Jon Hendricks – Fast Livin’ Blues (1962/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 36:32 minutes | 351 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Music Manager

Presented here, for the first time ever on CD, is the complete original Jon Hendricks LP Fast Livin’ Blues (Columbia CS-8605), which showcases the singer backed by a small group including such stars as Joe Newman, Pony Poindexter, Billy Mitchell, and Al Grey. The song “Don’t Mess Around with My Love”, which completes the album’s sessions but was only issued on a long out of print LP compilation of various artists, has been added here as a bonus, along with a complete performance from the same period that features Hendricks live in California backed by a small group.
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Jon Hendricks – Evolution of the Blues Song (1960/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:31 minutes | 470 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

Of the many projects Hendricks has been involved in, this is his crowning glory. It toured the country as a stage production, depicting the history of African-American roots music, from spirituals and field hollers to blues, gospel, and jazz. Hendricks recites signposts of the musical progression in rhyme, and singing here and there. Pony Poindexter plays a little tenor sax and talks about New Orleans, while Ike Isaacs’ trio backs the singers. An intro by Hendricks postulates that adults “have their minds made up, don’t confuse ’em with facts” and refers to musicians as “metaphysicians.” This is one of several pieces where the chorus hums while Hendricks tells his tale. African drums, serving as a call-and-response device, inform “Amo.” A slave story told in a Harry Belafonte style by Hendricks accents “Some Stopped on De Way,” while a spiritual rap precedes “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” Big Miller digs into a personalized gospel blues, “If I Had My Share,” and Witherspoon belts “Please Send Me Someone to Love” like only he can. A highlight is Miller’s “Sufferin’ Blues,” followed by Hendricks’ field holler “Aw, Gal” and Witherspoon’s groovin’ “C.C. (Circuit) Rider.” Poindexter returns on “Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid,” which includes references to jazz and Lester Young. The program ends with Witherspoon’s brilliant rendition of Big Bill Broonzy’s “Sun Gonna Shine,” Hendricks’ downtrodden take on “W.P.A. Blues,” and Big Miller’s turn on “Motherless Child.” If you’d like to get your children – or uninformed grown-ups – a quick, painless, enjoyable lesson in the last 100+ years of our American classical heritage, this is a perfect primer.
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Jon Hendricks – Before Us (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:20:04 minutes | 922 MB | Genre: Vocal Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © nagel heyer records

John Carl Hendricks (September 16, 1921 – November 22, 2017), known professionally as Jon Hendricks, was an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists, such as the big-band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He is considered one of the best practitioners of scat singing, which involves vocal jazz soloing. Jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather called him the “Poet Laureate of Jazz”, while Time dubbed him the “James Joyce of Jive”. Al Jarreau called him “pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet—maybe that’s ever been”
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