JON HENDRICKS was back in Ireland this weekend for the Guinness Jazz Festival in Cork, a quarter of a century since he was last here singing scat diddley-i with Tommy Makem, the Clancy Brothers, and Luke Kelly.
Scat diddley-i was a novel creation - a strange harmonisation of sean nos, scat and lilting - born, nurtured and perfected in a pub in Ashbourne, the Abbey stage in Dublin, and the Maccabi Hall in Kimmage, Dublin. Hasn't been heard since.
Wonderful Tribute
Unfortunately, Jon did not have an opportunity to impress the Cork punters this weekend with this esoteric art form. He was part of a wonderful tribute to the music of composer and saxist Benny Golson in the Cork Opera House. So the music was strictly Golson's music, some of which Jon has lyricised.
After the Cork bash, Jon heads for further concerts in Stuttgart and elsewhere in Europe, but later he plans to return to Ireland with his wife Judith. He wants to retrace old haunts, meet old friends, reminisce a bit. "That was a dream time," says Jon. Which is a good description of a period and experience that evokes a kind of Hibernian magic realism.
It was the late 1960s, and American alto saxist Jim Riley was doing his best to keep Ireland safe for jazz by running the Fox Inn in Ashbourne, Co Meath. Hardly New York, but Jim was staging great sessions featuring the best of the Irish heads and visiting artists such as Lee Konitz, Keith Jarrett Maynard Ferguson and Jon Hendricks.
As the Cork jazz aficionados learned this week Jon, nicknamed the "James Joyce of Jive", has a winning way with him. He played a few times in Ashbourne over a four year period, staying for about a week each time.
As a young man he studied literature and law in Toledo, Ohio. His interests are wide and varied. One night he teamed up with the Dublin artist Gerald Davis, himself a Joycean, who introduced him to a Dublin culture he found absolutely intriguing.
In the Maccabi Hall he met the late Luke Kelly, of the Dubliners. "Luke was a lovely man, and his wife Deirdre was a princess. On stage we sang On Raglan Road. I didn't know the words, so I just watched Luke's mouth and scatted along with him. It was different, to say the least."
Master' of Scat
Scat is a form where the singer uses his or her voice as the instrument. Vocalese, a play on vocalise, is the practice of putting words on jazz solos. Jon, at 75, is the master in both related happy arts. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz says that he is so "adept at imitating instrumental sounds that his improvisations often surpass the solos played by his accompanists". Merging Irish music with jazz was no problem for him.
"Judith and I had great fun with Luke and Deirdre. We were in a pub one day, and Luke says, `I want you to meet Ireland's greatest short story writer'. And this little impish guy at the bar says, `Where?'. It was Liam O'Flaherty.
"He had a great sense of humour. Listening to him was better than being in the company of the President of the United States."
Jon's most memorable experience of his Irish odyssey was moseying into the Abbey Theatre to listen to Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers. "I knew Tommy from New York, so I went around to say hello at the interval. Tommy insisted I had to be in on the act. He got me a white Aran sweater, and I joined the band on the stage to do a scat version of The Good Old Mountain Dew. The whole theatre stood up to applaud us."
Jon provided me with an impromptu version of how he sang the song, remembering all the words, and swinging into a lazy, jazzy, almost rap mode, when he got to the diddley idle diddle dum bit of the song, it was surreal.
"It is one of the experiences I will never forget," says Jon with absolute sincerity. "Here I was on the Abbey stage, hallowed ground where some of the greatest dramatic artists had performed. It was wonderful."
Racist Undertones
Now we've all heard this from Americans but, again with sincerity, Jon said he couldn't get over the genuine warmth of the welcome he received from Irish people here all those years ago. Yet there was a caveat with racist undertones. Jon is black.
"I told Luke one night that the Irish people here are so lovely, but where I grew up in: Ohio I had so much trouble with the people who were Irish. We fought all the time. It was almost one of the rites of passage we went through," he remembers. And Luke just snorted in reply: "Ah, the worst ones left."
Jon is now more than 60 years in the jazz business. He's played with the greats, from Louis Armstrong and Art Tatum to Charlie Parker and Wynton Marsalis. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he was part of the triumvirate of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross who brought great verve, swing and joy to their innovative vocal arrangements.
His style of singing has influenced Joni Mitchell, Manhattan Transfer, the Pointer Sisters and Bobby McFerrin, just to name a few. Before arriving in Cork, Jon was touring in the south of France, Paris, Poland and Bratislava. At 75 he has no intention of slowing down, and is looking forward to some future scat diddley-i vocalising in Ireland.
He recalls what Duke Ellington said when asked was he planning to retire - "From what?" Echoing that philosophy, Jon adds, "How can you retire from something you love?"