Jon Hendricks

Jon Hendricks was a jazz songwriter and vocalist known for the style of singing called "vocalese". With a mix of words and scat singing, it involved adding lyrics to complicated jazz tunes with voices to mimic the sound of instruments. He achieved fame in the 1950s as a member of the vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross and when they disbanded he had a long solo career as well as periods with new groups such as Jon Hendricks and Company. His career ebbed and flowed over the decades and he spent time as a teacher and a newspaper critic. He remained active until his death aged 96 in 2017.

Born in Ohio, Hendricks sang publicly as a child and by his teenage years he was a regular on radio singing with pianist Art Tatum. After military service during World War II, a chance meeting with saxophonist Charlie Parker led him to move to New York where in 1957 he met singer and orchestrator Dave Lambert. He wrote lyrics for numbers by Count Basie, which Lambert arranged, and then British singer Annie Ross joined them for the album 'Sing a Song of Basie' that launched the trio's career in 1957. Ross departed in 1962 and after Lambert died in a road accident in '66, Hendricks went his own way. He spent some time in England and his song 'Yeah Yeah' was a hit for Brit Georgie Fame. Then he moved to California where he taught at university and wrote jazz reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle. He wrote a stage show titled 'Evolution of the Blues' and created Jon Hendricks and Company, which continued the style of his earlier trio.

In 1986, he shared a Grammy Award with Bobby McFerrin for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Male, for 'Another Night in Tunisia', a track he wrote with music by Dizzy Gillespie for the vocal group Manhattan Transfer. He wrote the lyrics for the entire album using music by jazz stars such as Benny Golson, Sonny Rollins, Ray Charles and Count Basie, and it won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance By a Duo Or Group. He moved back to Ohio in 2000 and taught at university there but continued to perform and write lyrics to music by a wide range of composers from Thelonious Monk to George Gershwin and Rimsky-Korsakov. He completed lyrics for all the instrumental tracks on the iconic album 'Miles Ahead' by Miles Davis and Gil Evans and in 2017 he attended its debut in New York performed by the British choir, The London Vocal Project. The show was recorded for a future album release.