club, at 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, through Sunday night.) There's a great deal of sense in this picture, the master playing sideman for the student. After all Mr. Motian wasn't just accompanying the leader; he helped create the aesthetic possibility for it. His drumming style, in general and on Tuesday, has been calm and thoughtful, self-edited and expressive, open and unprogrammed; it tries to come up with something new in each bar of music while retaining a groove. Much of the same spirit can be heard in Mr. McHenry's saxophone playing. It honors the rhythm and harmony of bebop while generally operating in spacey rubato time. It rarely gets fast and saves expressive outbursts for carefully chosen moments. (He ends solos particularly well.) He likes strong, slow melodies and connects them to speech; he bends notes with a kind of radical plaintiveness, jumping large intervals in one curving sigh. The improvising got fairly free, so these moments stood as ends in themselves, rather than just adornments. His playing has a low center of gravity and generally sounds as if it were coming from someone much older. With Reid Anderson on bass and Ben Monder on guitar, the band played a number of pieces from an album, The Bill McHenry Quartet Featuring Paul Motian, released last year on Fresh Sound. The pulse asserted itself: Mr. Anderson played with a strong, dark tone, and Mr. Motian, accenting the rhythm however he wanted, occasionally walloped the bass drum at subdued moments. Mr. Monder worked as an element of contrast: he can be fast and mathematical, and his deep applications of distortion counteracted all the purity of expression and the stirring, pastoral suggestions of the music, like a skeptical monologue during a séance. But outward differences in style finally didn't matter. Mr. McHenry, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Monder have worked together for almost 10 years, casually and formally. They almost breathed improvisation together. New York Times

Top live show: Bill McHenry Quartet Village Vanguard; Tue 14 - Sun 19 Innovation isn't supposed to be easy, but any contemporary jazz musician will tell you that revolutionizing the art form is even more daunting when a whole century's worth of brilliance is staring over your shoulder. Those aiming for great achievements don't stop trying, though, which probably explains why it's getting easier to pick tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry out of the crowded field of thirtysomethings in the clubs. His sound - a slab of marble sculpted from the roar of masters like Dewey Redman and Sonny Rollins - has always turned heads, but these days, McHenry's fastidiously off-kilter compositions are also asserting themselves. There's almost a quantum leap in acuity from 1999's Graphic to 2002's quartet disc, ...featuring Paul Motian (both from the Barcelona imprint Fresh Sounds). Time Out by K L Williams

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Ben Monder & Bill McHenry: Bloom

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