Fletcher Henderson

• Born: December 18, 1897
• Birthplace: Cuthbert, Georgia
• Died: December 29, 1952
• Place of death: New York, New York

American jazz composer, arranger, and pianist

Henderson’s orchestra was one of the foremost in jazz throughout the 1920’s and early 1930’s, and he is credited with increasing the size of the standard big band. He was also a prominent arranger, contributing several of Benny Goodman’s most famous arrangements.

Member of The Fletcher Henderson All Stars; Fletcher Henderson’s Sextet

The Life

Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr., was raised in a musical household by his father, Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Sr., and his mother, Ozie, a pianist and music teacher. Henderson began piano lessons at the age of six, and he was trained exclusively in European music with little exposure to the black folk tradition. He attended Atlanta University as a chemistry and mathematics major, and he moved to New York in 1920 to begin a career as a chemist. Opportunities for black chemists were few at the time, and Henderson took work as a musician.

Henderson’s first position in New York City was as a song demonstrator for Pace-Handy Music Company, playing new songs on the piano to potential customers. In 1921 Harry Pace left the company and established Black Swan, the first record company owned and operated by blacks and devoted to black artists. Pace took Henderson to Black Swan, where his responsibilities included accompanying singers at the keyboard for their recordings (particularly blues singers, as blues music was growing immensely popular in black communities) and assembling and leading bands to back up the singers.

By 1923 Henderson had established a band that, in addition to accompanying singers for recordings, was performing regularly at dances and cabarets. That year Henderson’s band, primarily a dance band, won an audition at Club Alabam. The group held a residency at Roseland, a ballroom club, in 1924. As music from the New Orleans and Chicago Dixieland groups gradually infiltrated New York, Henderson’s orchestra began to turn to jazz.

By 1927 Henderson’s orchestra was one of the most popular in the field. Henderson frequently sought out the best soloists, employing at various times players such as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Rex Stewart. He also employed Don Redman, a reed player who arranged many songs for the group. In 1927 Redman left the group to arrange for McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, leaving Henderson scrambling for arrangements.

In 1928 Henderson injured his head in a car accident. Prior to the accident, Henderson was known for being timid and ineffective as a leader, and the head injury possibly exacerbated these problems. His band members took advantage of Henderson’s condition, showing up late to rehearsals and recording sessions, which resulted in erratic performance quality.

Henderson was too willing to turn over creative control of his group. In 1929 he accepted the firing of many of his players by a white revue conductor, which led to the breakup of the band. Henderson worked on rebuilding the band until 1931, when the group started recording again. Finding himself without an arranger, Henderson was forced to write some arrangements himself, launching a new career.

Henderson’s band performed until 1934, when the members, tired of Henderson’s lax leadership, turned in their notices all at once. The next year, a financially despondent Henderson sold a group of arrangements to Benny Goodman, who was in need of new music for his radio spot Let’s Dance. Henderson’s superb arrangements were partly responsible for Goodman’s rapid rise to fame, and in 1939 Goodman hired Henderson as his arranger.

Henderson repeatedly tried to assemble bands throughout the 1930’s and into the 1940’s, but none was as successful or as stable as his late 1920’s and early 1930’s bands. In the 1940’s, Henderson toured as the pianist and arranger for Ethel Waters, a singer with whom he worked at Black Swan. In 1950 Henderson suffered a stroke, and he died two years later.

The Music

Although Henderson was often ineffective at motivating his band members to perform to the best of their abilities, he excelled at finding the best soloists for his groups, often launching his band members into lengthy jazz careers. Hawkins was easily Henderson’s star soloist, playing in the orchestra for ten years and becoming the most prominent tenor saxophonist in jazz until he was upstaged by Lester Young (who replaced Hawkins in Henderson’s orchestra). Henderson hired the young Armstrong, who played in the band for a little more than a year, leaving because he felt he did not get enough solo time on recordings. At various times Henderson employed cornetist Stewart, alto saxophonist Benny Carter, trombonist Benny Morton, and trumpeter Cootie Williams, among many others.

Henderson’s arranging style owes a large debt to Redman, his arranger until 1927. From Redman, Henderson learned to create a balance between scored passages for the band and improvised solo sections. Henderson’s arrangements are clean and economical, avoiding the cumbersome complexities of Ferde Grofé’s writing for Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. Henderson often wrote in unusual keys for jazz, expecting a high level of musicianship from his players.

Early Works. Redman’s arrangements allowed soloists unprecedented freedom, particularly compared with the most prolific band of the day, Whiteman’s orchestra. Usually doctored stock arrangements, Redman’s arrangements were playful, witty renderings of popular songs.

Armstrong made a significant impact on Henderson’s orchestra during the early years. Though his stay in the group was brief (from September, 1924, to November, 1925), his hot soloing pushed the group members to play in a more jazzy, New Orleans style, as opposed to the dance style of the band’s roots. Redman changed his arranging to accommodate the rising star, though neither he nor Henderson ever thought to put Armstrong in a vocal role, a deciding factor in Armstrong’s decision to leave.

“Sugar Foot Stomp.”A Redman reworking of King Oliver’s “Dippermouth Blues,” the Henderson orchestra’s first recording showcases Armstrong, who brought the original Oliver manuscript with him from Chicago. One of Henderson’s personal favorites, this recording helped to make the Henderson band famous. In the 1930’s, Henderson reworked Redman’s version, recording it several times. This piece was one of the arrangements that Henderson sold to Goodman in 1935, and it became a staple in Goodman’s repertory. “Sugar Foot Stomp” was also recorded by numerous other groups during the swing era.

