What do you see as the real significance of Jon Hendricks to music?
First of all, he was the last living link to the ancient gods of bebop: he learned about jazz as a child from Art Tatum, who lived on the same street in Toledo, Ohio, where they were both born – Art in 1909, Jon in 1921. You might say Jon was subsequently “discovered” by Charlie Parker when, at the urging of his wife, he got up on stage and scatted with Bird at a gig, and afterwards Bird told him he ought to move to New York to pursue his jazz singing career – which he did a few years later. As a child, he knew Fats Waller and Duke Ellington, and later worked with Ellington. He wrote lyrics for Monk, and recorded with him. He found fame doing vocal versions of Basie tunes, and played a lot of gigs with him. He recorded with Dave Brubeck and Louis Armstrong. I could go on…
But it wasn’t just a question of schmoozing with the legends, he was extremely creative, both musically and lyrically. He couldn’t read a note on the page, and seemed to have no understanding of basic music theory, such what key something was in. (On one occasion Frank Griffith – also an LJN contributor – was arranging The Maids of Cadiz for him. Frank suggested Eb might be a better key for Jon than E, to which Jon enquired, “Which one’s higher?”) But Jon had a fantastic ear. He was able to scat so brilliantly because he had absorbed the lessons of harmony from Tatum. I’d say his most incredible talent was with lyrics. He wrote words to instrumentals so he could sing them, and then they became songs as well as tunes: things like Jive Samba, Moanin’, In Walked Bud, No More, Airegin, Freddie Freeloader, I Remember Clifford, and he did English versions of many Brazilian songs. He wrote the lyrics to Mongo Santamaria’s Yeh Yeh, which gave Georgie Fame his first big hit.
Jon took this lyrical genius much further by developing the art of vocalese: this is where you take a jazz recording and add lyrics to improvised solos. It’s extremely difficult to learn a vocalese song, because there’s no repetition. Most singers don’t get beyond Moody’s Mood for Love, which was Eddie Jefferson’s rendering into words of James Moody’s saxophone solo on I’m in the Mood for Love. Writing the words in the first place is even harder. Jon’s first big project was Sing a Song of Basie, with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross back in 1957, but right at the end of his life he was still at it. In 2017 he finally completed his lyricization of Miles’s entire Miles Ahead album, which he’d been working on for 50 years.
For people who don’t know his work, what should they listen to first?
Nothing beats the glory days of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. As a live act they were jaw-dropping, but in terms of studio recordings there’s not much to beat The Hottest New Group in Jazz. Of his own albums, I would say Freddie Freeloader is probably the best.
What status does Miles Ahead have in his output?
Hard to say, because although I’ve heard it performed live twice by a jazz choir, it still hasn’t been completed as a studio project, which would give us some way of comparing it with his other recorded work. As an achievement, of course, it’s just mind-blowing. First he had to write words for each head (except where they already existed, as with My Ship, The Meaning of the Blues and I Don’t Wanna Be Kissed). Then he had to lyricise all Miles’s solos, and all the background parts as well. It was a monumental undertaking, and it would not have happened at all if Pete Churchill hadn’t come along and essentially forced him at gunpoint to finish it.
In the interviews you did, what traits of his character came across strongest?
I talked to his surviving children at length – his daughters Michele and Aria and his son Jon Jr., whom I finally tracked down in Uruguay. I also interviewed a lot of musicians and singers who worked with him, and some industry people too. All of them described a man of huge charisma and equally huge ego. The musicians all commented on Jon’s immense storehouse of anecdotes. He would keep them in stitches with these stories, to the point where the band would sometimes miss a flight because Jon hadn’t quite made it to the punchline. They’re also unanimous that he was a great teacher. His former pianist David Leonhardt told me about a gig they were playing in Minnesota, where Jon called Every Time We Say Goodbye. David didn’t know it, and tried to fake the chords, but it sounded terrible. Halfway through, Jon walked over to him and said, very quietly, “No chord is better than the wrong chord.” By which he meant, don’t get in the way. If you don’t know what to do, don’t play. Larry Goldings told me about a time he was on stage with Jon In Paris, and Jon suddenly turned to him and yelled, “Stroll!” Larry had no idea what he meant, so in desperation he started playing in the stride piano style. It turned out that “stroll” was an old bebop term for laying out.
Much as everyone loved Jon, there were some distinctly unsavoury aspects to his character. I’ve included these in the book, but I think I’ll let people find out for themselves.
When/why did he start wearing those naval caps?
I don’t know. Probably when he started losing his hair and got fed up with wearing hairpieces.
Jon Hendricks in London, 2010. Photo credit Tim Dickeson. All Rights Reserved
Categories: Features/Interviews
Looking forward to reading this book. In 1984, I spent a very pleasant if rather warm and humid afternoon interviewing Jon on the pool patio of his hotel in Charleston SC where he was appearing at Spoleto Festival USA in a Dizzy Gillespie dream band with Jimmy Heath, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, Jon Faddis, George Duvivier and J.C. Heard. Talk about a meeting of giants, really more like a series of grand reunions. In any case the afternoon passed quickly. Jon laced the interview with spicy anecdotes, some of which, as Annie Ross said in an aside to me years after that, were even true. One of the first things he said when we sat down together that his Dad had been an AME pastor, pointing to the AME church just across the street: Mother Emanuel, more than 30 years before the massacre there. Little known fact: from atop its steeple, one can see Fort Sumter…
Patrick, Peter Jones has sent in this response to you, by email:
“I drew on that long 2-part interview you did for Jazz Forum.
Fascinating stuff about many aspects of Jon’s life and career – thank you!”
I met Jon Hendricks at the airport in Chicago while I was doing an internship in Grad School. I sing also and Jon invited me to his workshop in Toledo. I regret to this day that I didn’t go. You always think there will be another chance in life. That’s the mistake we often make.