Talking to the legendary Eddie Henderson was a dream come true for me. As I tell Eddie in the beginning of this episode, I’ve been listening to him for all my life: My father played Herbie Hancock’s “Mwandishi” albums for me as a kid and when I was 13 I saw Eddie with Herbie’s “Gershwin’s World” band in Düsseldorf. I’ll never forget it. Throughout the years I got more deeply into Eddie’s own catalog of records and learned a lot from listening to him. His sound alway touches me and I admire him on many levels.

So to finally get to talk to him about his time with Herbie, about what he learned from Miles Davis, about practicing with Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw, and how it was to play with Joe Henderson was an absolute honor.

In this music theres a deep tradition of passing on knowledge orally. This way future generations can learn from the elders. Eddie Henderson is not only a “witness to history” (the name of his latest album), he’s also very generous with sharing his wisdom. I’m glad we can all learn from maestro Eddie together now.