Henderson
was born to a middle-class family that valued education, and Henderson would go
on to earn a degree in chemistry from Atlanta University. When he moved to New
York in 1920, he was rejected by employers in the chemistry field due to his
skin colour. He went to work for W.C. Handy’s music publishing company and then
became a manager at the Black Swan recording label.
In 1922, Henderson led a band at a club which would
become the legendary Roseland Ballroom. Henderson and his band, which would
later become known as the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, would stay on at the
Roseland for ten years. Henderson’s Orchestra featured some of the best
musicians in jazz and included at various times, Coleman Hawkins, Louis
Armstrong, Joe Smith, and many other star soloists. With stellar members such
as Hawkins and Armstrong, the Henderson Orchestra made some of the finest sides
of jazz in the Twenties including, “Sugar Foot Stomp,” “Shanghai Shuffle,” “Jim
Town Blues,” “Christopher Columbus,” “Stealin’ Apples,” “King Porter Stomp,”
and “Stampede.”
The Fletcher Henderson Orchestra continued to tour
and record until 1939 when Henderson joined the Benny Goodman Orchestra as the
pianist and arranger. The hiring of Henderson by Goodman was a watershed moment
in jazz, as it was the first time that a white band had hired a black musician
as arranger. Henderson’s participation would help secure Goodman’s reputation
as the “King of Swing,” a music which Henderson had pioneered with his work
with his own orchestra years before.
Henderson died in 1952, following several years with
heart problems. The classic sides of the Henderson Orchestra can be fairly
easily found on several compilations of the band’s work, and on compilations of
classic early jazz, including the series, “The Chronological Classics: Fletcher
Henderson.” (1996).
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