He was a singer and jazz lyricist born in Newark, Ohio, as one of 15 children whose father was a pastor. He moved to Toledo with his family and went to Toledo University to study law after he had completed his military service in the Army in WWII.
He began singing on the radio with Art Tatum prior to the war and after he gave up University he moved to New York to pursue a career in music. He became part of the trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross in 1957 and together they introduced the art of vocalese, which is adding lyrics to instrumental songs, to an international audience and Melody Maker awarded them “Number One Vocal Group in the World” five years running. In 1968 after the group had disbanded he moved to London with his family and became well known to British audiences.
He moved back to America in 1973 and became a teacher at the California State University as well as Berkeley, a critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and from 2000 he was Distinguished Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Toledo where he received an honorary doctorate and formed the group Jon Hendricks Vocalastra.
During the terms of Presidents Carter, Reagan and Clinton he served as a member of the Kennedy Center Honors Committee. Artists such as Al Jarreau and Bobby McFerrin were influenced by him as well as Manhattan Transfer, who he collaborated with for their album Vocalese , which received seven Grammy Awards.
As a writer, he has written Evolution of the Blues which ran in the theatre for five years, and Somewhere to Rest my Weary Head which was an Emmy winning documentary.
He wrote lyrics for vocalese versions of classical music and has premiered Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade and Rachmaninov’s “Piano Concerto No. 2”.
He continued writing and recording right into his 90s and the final concert he attended was the premier of his lyricisation of the Miles Ahead album with solos by Miles Davis and orchestration by Gil Evans and performed by the UK based London Vocal Project in New York in 2017.
He passed away later in 2017 in Manhattan, New York, when he was 96 years old.
Matt Bianco Recordings
Yeh Yeh (Rodgers Grant/Pat Patrick/Jon Hendricks)
https://youtu.be/vXTOyRuC6-c
Sources: