Clap Hands - Luther Henderson

 

I'm Happy Sometimes

Clap Hands!

With Luther Henderson

Columbia CL 1340 & CSR 8149 (Special Re-issue)

1959

From the back cover: The orchestra Luther Henderson has assembled for this visit to the bright side of rhythm is as follows: four trombones, one a bass trombone; clarinet, two alto saxes, tenor sax and electric guitar playing the melody with the reeds; eight violins; drums, bass and another electric guitar in the rhythm section. And through all of this is threaded Luther's solo piano work, every element crystal clear in Columbia's High Fidelity.

Also from the back cover: Luther Henderson was born in Kansas City and grew up in Langston, Oklahoma, where his mother and father were both teachers, and in New York City. As the child of two educators he was brought into the classroom when most of us were hitting play school and found himself in the second grade in New York public schools at the age of five. Although he took piano lessons sporadically as a youngster, it was understood that he would be a teacher, and the only unresolved question lay in the choice of subject. When he hit a 100% on the geometry Regents exam it looked like the hand of fate had picked out mathematics.

About this time, however, he and two other sixteen-year-old lads tried their luck on Amateur night at the Apollo Theater and won (first prize, $10). The trio continued together, playing weekend dates and, as Luther explains it, the weekends kept getting longer and longer. From about this time he decided that if he had to spend life counting he would rather do it with beats and bar lines than with trigonometry.

He promptly enrolled himself in Juilliard where, before he graduated, he managed to learn the basic technique of every instrument in the book – a major factor in his present usual grasp of instrumental writing. Meanwhile, back at the nightclub, he was playing as one of the Five Spirits of Rhythm and then in the Leonard Ware Trio. His introduction to arranging came when he was called to do orchestrations for Katherine Dunham's Tropical Revue and, shortly afterward, dance sets for Duke Ellington.

A two-year hitch in the Navy was spent writing and arranging for Navy bands and shows. When he came out of the blue, Ellington and Strayhorn recommended him to Lena Horne. For the following three years he was Lena's accompanist and arranger, a choice plum he only gave up to get on with the main business of his own independent career.

He opened his own vocal coaching and arranging studio in New York, and here begins a list of show business notables a mile long that he has worked with in one capacity or another. Some of them were: Eartha Kitt, Juanita Hall, Carmen MacRae, Janis Paige, Marge and Gower Champion, Carol Lawrence, Jane Morgan, Diahann Carroll, Olga James, Helen Forrest and on and on. Carol Haney brought Luther into TV for arrangements for her appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show. Anita Ellis worked with Luther and out of it came a very special kind of story-record, called I Wonder What Became Of Me, for Epic Records. And then Polly Bergen chose Luther to back her musically for the TV production of "The Helen Morgan Story" and subsequent Polly Bergen Shows and records for Columbia: Bergen Sings Morgan, The Party's Over, My Heart Sings, and All Alone By The Telephone.

Luther himself points out that, after Ellington, his career has been primarily advanced through associations with celebrated women, a fact which his wife, lovely TV actress Stephanie, accepts with notable indulgence. He does keep a nodding acquaintance with the male sex, however, in such productions as the Victor Borge Shows and records with Ed Kenney and Larry Blyden.

With two complete scores for musicals tucked away in his trunk awaiting production, Luther has contributed arrangements for Broadway's Top Banana and Beggars' Holiday and the ballet music for Rodgers and Hammerstein Flower Drum Song. And now, with as solid a professional background as one could hope to accumulate in a young lifetime, he is arriving on his own track, under his own steam.

Stay As Sweet As You Are

Out Of Nowhere

On The Sunny Side Of The Street

Three Little Words

The Honey Song

Sometimes I'm Happy

I Love Paris

Let's Fall In Love

A-Two-At-A-Time

Lover, Come Back To Me

Clap Hands Here Comes Charley

I'll See You Again