Jon Hendricks to perform at Jazz at 5 on September 3
Say it with jazz
Say it with jazz
During a phone interview with Hendricks, The Capital City Hues asked him about his professional career:
The Hues – I was listening to you on YouTube for a good portion of last night and it was a profound experience to really appreciate the effect you’ve had on
modern jazz.
Hendricks – Thank you.
The Hues – And it’s been such a beautiful, long career. To what do you attribute your longevity of basically being on the cutting edge for 50 years?
Hendricks – My wife. She cured her melanoma herself with the Gerson Diet. Dr. Gerson has been known to cure people with cancer using his special diet and
special regimen. My wife is a follower of his. So when she was diagnosed with melanoma, the doctors wanted to start her on chemotherapy and she instead went
to the Gerson Clinic in San Diego. She was there a month and she got the regimen that consisted of a diet of all organically grown foods and 18 juices a day of
vegetables and fruits. And she cured the melanoma. She put me on the diet and I’ve been feeling better ever since. This was about four years ago. So I think
that’s the reason why for my age I look so young. The American Medical Association is totally against the Gerston therapy. But at the same time, under their
regimen, we have the highest rate of death from cancer on the Planet Earth. So one of them is wrong. I prefer to think it’s the American Medical Association and
not Dr. Gerson because my wife not only cured her melanoma, but she also had a 22 year old back problem and that’s gone. Gerson can be found on line. He
has books that he has published.
The Hues – It seems to me, just in terms of listening, like vocalese filled in the huge gaps between instruments and voices. It just seemed to fill in that whole
territory in between them.
Hendricks – That’s a very interesting thing you just said because John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet when he introduced Lambert, Hendricks & Ross at the
Monterey Jazz Festival said ‘Lambert Hendricks & Ross are the bridge between the jazz instrumentalist and the jazz listener.’ That’s what you just said. It’s very
interesting.
The Hues – With the words turning into instrumental sounds, you almost sounded like an alto sax at one point.
Hendricks – Yes, that’s another thing about it. You’re supposed to sound as much like the instrument and the soloist as you possibly can.
The Hues – And how do you get all of those different sounds out of the same mouth?
Hendricks – You sing what you hear. It’s a matter of mimicry.
The Hues – And I would imagine many, many hours of practice then.
Hendricks – Yes, you have to listen a lot to learn those soloists because they don’t slow down.
The Hues – And it just seems that you do it so effortlessly.
Hendricks – I think that comes from the love of the music. Dave Lambert, Annie Ross and I were all lovers of jazz music. And we knew and loved all of the people
who played jazz. So it was easy for us to imitate them because of the great feeling we had for them.
The Hues – How did the three of you hook up together?
Hendricks – At first, it was Dave Lambert and I. We had this idea. Dave Lambert was talking to me and he said ‘Why don’t we do something artistic before we die
so that the earth can know that we were here?’ I said ‘What would you suggest?’ He said ‘Well, you write good lyrics and we both love Count Basie, so why don’t
you write ten Count Basie arrangements and I will score them and we’ll try to get a radio company to record them?’ And I said ‘Do you know how long it takes to
write one Basie arrangement with all of the notes given words that rhyme and tell a story?’ He said ‘Well, do you have anything else to do?’ And I picked up the
pencil and pad and started writing right then and there.
We were starving. We were hardly eating one meal a day. We didn’t have any money. We were broke. Times were tough then. That was in the early 1950s. We
were literally starving to death slowly. Sometimes we would get up in the morning and there would be a few grains of coffee in the coffee jar. We would put them
in the pot and put hot water on that, enough to make two cups. It would be weak, but it would start us out. And then we would go out on the streets and see what
we could come up with. Some days we were just lucky. Dave was well known. He would get a record date now and then. That would get us $300 a piece and
that would last us a couple of months. We had a record date once, four starving people. It was Dave, myself, a tap dancer named Bunny Briggs who also sang
and another singer. So I stood next to Bunny Briggs and I couldn’t read. So Dave passed out music sheets. He had worked with Tommy Dorsey and a lot of
people. I said to Dave ‘You know I can’t read.’ He said ‘Just sing a third above Bunny Briggs.’ I got through the whole record making only two mistakes. After the
day was over, I said to Bunny ‘You know Bunny, I’m glad I stood next to you.’ He said ‘Why?’ I said ‘Well, I can’t read.’ And he said ‘I can’t read either.’ I just
looked up and said ‘There is a God.’ Isn’t that something?
