Lambert, Hendricks & Ross

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Lambert, Hendricks & Ross was a jazz vocal trio that existed from 1957 to 1964 and initially consisted of Dave Lambert , Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross . In 1962, Annie Ross left for health reasons and was replaced by Yolande Bavan , which is why they appeared as Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan . They had great success in the 1950s and 1960s with pieces in which they vocal mimicked instrumental solos in the Vocalese style.

Development of the group

Dave Lambert had already gained experience as a singer with Gene Krupa and with his own groups (at times with Buddy Stewart ) in the 1940s , where he was also influenced by bebop and later by King Pleasure (and through Eddie Jefferson ). Another role model was the Four Brothers section of the Woody Herman Band. In 1950 John Hendricks and Annie Ross belonged to the Dave Lambert Singers for an (unpublished) recording session for Lou Williams . 1955 Hendricks took with the Dave Lambert Singers for a single on the title Four Brothers (with the lyrics by Hendricks) and Cloudburst .

Lambert teamed up with Jon Hendricks in the mid-1950s to write more Vocalese-style pieces. They managed to convince Creed Taylor , who was then working for ABC-Paramount, of the project. In 1957 he teamed up with Jon Hendricks, whom he had known since 1950, and singer Annie Ross to form Lambert, Hendricks & Ross . Annie Ross had also previously interpreted jazz solos in the Vocalese style and was also part of the Dave Lambert Singers in 1953 for the Clef recording session of Charlie Parker ("In the Still of the Night" / "Old Folks") .

The vocal trio's debut album was Sing a Song of Basie in 1957 with Basie pieces supported by Nat Pierce and Basie's rhythm section. In their debut album, Lambert and Hendricks first experimented with ten background singers in order to include more instruments from the big band in the Vocalese, but most of them had no jazz experience. For cost reasons, they then resorted to overdubbing , as the result was not satisfactory. They only kept Annie Ross from the background group. Later, however, they completely dispensed with overdubbing, which turned out to be so laborious that Hendricks fell ill due to the stress of recording the debut album.

The following year, the album Sing Along with Basie followed in direct collaboration with the Count Basie Orchestra , recorded in May and September 1958 for the then record company of Basie, Roulette Records . During the recording, a more modern rhythm section developed their own versions of Horace Silvers Doodlin ' and Milt Jackson's Spirit Feel , which United Artists released as a single. The next album was released in 1959, The Swingers , which the trio presented consistently with more modern titles. This program presented Lambert, Hendricks & Ross in the summer of 1959 at the Newport Jazz Festival and led to the contract with Columbia Records , which included three albums. Just a few weeks later they started to record their next, fourth album, The Hottest New Group in Jazz , which was released in 1960. The trio became even more popular and in 1960 again invited to the Newport Jazz Festival . In 1960 they followed up with the album Lambert, Hendricks & Ross Sing Ellington , in 1962 High Flying with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross .

According to Will Friedwald , the group created "some of the most sensational vocal jazz pieces ever sung". According to him, the roles in the band were quite fixed: "Lambert provided the sound, Hendricks wrote the lyrics and Annie Ross gave it class and eroticism." Lambert deconstructed and rearranged existing bebop scores by Woody Herman , Miles Davis , Horace Silver, and others, while Hendricks added new lyrics. Hendricks and Ross were the vocal stars of the group, but occasionally Lambert's rather unpolished vocals also took center stage.

From 1959 to 1963 the trio led the Down Beat reader poll as a vocal group and in 1962 and 1963 also the critic poll. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross went on tour with Gildo Mahones as piano accompanist, from 1959 to 1962 additionally with Ike Isaacs and Kahil Madi and later Jimmy Wormworth on drums. Lambert, Hendricks and Bavan accompanied Mahones with George Tucker and Jimmie Smith . 1963 performed with Lambert, Hendricks and Bavan at the Newport Jazz Festival and in 1962 with the Brubeck-Armstrong jazz musical The Real Ambassadors at the Monterey Jazz Festival (the studio recording was made in late 1961 with the original trio). There are film recordings of the performance in Newport, but none of the one in Monterey. In 1961 they performed at the Antibes Jazz Festival .

After Lambert left the trio in 1964, he was first replaced by Don Chastain; but the ensemble soon disbanded. Since Lambert died in 1966, the group did not make a comeback . But she had a great influence on later jazz singing , for example at Manhattan Transfer , for which Hendricks also arranged, Les Double Six , Al Jarreau and Bobby McFerrin .

Discography

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross albums

  • Sing a Song of Basie , ABC / Paramount 1957 (with Nat Pierce (piano) and the Basie rhythm section Freddie Green , Eddie Jones , Sonny Payne ; recordings from August 26 to November 26, 1957)
  • Sing Along with Basie , Roulette 1958 (with Count Basie Orchestra and Joe Williams )
  • The Swingers! , World Pacific 1959
  • Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross! (The Hottest New Group In Jazz) , Columbia 1960 (with Harry Sweets Edison , Pony Poindexter , Ron Carter , with Annie Ross' interpretation of Wardell Gray's Twisted , with which she was already successful in 1952)
  • Lambert, Hendricks & Ross Sing Ellington , Columbia 1960 (with the Ike Isaacs Trio)
  • High Flying with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross (The Way-Out Voices of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross) , Columbia 1962

Single from Lambert, Hendricks & Ross

Doodlin / Spirit Feel , United Artists 1958 (with their version of Doodlin by Horace Silver )

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross as a side group

The Real Ambassadors , Columbia 1962 (jazz musical with Dave Brubeck and Louis Armstrong with bands, LHR sing as well as Carmen McRae )

Reissues (selection)

  • Everybody's Boppin , Columbia Jazz Masterpieces (includes The Hottest Group in Jazz and other recordings from their two other Columbia albums)
  • Lambert, Hendricks & Ross: The Early Years • 1954–59 Acrobat 2019 (contains the first four albums in full and three other tracks from 1955 to 1959)

Albums by Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan

literature

  • Will Friedwald : Swinging Voices of America - A Compendium of Great Voices . Hannibal, St. Andrä-Wölker 1992. ISBN 3-85445-075-3 .
  • Gene Lees , Jon Hendricks: Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and how they grew , Down Beat, XXVI / 19, 1959
  • Leslie Gourse : Louis' Children: American Jazz Singers , New York 1984
  • Barry Kernfeld (Editor): The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz , St. Martin's Press 1996

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ 1952 she took on Twisted and Farmer's Market at Prestige. According to Friedwald, Swinging Voices of America , p. 174, this probably first drew Lambert and Hendricks' attention to Ross.
  2. ^ Review at All Music Guide
  3. ^ Liner Notes by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross Sing Ellington
  4. ↑ cit. n. Paul Watts: Lambert, Hendricks & Ross: The Early Years • 1954–59
  5. ↑ Quoted from Will Friedwald: Swinging Voices of America. Hannibal 1992, picture part.
  6. ^ Philippe Carles , André Clergeat , Jean-Louis Comolli (eds.) Dictionnaire du Jazz , Robert Laffont 1988
  7. ↑ To the album at All Music
  8. ↑ Allmusic to the album
  9. ^ Allmusic for the Newport album