EDDIE HENDERSON

interview by John Farris



JF So Eddie Henderson--

EH Yes sir--

JF How did you meet Ilhan Ersahin?

EH It's really a funny story. I met Ilhan--uh, eleven years ago--somebody called me--a mutual friend of Ilhan's and mine named Joris--he's a drummer, and he said Ilhan was looking for somebody to go to a Club Med in the Caribbean, they had a band. And that's how I met Ilhan. And he was a saxophone player and I was a trumpet player and our friendship endured on, and then he used to play at Sweet Basil's every Saturday and I used to go play with him--he would hire me for gigs, I would hire him. It went on and on and lo and behold Ilhan got his club, and you know, started hiring me to come play with this nublu band, the nublu Orchestra, Wax Poetic and The Love Trio, and here I am! (Laughs)

JF Wow! Uh, you had worked with Clark Gaeton on the West Coast?

EH No. I didn't work with Clark on the West Coast. I worked with Clark in the Mingus Big Band. That's when I worked with Clark. I mean, I know Clark from the West Coast, but I never met him there. I met him here in New York.

JF And your background is, you worked with Herbie Hancock--

EH Yeah. I worked with Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyler, Dexter Gordon, Jackie McClean, Joe Henderson--Hey--there he is now! (Greets Ilhan, who has happened by.) Hey man, we're doing an interview about you!

IE Great.

EH (continuing)--All the jazz greats. Elvin Jones--but what most people know me for was when I was with the M'wadishi Sextet, way back in 70-73. M'wadishi was Herbie Hancocks name at that time.

JF What were you doing when I met you back at Slug's? That had to be '65 or so.

EH I was going to medical school at Howard University. And every weekend between '64 and '68 I would come up here to New York and take lessons from Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, and just hang out and peep the music, because even though I finished medical school, music was what I was really into, was really my heart. JF Where are you from, Eddie?

EH I'm originally from New York.

JF And you are my age--

EH I'll be sixty four the 26th of October--

JF You're exactly my age, give a few months.

EH That's right! We talked about that before!

JF (laughs) And when did you start playing music?

EH I started playing when I was nine years old, and my mother was at the Cotton Club. Did you ever see that jazz documentary with Fats Waller playing the piano and a real pretty lady sitting on the piano singing to Fats Waller--well that was my mother. She was incredible. And by virtue of the fact that she knew everybody in show business, literally, my first two lessons in life in person was when I was nine years old; she took me to hear Louis Armstrong at the Apollo Theater, and he gave me one of my first lessons. That was in 1949. I was nine years old. That's what started it all.

JF Eddie, forgive my ignorance, but what was your mom's name?

EH Well, she went by the Brown Twins at the Cotton Club because she had a twin sister--an identical twin. You remember the movie ìStormy Weatherî with Lena Horne? Well, Lena Horne was her best friend. My mother was in "Stormy Weather"--you know, she was in all those Fats Waller videos, tapes--îYour Feets' Too Bigî--ìThis Joint is Jumpinî--you know, all those dancers--she was really a dancer. She and my aunt were in all of those. She was Bojangles's dance partner. JF And where did you grow up here?

EH I grew up in the Bronx. My real father died when I was ten, and then my mother married a doctor in San Francisco, and my mother and I moved to San Francisco, and that's where I went to high school. I went to high school and college out there, I went to the University of California, finished that and then went to Howard University Medical School.

JF But you were also playing?

EH I was playing the whole time! I was going to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music when I was in high school and at that time, in 1958, since my mother knew everybody in show business, Miles Davis, when he had Coltrane and Cannonball in the band, happened to stay at my house because my stepfather was a doctor. He was like, Duke Ellington's doctor, Miles's doctor, all the great musicians. So Miles took me hand-in-hand when he was at the Blackhawk, and I said, WHAT! And so that's when the bells went off. I said that's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. That was in 1958. JF You were eighteen.

EH Yes. I heard everybody--Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, Wynton Kelly when they were in Miles Davis's groups. Cannonball, Paul Chambers. And even though I was going to college, you know, I was doing both. That's how I put myself through medical school; playing music. And even though I got my degree and I did practice medicine for about twelve years, when I moved back to New York--

JF So you actually practiced medicine! What kind?

EH Oh I specialized in psychiatry, but I never actually practiced psychiatry, I practiced general medicine. JF All that crazy jazz.

EH Yeh. And then when I got a chance to play with Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, after that ended, I went back to San Francisco, that's when I practiced medicine. Not full time, just four hours a day.

JF What made you give up medicine?

EH When I moved back to New York in ë85. I was working so much, you know. There comes a time in one's life when one finds it's really important to do what one wants to do, not what somebody expects them to do, or what they should do to make ends meet. I was blessed enough to be getting so much work I was able to take care of myself--they're both great disciplines, music and medicine--but for me, you know, music heals me and hopefully heals other people in the process. JF So who do you work with besides Ilhan?

EH Well, I work with the Mingus Big Band--McCoy's big band--sometimes McCoy's sextet--with my own group, because, uh, it's ironic, uh, it's funny you asked that because the new Lincoln Center just opened and a year from now they're presenting a pilot program, and Wynton Marsalis, he picked my group and me to represent Lincoln Center next year. We'll go to Europe and Japan--

JF Who's in the group?

EH We'll be playing the music of Miles Davis. Gary Bartz is in the group, Jimmy Cobb--Dave Kikofski on piano who's on must of my records, and Ed Howard, bass player who's on most of my records--he plays with the Mingus band.

JF What compels you to play here at nublu?

EH (laughs) Well, you know, Ilhan's concept is on the cutting edge, I can't classify it--it's just music! Most people want to pigeonhole, you know, whether it's hip hop, jazz, you know--it's just music. You've heard it--it's just creative music. We're improvising, just like we're improvising through our mouths right now.

This interview is to be continued.