[Dixielandjazz] Jon Hendricks interviewed, Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2011

[Robert Ringwald]

Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2011
"Man, I got words for everything." Jon Hendricks says, and he means it. Mr. Hendricks,
who celebrated his 90th birthday on Friday, has for 60 years reigned as the No. 1
wordsmith of jazz: He's not only written lyrics to jazz compositions and solos by
everyone from Count Basie to Thelonious Monk (and sung with nearly all of them as
well), he's also had hit songs in both the pop and the R&B category, and more recently
even penned a libretto to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade."
Surely no other singer-songwriter is ringing in his 10th decade with two major --
and entirely different -- concerts in two of the world's major culture capitals.
This Saturday, in a special 90th-birthday concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Mr.
Hendricks will mostly recap his past and choose from his many classics (although
every Hendricks show includes at least a couple of new pieces). Then, on Nov. 14
in London, he will unveil his latest and most ambitious work: an hourlong cycle of
songs based on "Miles Ahead," the milestone jazz album by Miles Davis and Gil Evans.
Mr. Hendricks is best known for what was a comparatively brief period of his life:
1956-61, when he co-led Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. His collaboration with David
Lambert stretches for more years on both sides, but in a very short time LHR completely
transformed the use of the human voice in jazz. Using Mr. Hendricks's lyrics, the
group sang words to iconic jazz instrumentals and solos, and swung harder and with
more hip humor than any other vocal ensemble before or since.
In a phone interview from his Battery Park apartment, Mr. Hendricks recalls that
as a 10-year-old in Toledo, Ohio, he had to be forced to take his music lessons,
which were given by a local piano prodigy (13 years older than Mr. Hendricks) named
Art Tatum. "He was so arrogant. He would say, 'sing this!' I would sing and he would
play back the notes I missed." Mr. Hendricks's father, a Methodist minister, had
attended theological school with the father of another jazz legend, Thomas "Fats"
Waller. "Fats knew he had to come pay us a call every time he came through Toledo,
or his father would whip his ass. He also knew he couldn't bring liquor in our house,
so he paid one of my little friends to stand outside the window and hand him a taste
whenever he got thirsty."
Mr. Hendricks remembers that he first started thinking of lyrics at the age of 11;
he would hear songs that didn't quite make sense and would rewrite them in his head.
This led to a fascination with adding words to big-band numbers. He put music on
hold, however, for most of his 20s, when he served in the Navy during World War II
and then attended law school. But, encouraged by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie,
he came to New York in 1950 to seek his fortune in the music business.
His original goal was not only to work with Lambert, whose early recordings had impressed
Mr. Hendricks, but also to meet Davis, since he had already written words to one
of the trumpeter's compositions. "So when I got to New York, I went to see Dizzy
at Birdland and Miles walked out. I walked over to him and I said 'Miles!' He turned
around and said, 'Who the f--k are you?' I told him I had written lyrics for his
tune, and I wanted to sing them for him. He started to raise his hands to my neck,
and I was terrified because even then Miles was known to throw a knockout punch.
I thought he was going to strangle me -- but he just was reaching over to straighten
my bowtie."
In the early 1950s, Lambert and Mr. Hendricks experimented, with little reward, with
a number of ideas and collaborators, including a famous session with Parker and Evans.
Their fortunes began to turn after they teamed up with the young singer-lyricist
Annie Ross and released the landmark album "Sing a Song of Basie" in 1957. That record
-- and the half dozen or so that followed -- were so well received that the three
singers toured as a team for five years afterward.
Ms. Ross left the group in 1962, and Lambert was killed in a road accident in 1966.
But Ms. Ross and Mr. Hendricks have occasionally reunited over the years, most recently
at the Blue Note in June. "It was wonderful," he said of his old partner. "It was
better than I thought it was going to be. Because we don't have the voices that we
used to have. But when Annie gets started, you don't miss nothing, you know? She
just puts so much into it that it sounds great. Annie is like Judy Garland up there,
just the greatest."
He's enjoyed an even longer relationship with his wife, Judith, whom he has been
with since 1954; Percy Heath, the late brother of the saxophonist Jimmy Heath (who
is sharing the JALC concert with Mr. Hendricks on Wednesday), was his best man. She
is Caucasian and he is African-American, and the sight of the couple holding hands
would literally stop traffic in the '50s: "We would walk into Lindy's and the whole
place got suddenly silent for what seemed like forever," Mr. Hendricks says. "I swear,
cars were literally driving into each other."
Mr. Hendricks claims that he hasn't yet planned anything specific for the JALC show
on Saturday ("Hey man, I'm a jazz singer," he says with a laugh), but a number of
his proteges, including Bobby McFerrin and the young Sachal Vasandani, have been
announced, along with the acclaimed Dianne Reeves and Mr. Hendricks's daughters,
Aria and Michelle. The London "Miles Ahead" concert will feature a full choir singing
the orchestral parts while Mr. Hendricks assumes the soloist's role originally written
for Miles Davis. "I'm using a choir that worked with Bobby [McFerrin], so I know
they're good," he says. "I got the original arrangements from Gil's wife. And they
are some of the best lyrics that I have ever written."
Following "Miles Ahead," he plans to extend his de facto collaboration with his old
friends Evans and Davis by adapting their arrangement of "Porgy and Bess" as a stage
production. He has no plans to stop working. "I never put much stock in dying. I
think it's an insult to the one who gave us life," he says. "You know, people ask
me what I'm going to do now that I'm 90. I say I'm going to wait to be 91."


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
530/ 642-9551 Office
916/ 806-9551 Cell
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I used to love the days when you could look at an unattended bag on a train or bus and think to yourself
"I'm going to take that."