Artist Spotlight: Eddie Henderson

The term "household name" has a literal meaning for jazz musician Eddie Henderson, who grew up with jazz legends such as Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and John Coltrane coming in and out of his family home. Henderson’s parents were jazz performers and introduced him to many successful artists, and Henderson took up the trumpet at a young age and went on to make a name for himself. He toured with Herbie Hancock at the start of the 1970s and by the end of the decade, he had released seven albums and claimed the No. 44 position on the UK Singles Chart with the single "Prance On." After years of performing concerts nationally and internationally, he has been a faculty member of the Juilliard School since 2007 and continues to perform. Henderson will be appearing at Harvard on Thursday, where he will be discussing his career.

The Harvard Crimson:

You grew up surrounded by such legendary jazz musicians. When did you realize the significance of these talents?

Eddie Henderson:

Both of my parents were in show business…. My mother was a dancer in the original Cotton Club, the famous Cotton Club, and my father was a singer in show business—a group called the Charioteers in the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance. And by virtue of my mother being a dancer in the original Cotton Club…her best friends were like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong—Billie Holliday was her roommate—and I could go on and on. So when I was nine years old, she took me to the Apollo Theater just to see Louis Armstrong, and she took me backstage. And that was my first trumpet lesson on his own trumpet—the great Louis Armstrong. But of course, I was just nine years old, so I had no idea of the stature that he held.

THC: How did you get involved in playing music yourself?

THC: How did you get involved in playing music yourself?

EH: After I met Louis Armstrong…I took private lessons—classical music—from nine until 14, and I could play technically very [well]…. Then my father died. My mother married a doctor in San Francisco, and he was the doctor to famous people like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington. When I came out, I [mostly played] trumpet and classical music, but then…Miles Davis was staying at our house to perform in San Francisco…and he took me to hear him play one night. And when I heard that, that’s when the light went on, and I said to myself, "that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life." You know? I really didn’t realize it was going to turn into the rest of my life.

But this is when I was in high school, so I was playing music at the conservatory, and I was also a competitive figure skater—the first black figure skater on this planet to ever compete in competitions. I won the National Championship, so my disciplines were studying music, getting good grades in school, and figure skating, because I was fanatical about that—on the ice about 5:30 every morning.

THC: How did you balance those roles as a figure skater, jazz musician, and student?

EH: You have to be really disciplined and concentrate on what you’re doing in the moment. Some people practice and look out the window at a pretty girl or whatever instead of listening to how they sound on the instrument…. You have to have solitude and be serious. Same thing for learning to figure skating. So once you learn discipline at an early age, you can do any number of professions.

THC: You are a musician but also went to medical school and spent several years as a practicing psychiatrist. Why did you choose a career in medicine?

EH: My stepfather, who was a doctor…didn’t like me and I didn’t like him, so I remember when I was 15, he challenged me and said I [would] never be a doctor as high-level as he—I’m just gonna be a bum. He challenged the wrong person, so I said, "watch this," and that’s why I became a doctor. You know, it all worked out in the end. I graduated medical school from Howard University in Washington, D.C., playing music all the time, but then I moved back to San Francisco to do my internship and residency in psychiatry…. Then at the end of the residency I got a chance to go play with Herbie Hancock—the great Herbie Hancock…. I said, "anybody can be a doctor, but I’m not going to give up this opportunity of a lifetime," because that’s what I really wanted to do: to play music. And that’s when it became the rest of my life.

THC: Improvisation is what makes jazz so special, but it can also be very intimidating. How do you help people get comfortable with improvisation?

EH: I say, "music is a language, right?" and everybody in the world improvises every day of their life in the language that they speak…. You improvise because you know the language. In order to improve in the language of music, you have to know—like when you learn a word in English, you learn how to pronounce the word, you know how to make a sentence, then you can converse and have a discussion. Well, that’s all improvising is. You learn your basics, which is a scale and the different keys and how to technically or mechanically play your instrument, and you’re on your way. But everybody can improvise. They do it every day in the language that they know best, but you have to study the instrument in order to speak eloquently through it.