The Sidewinder is a tune born in minutes, destined to last a lifetime! It became one of the defining recordings of the soul jazz genre … a jazz standard that set the tone for an entirely new style of funky jazz that is a driving force even today.
The session was being recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s famous Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey studio. Although the album was essentially finished, the musicians felt they needed one more song. Lee Morgan suddenly disappeared into the washroom and emerged about twenty minutes later, passing around a sheet of music with notes on it that turned out to be Sidewinder!
That original date included Lee Morgan playing trumpet, Joe Henderson on sax, Barry Harris at the piano, Bob Crenshaw on bass, and Billy Higgins playing drums. The album they recorded that day became Blue Note’s best-selling record ever, breaking the previous sales records roughly ten times over! In addition to the original, two other compelling arrangements of the title tune are presented here by Gene Harris and The Turtle Island String Quartet.
