Fletcher Henderson

Biography

Any young person, Fletcher learns how to play of the piano. Teenager, it undertakes studies of chemistry in Morehouse College then at the University of Atlanta which it leaves graduate. In 1920, it goes up to New York to perfect its studies. The evening, he plays of the piano in boxes here and to round his ends of the month there.

Chemistry quickly will grow blurred in the destiny of Fletcher Henderson. He becomes musical director of a publisher, the Black Swan , which a business man of its knowledge directs. Consequently, it overflows of activity in this field and acquires a solid experiment of musical contractor. It gathers groups, organizes meetings, accompanies by the singers, writing of the orchestrations and records discs since 1923. In 1924, it is with the head of its own orchestra and begins with the Roseland Ballroom, one of the most crested dance halls of New York.

During fifteen years, of 1924 to 1939, Fletcher (that its pars call “Smack” ) recruits for its big band the best soloists of the moment and the list is long: it includes/understands tens of great sizes of the jazz of which Louis Armstrong (in 1924), Fats Waller (in 1926), Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Buster Bailey, Rex Stewart, Edgar Sampson, Red Allen, Chu Berry, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Russell Procope, John Kirby, Big Sid Catlett and so much of others. As of its beginnings of big band leader , then in collaboration with Gift Redman (saxophonist and arranger him also), it develops the instrumental and stylistic architecture of the great formation with its four sections: trumpets, trombones, sheers and rhythmic. Its formula becomes the reference, the standard, for many big bands. Its formation occurs in the best establishments, the such Connie' S Inn in New York and the Grand Terrace in Chicago where in September 1936, to personal capacity, it contributes with the starting of the young whole big band of Count Basie which succeeds to him on scene and to which it gives several of its own arrangements as an encouragement.

In 1939, he lays off his orchestra. Benny Goodman, for which it already wrote many arrangements before, engages it as pianist and appointed arranger. In the Forties, it reforms new orchestras but their impact is less obvious well that they occur in prestigious rooms in New York, in Chicago, in California. In December 1950, an attack leaves it with paralyzed half. Lengthily hospitalized, he dies of a new crisis on December 28th, 1952.

Its style

Average pianist, but good guide, Fletcher is especially an important leader in the history of the jazz. Pioneer, it transposes the polyphony which the musicians use néo-orléanais by entrusting to each section of its orchestra the role that each corresponding melody voice in the collective improvisation plays, style New Orleans .

Smack is a leader, a precursor. Its arrangements are well tied up, coherent, clean with the ear. Its musicians play them with ease and conviction. The solos are intercalated in the orchestration and are articulated around a good instrumental technique and of an acute sense of the swing and sound color. Without privileging such or such section of the orchestra, Fletcher obtains a balance of stamps right and effective, supported by an excellent rhythm section.

Reference mark discographics

Copenhagen (1924)
The Stampede (1926)
The Henderson Stomp (1926)
Saint Louis Shuffle (1927)
King To carry Stomp (1928)
Sugar Foot Stomp (1931)
Hocus Pocus (1934)
Christopher Columbus (1936)
Stealin' Apples (1936)
Essential The Fletcher Henderson, 1927-1936

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