Overview

If any man could be defined as the epitome of the modern jazz singer, it would surely be Jon Hendricks. His contributions to jazz as a whole were colossal: a hipster, a bopster, a comic and raconteur, a wordsmith par excellence, and a fearless improviser who took the arts of scatting and vocalese to new heights. As a founder member of the groundbreaking vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, he changed forever the public perception of what a jazz singer could be. Jon Hendricks started singing professionally at the age of seven. Within five years he was supporting his entire family - including three sisters, eleven brothers and a niece - with his earnings from radio appearances. He was active in jazz long before the birth of bebop, and didn't stop until he was in his nineties. Taught by the pioneering bebop pianist Art Tatum, Hendricks performed with everyone of any consequence in jazz, from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker. Before Lambert, Hendricks and Ross astonished the world with their album Sing A Song Of Basie, he was writing songs for Louis Jordan. Later he wrote for stage, screen and the press, and influenced and worked with Manhattan Transfer, Bobby McFerrin and Kurt Elling. Not content with writing lyrics for jazz instrumentals, he turned his hand later in life to classical works by Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninoff. When Jon Hendricks died in 2017, he left behind a final masterwork - his fully-lyricized adaptation of the Miles Davis album Miles Ahead.

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9781781798744

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Reviews

Pre-Publication Reviews The paradox of death-defying difficulty masked as simplicity was the street Jon Hendricks lived on... The story [is] recounted so eloquently by Peter Jones. Kirk Whalum, Saxophonist Not a dry eye when reading this - Jon's personality truly jumps right out of these pages. And though I was fortunate enough to have known Jon a little bit through my upbringing, this book introduces me to the Jon I hadn't had the chance to know. I am grateful that he can now be introduced in this way to everyone else who reads this book! Wonderful work Peter, thank you! Veronica Swift, jazz singer

Peter Jones chronicles all this with unflinching clarity, so Hendricks is seen in the round, as it were, all his extravagant talent on view alongside his intensely human foibles and weaknesses. The resulting biography thus provides not only a fascinating survey of a career spanning the golden age of jazz, but also an intriguing study of a complex, many-layered character. --Parker, Chris, London Jazz News, November 2020

Author Information

Peter Jones is a jazz singer and journalist based in London. He read English at St Peter's College, Oxford, and has an MA in Film and Television Studies from the University of Westminster. For several years he played bass in a jazz sextet, before deciding to concentrate on singing. He has two albums: 'One Way Ticket to Palookaville' - 2013 and 'Utopia' -2016. He is the author of the award winning This is Hip: The Life of Mark Murphy (Equinox, 2018).

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