The Hues – So you guys were definitely spiritually inspired or something.
Hendricks – Oh yeah! We never got discouraged. We never thought about giving up or anything like that. That was never in our minds. There was a guy named
Jones who had a restaurant. And he had a wife that was interested in our music. And so Dave wrote a lot of arrangements for her and in return gave us one meal
a day. That meal did help us because we could get through breakfast and lunch without much problem because we knew we had some dinner. And that lasted
about six months. We did various things and took various jobs. We survived until Dave came up with this idea. And then we walked uptown. We walked from West
4th Street to 57th, basically about 52 blocks, because we didn’t have money for the subway. They said it cost more money to record singers to have 15 voices
than it does to record musicians. They just couldn’t afford it although they said it was great stuff. There was a new record label, AmPar, created by the American
Broadcasting Company and Paramount Pictures. They hired this young guy named Creed Taylor who later did Impulse Records and became very famous. He
had just graduated from Duke and he heard us. He said it was fantastic and that he would see what he could do. He arranged for us to do it. The album took off
the minute it was released and became Number One all over the world.
Sinatra and the whole Rat Pack and Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin and all those guys were big fans of ours. All the movie people, everyone was a fan of ours.
The Hues – Did any of your music end up in their films?
Hendricks – There was a scene in a Frank Sinatra film where one of our records was on the jukebox. And then I did an appearance in a movie where I sang ‘Bye
Bye Blackbird.’ I also appeared with the Al Pacino film ‘People I Know.’
The Hues – What do you make of today’s jazz scene?
Hendricks – It is in dire trouble because it is in the United States. The United States is a completely deculturalized country. That’s why I am teaching here. They
made me a distinguished professor of jazz. They gave me a doctorate in the performing arts. They gave me tenure. Well they gave me everything. The United
States of America is the only country in the world that disdains its own cultural art form because it came from the slaves, its most despised segment. They have
built opera houses in every big American city and opera is Italian culture. So they are celebrating the culture of another country. They have a Shakespeare
performing company in every city in America and that’s English culture. They have a great art museum in every city in America; that’s French culture. They
have subsidized ballet companies in every city in America. That’s Russian culture. That’s European culture. They have nothing for their own culture. And they
have hundreds of thousands of young American people with no knowledge of their own culture. And that’s what I am here to alleviate.
The Hues – With jazz, we don’t pay for it, but it seems to be imbued in a lot of commercials and movies and a lot of places. You almost can’t get away from it
and yet it is a very poorly supported art form.
Hendricks – But at the same time, while it’s so poorly supported in its country of origin, it is very, very big in every other country in the world. In Italy, did you know
there 2,500 jazz festivals every year? Every little town in Italy has a jazz festival. In the south of France, there are 50-60 jazz festivals. Spain has jazz festivals all
the time. Scandinavian countries have jazz festivals. They all celebrate our culture. But this country is completely deculturalized. And they lied about their own
culture. They said it started in the whorehouses of New Orleans, which is a lie. When it started, America didn’t even own New Orleans; the French owned it. It was
called ‘La Territoire de Louisiana’ after King Louis XIV who owned it. His vacation town was Orleans. So he named the city Nouveau Orleans or New Orleans. It
was under the French that jazz was born because the Anglo Saxons allowed the slaves no history so you had only songs of suffering and the spirituals. But the
French baptized the slaves because they couldn’t be associated with anyone who wasn’t in the Church. The sacrament of Baptism conferred the brotherhood
and sisterhood of man. So they cohabitated together. So you have octoroons and quadroons in Louisiana. They gave the slaves cast-off instruments, which no
one else did. And that’s where jazz comes from. And the music is the music of the church. No one knows that because they don’t culturally teach their own
culture. I’m the only jazz teacher who is teaching what really happened. America should be ashamed of itself.