“King Porter Stomp.”This piece showcases the talent of the Henderson orchestra to create head arrangements (pieces composed collectively by a band over a number of rehearsals and performances). “King Porter Stomp” began as a ragtime piece written and recorded by Jelly Roll Morton, and it was released as a stock arrangement in 1924. Henderson’s band first recorded it in 1925, when Armstrong was in the group, but for reasons unknown, that recording was never released. The subsequent 1928 recording, however, was colored by Armstrong’s original interpretation, and it was characterized by strings of solos mixed with ensemble riffs. The piece was reworked in 1932 and released as “New King Porter Stomp,” featuring a faster tempo and elimination of the two-beat bass style of ragtime in favor of the four-beat style that characterized music of the swing era. The band released another recording in 1933, removing the “new” from the title and making changes in the solo structure. Through these years, the piece remained a head arrangement. It was not written down until Henderson sold it to Goodman for the Let’s Dance program, and it consequently became one of swing’s biggest hits.

“Down South Camp Meeting.”Composed and arranged by Henderson in 1934, “Down South Camp Meeting” (with another Henderson original, “Wrappin’ It Up”) was recorded for Decca Records shortly before the Henderson band broke up. The title refers to a Southern black Pentecostal revival, reflecting Decca’s developing interest in “race” records, products aimed at the black audience. This piece is similar to “King Porter Stomp” in that it features the band’s sections set against one another in call-and-response figures and in phrase structure (once it leaves a phrase, it does not return to that phrase for the rest of the piece). However, it is not a head arrangement, and it features few solos (in Henderson’s recording, only the trumpeter Red Allen solos). This piece was sold to Goodman with only minor changes, though the slower tempo that Goodman preferred removes the lively quality of the Henderson orchestra’s original recording.

“Blue Skies.”Beginning as a Tin Pan Alley song by Irving Berlin, “Blue Skies” was memorably featured in the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), sung by Al Jolson. While the song was popular, it did not become a jazz standard until Henderson’s 1935 arrangement for Goodman. The introduction to this arrangement features an unusual dissonance, picturesquely representing the storm before the blue skies (as described by Henderson in a 1938 radio broadcast). The arrangement features the aaba Tin Pan Alley melody prominently, but Henderson expertly mixes the standard format with big band figures such as call-and-response and improvised solos. This piece was one of Goodman’s favorites, and he included it on the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert.

Musical Legacy

Without Henderson, big band jazz may have taken a different turn. Although Whiteman helped establish the saxophone as a standard jazz instrument, it was Henderson and his orchestra that established the saxophone as a solo instrument. Henderson also expanded the big band format to include three trumpets and two trombones, while his former arranger Redman later expanded the saxophone section to include four players.

Henderson’s group was one of the most popular in jazz in its time, but Henderson was mostly forgotten by the time of his death. Interest in this key figure has resurged, allowing Henderson the prominence he deserves as a jazz innovator.

Bibliography

Collier, James Lincoln. The Making of Jazz. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978. Collier includes a chapter on Henderson’s life and his innovative arrangements, connecting his personality with his musical style. Includes illustrations and discography.

Hadlock, Richard. Jazz Masters of the 1920’s. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972. This book includes a chapter on Henderson and Redman, focusing on Henderson’s band members and the contributions of Henderson and Redman to later big band jazz. Includes discography.

Magee, Jeffrey. The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Magee’s book offers a comprehensive look at Henderson’s life and music, delving deeply into his arrangements and the influences on his musical life. Includes illustrations, musical examples, and a catalog of Henderson’s arrangements for Goodman.

Oliphant, Dave. The Early Swing Era, 1930-1941. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. Oliphant details the history and the influence of Henderson’s bands and his instrumental position in Goodman’s orchestra. Includes illustrations.

Schuller, Gunther. Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Schuller details several of Henderson’s arrangements and recordings. Includes discography.

Principal Recordings

albums:Fletcher Henderson’s Sextet, 1950 (with Fletcher Henderson’s Sextet); The Big Reunion, 1957 (with Fletcher Henderson’s All Stars).

singles (solo): “Charleston Crazy,” 1923; “Down South Blues,” 1923; “Just Hot,” 1923; “Naughty Man,” 1924; “Sud Bustin’ Blues,” 1924; “Florida Stomp,” 1925; “Get It Fixed,” 1925; “Hey Foot Straw Horse,” 1925; “King Porter Stomp,” 1925; “Sugar Foot Stomp,” 1925; “Dynamite,” 1926; “Hard to Get Gertie,” 1926; “Hi Diddle Diddle,” 1926; “Honeybunch,” 1926; “Snag It,” 1927; “I’m Feeling Devilish,” 1928; “Keep a Song in Your Soul,” 1930; “Oh It Looks Like Rain,” 1931; “Poor Old Joe,” 1932; “Sing Sing Sing,” 1932; “Down South Camp Meeting,” 1934; “Happy as the Day Is Long,” 1934; “Hocus Pocus,” 1934; “Wrappin’ It Up,” 1934; “Christopher Columbus,” 1936 (with Leon Berry); “Knock Knock Who’s There,” 1936.