![\"\"](\"http:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/hendricks-by-Dan-2.jpg\" "\\"Hendricks\\"")
<\/a>UT music students have the chance to learn jazz history from a man who helped shape it: Jon Hendricks.<\/p><\/div>\u201cI had to come and wake him up, and I came down to the boarding house \u2014 you know, Negroes couldn\u2019t stay in downtown hotels at that time; they had to come over to the Negro neighborhood, called the ghetto, and stay in somebody\u2019s house,\u201d the UT Distinguished Professor of Jazz recalled.<\/P><\/p>\n
\u201cHe took me for this walk and told me about his experiences in the streets of New Orleans singing on street corners. And I told him about my job selling newspapers up on the corner. And we exchanged incidents, and he said, \u2018You know, you remind me of me.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Oh sure, flattery,\u2019\u201d Hendricks said and then laughed. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018Yeah, you do \u2014 a lot!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It seems fitting that the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine presented its What a Wonderful World Award to Hendricks and three others last week in New York City.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur honorees are emulating the legacy of Louis Armstrong, a great musician and humanitarian,\u201d said Dr. Joanne Loewy, director of the center named after the trumpeter and singer at the Beth Israel Medical Center. \u201cEach one of them is making a difference in the lives of many people, and we are pleased to recognize and celebrate their contributions and achievements.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very honored. [The award] means everything to me,\u201d Hendricks said prior to a concert in Toledo to celebrate his 91st birthday. \u201c[Armstrong] was a beautiful man, a great soul. Meeting him was one of the best things that ever happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lot of incredible things have happened to the legend, who struck a lasting note in the music world.<\/p>\n
Hendricks, who was born in Newark, Ohio, but grew up in Toledo, is considered the father of vocalese \u2014 the art of setting lyrics to established jazz standards. Time magazine dubbed him \u201cthe James Joyce of jive,\u201d and music critic Leonard Feather called him \u201cthe poet laureate of jazz.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1957, he formed the jazz vocal group Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. The trio refined vocalese, whereby voices are arranged to sing the parts of instruments. Vocalists Bobby McFerrin, Al Jarreau and the Manhattan Transfer cite the group\u2019s work as a major influence.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything for me started right here in Toledo,\u201d the superstar said. \u201cWhen I was 12 or 13, I stood in front of the juke box at Stanley Cowell\u2019s hamburger joint on Indiana Avenue and learned every song. And when people would come up to play it, I\u2019d say, \u2018What are you going to play?\u2019 And they\u2019d say, \u2018What\u2019s it to you?\u2019 I said, \u2018Give me the nickel, I\u2019ll sing it.\u2019 And they\u2019d say, \u2018I\u2019d like to hear that.\u2019 So they\u2019d give the nickel and I\u2019d sing them the song they were going to play. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs I look back on it, that\u2019s where vocalese came from,\u201d Hendricks said, adding that story and plenty more will be in his autobiography, Mind on Fire,<\/em> he\u2019s writing.<\/p>\n The honor from the center named for Satchmo is one of many for the jazz singer. He has won Emmy, Peabody and Grammy awards. His name was added to the Jazz Wall of Fame of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. And he earned a National Endowment for the Arts\u2019 Jazz Masters Fellowship and France\u2019s highest civilian commendation: the Legion of Honor in the class of knight or chevalier.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m proud of the fact that I\u2019ve given my life over to the [music] culture that my people left this country. And although some of them didn\u2019t do anything to make [jazz] what it should be, it\u2019s become one of the best-known cultural art forms in the world,\u201d Hendricks said.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are swinging all over the world; they\u2019re swinging everywhere but in America. It sounds awful, but it\u2019s true. We have the most popular cultural art form, and we do every other one but ours. Where is it on TV? Where is it on radio? Where is it? Where is it in civilization?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jon Hendricks, UT Distinguished Professor of Jazz, received the What a Wonderful World Award from the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}