Jazz Legend Jon Hendricks Celebrates 94th Birthday
The master musician has pioneered the vocalese style in jazz music.
September 16th was the 94th birthday of Jon Hendricks, a jazz musician who has revolutionized one area of jazz performance: vocalese. Hendricks decided to take famous, intricate solos played on recordings on various instruments and make songs from these ‘tunes’ by embellishing them with lyrics. He is the father of this genre of jazz. Jon Hendricks has led the famous groups Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and Lambert and later Hendricks and Bavan. These groups brought to life – in voice - the famous instrumental works of Art Farmer, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Parker and many others. Hendricks has, for the past few years, been performing with his daughter Michelle in the same style. Many vocalese bands, the Manhattan Transfer among others have emerged as a result of Hendricks’ concepts.
In the 1980s, Carmen MacRae sang an album of Thelonius Monk tunes, Carmen Sings Monk, for most of which Jon Hendricks had written lyrics.
Jon Hendricks lives and performs out of New York city.