The Hues – And proud of itself in the sense that jazz is its native son.
Hendricks – Yes. All of us are more popular in Europe than they are here. Quincy Jones became popular in Europe. He lived in Paris. He got the Legion of
Honor. So did I. I got it last D-Day at the anniversary commemoration.
The Hues – So I see that your kids are involved in jazz.
Hendricks – Oh yeah.
The Hues – Given all of the suffering that you went through, was that okay with you?
Hendricks – Oh sure! I look at jazz as one of the great cultures of the world. It’s just civilized. Someone has to represent the culture. Now there are more and more
children who are taking it up. That’s really great.
The Hues – Jazz is so light. In spite of any struggle it has, you can never keep jazz down.
Hendricks – No, it is too strong for mere hatred. Hatred doesn’t stand a chance against this music. It’s never been able to kill it. And there are more and more
White kids who are taking part in it now than ever before. And that’s going to do a lot toward alleviating this terrible discrimination that jazz has experienced.
Finally, there is that great house cleaner death. Thank God it comes to every man. The dumb bastards die off and then it’s just going to be a lot better for the rest
of us. Do you know the comedian Moms Mabley? ‘You’re not supposed to say anything about the dead unless you say something good.’ ‘Are they dead?’ ‘Good!’
She was so funny.
The Hues – I read that you are applying vocalese to some classical compositions.
Hendricks – Yes, I’ve already done Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto Number Two. I’ve reorganized Lambert Hendricks & Ross’ Redux. We just debuted it in New
York and got a wonderful write-up in the New York Times.
The Hues – What attracted you to that project?
Hendricks – I just thought it was a shame that Dave had died and Annie was ill. So I got my daughter Aria who grew up with Lambert Hendricks & Ross and heard
friends. They grew up with it since they were 6-7 years old. And they both know all of the songs. And they sing well. We debuted in New York and went to Boston
and Providence, Rhode Island. Now we’re traveling all over the world. We’re going to tour with a big band next spring. We call it L. H. & R. Redux, which means
to do over again. It’s coming back as it should.
The Hues – And it must be neat doing it with your daughter.
Hendricks – It’s great. She’s great.
The Hues – One last question. What were some of your finest moments performing? What were some of the magical moments that you had performing?
Hendricks – We hold the record for the longest ‘one-nighter’ in show business. We were working in San Francisco at the ‘hungry i.’ We left there on a Wednesday
and flew to New York, on Friday flew to London and on Saturday we did a command performance for the Royal Family for charity. We flew back to New York on
Sunday and were back in San Francisco and worked on Tuesday at the ‘hungry i.’ It was the longest one-nighter in the history of show business.
We had so many great moments. When we played Las Vegas, none of the stars could hear us because we all worked at the same time. So Frank Sinatra paid for
another show for us to do so that everyone else could come. Peggy Lee and all of the other great stars came and saw us. It was great. Frank Sinatra paid for it.
He loved us. They all loved us. Tony Bennett, all those stars and all of the music people loved us.
The Hues – That’s beautiful.
Hendricks – Yeah, it is. We are well loved and that is something that always makes me happy.
The Hues – I was listening to you on YouTube for a good portion of last night and it was a profound experience to really appreciate the effect you’ve had on
modern jazz.
Hendricks – Thank you.
The Hues – And it’s been such a beautiful, long career. To what do you attribute your longevity of basically being on the cutting edge for 50 years?
