Bill Henderson: Jazz with a Smiling Voice

I’ve been a Bill Henderson fan forever―or at least since the days when was Joey was in steady rotation on Symphony Sid’s midnight jazz show on WADO in New York City. I owned his first album on Vee Jay records, his Verve recording with Oscar Peterson, and have picked up various other recordings over the years. About 10 years ago, Henderson appeared at the Kennedy Center and I was all over it. He did a fine show and, amazingly, his voice was just as it was when he did Joey―someone in the audience called it out as a request and Henderson laughed and said the requester was going WAY back. The guy sitting next to me summed it up: “He sounds exactly the same”!

You don’t have to take my word for it, though. Check out Bill Henderson’s last recording: Live at the Vic, made in 2007, just after he  turned 81. It’s not a great record just because his voice sounds so youthful, though. It's because his sound and phrasing are so delightful. The best way to put it is that Henderson always sang with a smile in his voice―sometimes joyous, often wry, and occasionally melancholy, but always warmly there.  Some of the high points of this recording include a great version of Never Make Your Move Too Soon, an extraordinary extended version of That Old Black Magic, and some of his personal standards, like A Sleeping Bee and You Are My Sunshine. I haven’t enjoyed a jazz vocal album so much in a long time.

There’s not a whole lot from this album on line, but The Song is You is pretty representative. I hope you enjoy it and check out more Bill Henderson.

Drums of Passion

Once upon a time in a decade far, far away, a big-time record producer named John Hammond heard some African drumming at a concert and -- here's the fairy tale aspect -- without the use of focus groups or checking with the suits, just because he liked the music, he signed the artist to a record contract. The result? Babatunde Olatunji's Drums of Passion, perhaps the first "world music" record released commercially, sold 5 million copies and became one of the most influential recordings of its time. It's been 50 years, but its impact still reverberates today.

When I was growing up in New Jersey, I listened regularly to WINS in New York. It's all-news now, but in those days, it was a key rock and roll station. In the evening, the jock was Murray Kaufman, or "Murray the K", as he liked to call himself.(Later, he dubbed himself "The Fifth Beatle" -- no way). As background music, he sometimes played an African-sounding piece of music that featured a vocalist singing what sounded like "Akiwawa"; this became a catchphrase in my set. When I started listening to Symphony Sid Torin's all-night jazz show on WADO, he played the same piece, identifying the artist as Babatunde Olatunji and the album from which it was taken as Drums of Passion. He also played Odunde (Happy New Year) and Shango, an invocation to the Yoruba god of thunder. I was hooked. I asked my dad to buy me the album and, good dad that he was, he complied, although my parents thought popular music ended when Glenn Miller's plane went down. Looking back, it was a gateway though which I heightened my appreciation of all kinds of music.

I wasn't the only one. Bob Dylan referenced Olatunji on The Freewheling Bob Dylan" and John Coltrane, Freddy Hubbard, and other jazz musicians listened and learned, as did Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead. I believe Baba's music was key to the development not only of Coltrane's music but, through Trane, of the whole corpus of late Sixties and Seventies "spiritual jazz", of which I'll have more to say in future posts. Baba joined Martin Luther King's March on Washington but made his greatest contribution to America and the world by making his music available to listeners everywhere. Drums of Passion is available on CD, so do yourself a favor and pick it up. Odunde!