Hendricks – My wife. She cured her melanoma herself with the Gerson Diet. Dr. Gerson has been known to cure people with cancer using his special diet and
special regimen. My wife is a follower of his. So when she was diagnosed with melanoma, the doctors wanted to start her on chemotherapy and she instead went
to the Gerson Clinic in San Diego. She was there a month and she got the regimen that consisted of a diet of all organically grown foods and 18 juices a day of
vegetables and fruits. And she cured the melanoma. She put me on the diet and I’ve been feeling better ever since. This was about four years ago. So I think
that’s the reason why for my age I look so young. The American Medical Association is totally against the Gerston therapy. But at the same time, under their
regimen, we have the highest rate of death from cancer on the Planet Earth. So one of them is wrong. I prefer to think it’s the American Medical Association and
not Dr. Gerson because my wife not only cured her melanoma, but she also had a 22 year old back problem and that’s gone. Gerson can be found on line. He
has books that he has published.
The Hues – It seems to me, just in terms of listening, like vocalese filled in the huge gaps between instruments and voices. It just seemed to fill in that whole
territory in between them.
Hendricks – That’s a very interesting thing you just said because John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet when he introduced Lambert, Hendricks & Ross at the
Monterey Jazz Festival said ‘Lambert Hendricks & Ross are the bridge between the jazz instrumentalist and the jazz listener.’ That’s what you just said. It’s very
interesting.
The Hues – With the words turning into instrumental sounds, you almost sounded like an alto sax at one point.
Hendricks – Yes, that’s another thing about it. You’re supposed to sound as much like the instrument and the soloist as you possibly can.
The Hues – And how do you get all of those different sounds out of the same mouth?
Hendricks – You sing what you hear. It’s a matter of mimicry.
The Hues – And I would imagine many, many hours of practice then.
Hendricks – Yes, you have to listen a lot to learn those soloists because they don’t slow down.
The Hues – And it just seems that you do it so effortlessly.
Hendricks – I think that comes from the love of the music. Dave Lambert, Annie Ross and I were all lovers of jazz music. And we knew and loved all of the people
who played jazz. So it was easy for us to imitate them because of the great feeling we had for them.
The Hues – How did the three of you hook up together?
Hendricks – At first, it was Dave Lambert and I. We had this idea. Dave Lambert was talking to me and he said ‘Why don’t we do something artistic before we die
so that the earth can know that we were here?’ I said ‘What would you suggest?’ He said ‘Well, you write good lyrics and we both love Count Basie, so why don’t
you write ten Count Basie arrangements and I will score them and we’ll try to get a radio company to record them?’ And I said ‘Do you know how long it takes to
write one Basie arrangement with all of the notes given words that rhyme and tell a story?’ He said ‘Well, do you have anything else to do?’ And I picked up the
pencil and pad and started writing right then and there.
We were starving. We were hardly eating one meal a day. We didn’t have any money. We were broke. Times were tough then. That was in the early 1950s. We
were literally starving to death slowly. Sometimes we would get up in the morning and there would be a few grains of coffee in the coffee jar. We would put them
in the pot and put hot water on that, enough to make two cups. It would be weak, but it would start us out. And then we would go out on the streets and see what
we could come up with. Some days we were just lucky. Dave was well known. He would get a record date now and then. That would get us $300 a piece and
that would last us a couple of months. We had a record date once, four starving people. It was Dave, myself, a tap dancer named Bunny Briggs who also sang
and another singer. So I stood next to Bunny Briggs and I couldn’t read. So Dave passed out music sheets. He had worked with Tommy Dorsey and a lot of
people. I said to Dave ‘You know I can’t read.’ He said ‘Just sing a third above Bunny Briggs.’ I got through the whole record making only two mistakes. After the
day was over, I said to Bunny ‘You know Bunny, I’m glad I stood next to you.’ He said ‘Why?’ I said ‘Well, I can’t read.’ And he said ‘I can’t read either.’ I just
looked up and said ‘There is a God.’ Isn’t that something?
The Hues – So you guys were definitely spiritually inspired or something.
Hendricks – Oh yeah! We never got discouraged. We never thought about giving up or anything like that. That was never in our minds. There was a guy named
Jones who had a restaurant. And he had a wife that was interested in our music. And so Dave wrote a lot of arrangements for her and in return gave us one meal
a day. That meal did help us because we could get through breakfast and lunch without much problem because we knew we had some dinner. And that lasted
about six months. We did various things and took various jobs. We survived until Dave came up with this idea. And then we walked uptown. We walked from West
4th Street to 57th, basically about 52 blocks, because we didn’t have money for the subway. They said it cost more money to record singers to have 15 voices
than it does to record musicians. They just couldn’t afford it although they said it was great stuff. There was a new record label, AmPar, created by the American
Broadcasting Company and Paramount Pictures. They hired this young guy named Creed Taylor who later did Impulse Records and became very famous. He
had just graduated from Duke and he heard us. He said it was fantastic and that he would see what he could do. He arranged for us to do it. The album took off
the minute it was released and became Number One all over the world.
Sinatra and the whole Rat Pack and Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin and all those guys were big fans of ours. All the movie people, everyone was a fan of ours.
The Hues – Did any of your music end up in their films?
Hendricks – There was a scene in a Frank Sinatra film where one of our records was on the jukebox. And then I did an appearance in a movie where I sang ‘Bye
Bye Blackbird.’ I also appeared with the Al Pacino film ‘People I Know.’
The Hues – What do you make of today’s jazz scene?
Hendricks – It is in dire trouble because it is in the United States. The United States is a completely deculturalized country. That’s why I am teaching here. They
made me a distinguished professor of jazz. They gave me a doctorate in the performing arts. They gave me tenure. Well they gave me everything. The United
States of America is the only country in the world that disdains its own cultural art form because it came from the slaves, its most despised segment. They have
built opera houses in every big American city and opera is Italian culture. So they are celebrating the culture of another country. They have a Shakespeare
performing company in every city in America and that’s English culture. They have a great art museum in every city in America; that’s French culture. They
have subsidized ballet companies in every city in America. That’s Russian culture. That’s European culture. They have nothing for their own culture. And they
have hundreds of thousands of young American people with no knowledge of their own culture. And that’s what I am here to alleviate.
The Hues – With jazz, we don’t pay for it, but it seems to be imbued in a lot of commercials and movies and a lot of places. You almost can’t get away from it
and yet it is a very poorly supported art form.
Hendricks – But at the same time, while it’s so poorly supported in its country of origin, it is very, very big in every other country in the world. In Italy, did you know
there 2,500 jazz festivals every year? Every little town in Italy has a jazz festival. In the south of France, there are 50-60 jazz festivals. Spain has jazz festivals all
the time. Scandinavian countries have jazz festivals. They all celebrate our culture. But this country is completely deculturalized. And they lied about their own
culture. They said it started in the whorehouses of New Orleans, which is a lie. When it started, America didn’t even own New Orleans; the French owned it. It was
called ‘La Territoire de Louisiana’ after King Louis XIV who owned it. His vacation town was Orleans. So he named the city Nouveau Orleans or New Orleans. It
was under the French that jazz was born because the Anglo Saxons allowed the slaves no history so you had only songs of suffering and the spirituals. But the
French baptized the slaves because they couldn’t be associated with anyone who wasn’t in the Church. The sacrament of Baptism conferred the brotherhood
and sisterhood of man. So they cohabitated together. So you have octoroons and quadroons in Louisiana. They gave the slaves cast-off instruments, which no
one else did. And that’s where jazz comes from. And the music is the music of the church. No one knows that because they don’t culturally teach their own
culture. I’m the only jazz teacher who is teaching what really happened. America should be ashamed of itself.
The Hues – And proud of itself in the sense that jazz is its native son.
Hendricks – Yes. All of us are more popular in Europe than they are here. Quincy Jones became popular in Europe. He lived in Paris. He got the Legion of
Honor. So did I. I got it last D-Day at the anniversary commemoration.
The Hues – So I see that your kids are involved in jazz.
Hendricks – Oh yeah.
The Hues – Given all of the suffering that you went through, was that okay with you?
Hendricks – Oh sure! I look at jazz as one of the great cultures of the world. It’s just civilized. Someone has to represent the culture. Now there are more and more
children who are taking it up. That’s really great.
The Hues – Jazz is so light. In spite of any struggle it has, you can never keep jazz down.
Hendricks – No, it is too strong for mere hatred. Hatred doesn’t stand a chance against this music. It’s never been able to kill it. And there are more and more
White kids who are taking part in it now than ever before. And that’s going to do a lot toward alleviating this terrible discrimination that jazz has experienced.
Finally, there is that great house cleaner death. Thank God it comes to every man. The dumb bastards die off and then it’s just going to be a lot better for the rest
of us. Do you know the comedian Moms Mabley? ‘You’re not supposed to say anything about the dead unless you say something good.’ ‘Are they dead?’ ‘Good!’
She was so funny.
The Hues – I read that you are applying vocalese to some classical compositions.
Hendricks – Yes, I’ve already done Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto Number Two. I’ve reorganized Lambert Hendricks & Ross’ Redux. We just debuted it in New
York and got a wonderful write-up in the New York Times.
The Hues – What attracted you to that project?
Hendricks – I just thought it was a shame that Dave had died and Annie was ill. So I got my daughter Aria who grew up with Lambert Hendricks & Ross and heard
friends. They grew up with it since they were 6-7 years old. And they both know all of the songs. And they sing well. We debuted in New York and went to Boston
and Providence, Rhode Island. Now we’re traveling all over the world. We’re going to tour with a big band next spring. We call it L. H. & R. Redux, which means
to do over again. It’s coming back as it should.
The Hues – And it must be neat doing it with your daughter.
Hendricks – It’s great. She’s great.
The Hues – One last question. What were some of your finest moments performing? What were some of the magical moments that you had performing?
Hendricks – We hold the record for the longest ‘one-nighter’ in show business. We were working in San Francisco at the ‘hungry i.’ We left there on a Wednesday
and flew to New York, on Friday flew to London and on Saturday we did a command performance for the Royal Family for charity. We flew back to New York on
Sunday and were back in San Francisco and worked on Tuesday at the ‘hungry i.’ It was the longest one-nighter in the history of show business.
We had so many great moments. When we played Las Vegas, none of the stars could hear us because we all worked at the same time. So Frank Sinatra paid for
another show for us to do so that everyone else could come. Peggy Lee and all of the other great stars came and saw us. It was great. Frank Sinatra paid for it.
He loved us. They all loved us. Tony Bennett, all those stars and all of the music people loved us.
The Hues – That’s beautiful.
Hendricks – Yeah, it is. We are well loved and that is something that always makes me happy.
By Jonathan Gramling
On September 3, the Madison area will be graced with the appearance of Jon Hendricks, the legendary jazz artist, who
will be performing at Jazz at 5 in the 100 block of State Street. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hendricks was a
member of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, a pioneering jazz vocal group that was named Number One Jazz Vocal Group in the
World for five consecutive years. They were a favorite of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack.
Hendricks has been proclaimed the “Father of Vocalese,” a jazz form that takes standard jazz compositions and
substitutes vocal arrangements for instruments, effectively bridging the musical gulf between instrumental and vocal jazz.
Over the years, Hendricks has played with many jazz greats from Mel Torme to Maynard Ferguson. He has been an
influence on many contemporary performers including Manhattan Transfer, Al Jarreau and Bobby McFerrin.
At age 86, Hendricks is vitally active. He is a professor at the University of Toledo and performs with his daughter Aria.
| Jon Hendricks (l) with his daughter Aria |