LISTEN TO ONE: My Kokomo
This turned out to be the only solo album Honi Gordon ever made. She is categorized, if she is mentioned at all, as one of a number of "one-album wonders," female jazz singers who got that one shot, and then were forgotten, as the Beatles, and the new rock explosion in general, found jazz, and especially jazz vocalists, fading in popularity. Playboy would rename its Jazz Poll the Jazz and Pop Poll (and the Village Voice would mockingly call its music column "Pazz and Jop"). But there's more to her than that.
Her career started as part of a family singing group, The Gordons (her father, two brothers, and her), and if the Gordons never made it quite into public visibility, they were good enough to get the respect of their peers, as evidenced by the company they kept in the recording studio, starting in 1953, when Honi was 15.
Their 1953 debut was on Debut, the Charles Mingus-Max Roach label. They appear on two tracks, and are described in the liner notes as "Max Roach discoveries," although they, and particularly Honi, would become much more closely associated with Mingus. On the Debut album, they perform with Mingus, Roach, and Hank Jones, and they recorded more than those two tracks ("Bebopper" and "Can You Blame Me"), because three more would eventually appear on record. The Original Jazz Classics CD, Debut Rarities Volume 4, released in 1993, has "You Go to My Head," "You and Me," and "Cupid." All but "You Go to My Head" are credited to George Gordon, and throughout her career, Honi would make a point of featuring her father's songs.
In 1954, the Gordons recorded one tune for Columbia with a group that included Al Cohn, but it appears never to have been released.
In 1956, they appeared on a Lionel Hampton session for Jazztone, a record-of-the-month club that was started by two chemical engineer brothers who were offered 20 tons of vinyl resin at a bargain price, and then had to figure out something to do with it. The session featured Hampton, Oscar Dennard, Oscar Pettiford and Gus Johnson, and their version of "Take the A Train" is highly prized by cognoscenti. They are featured on one cut of a 1957 Dizzy Gillespie-Stuff Smith album for Verve.
Honi then went on her own, working twice with Eddie Jefferson. In 1959 they collaborated on three
tunes, two of which were released on 45 by the Triumph label ("Sherry" and "Body and Soul"), and all three (including "Now's the Time") on a couple of Jefferson reissues. They reunited in 1961, again for Triumph, for four songs with a vocal quartet which also included Babs Gonzales. These appear never to have been released at the time (Triumph had probably already gone under), but have appeared on later Jefferson reissues.
1959 also saw her reunited with Charles Mingus for the Mingus Dynasty album for Columbia, which included a version of "Strollin'," the Mingus/George Gordon collaboration. Mingus was one of the two artists who most enthusiastically championed her career.
1962 was her Prestige year, and after that, instead of aggressively pursuing a solo career, she reunited with her family, perhaps because Mary Lou Williams, the other artist who most appreciated her talent, needed a vocal ensemble for her devotional work, Black Christ of the Andes, recorded in 1963. She would record with Williams twice more, both times with devotional music: in 1967, for a live performance at Carnegie Hall, and 1972, on Williams's own Mary label. Mingus and Williams are two artists known for their uncompromising commitment to musical excellence, which should tell you something about Honi Gordon.
Further work with Mingus included a live Columbia recording in 1972 (Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert), and Mingus Moves in 1973, on Atlantic.
Then nothing, although she seems to have kept singing. in 2007, she performed with Andy Bey and Geri Allen at a Fordham University tribute to Mary Lou Williams, which suggests that she must have been based around New York.
Of the Prestige album. a present-day reviewer (for Allmusic.com) wrote that Gordon "had an appealing style that was influenced by Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday, as well as Annie Ross. There were also hints of Chris Connor..." while a contemporary of hers (Sidney Falco, who wrote the liner notes for the album) says the opposite: Gordon is "if you will, original: one cannot point to her work, as it is so easy to do in many cases, and say where such and such a phrase or stylistic trick came from." And perhaps they're both right. The one thing you can say for certain about Gordon's singing is that it sounds like jazz.
Part of the uniqueness of her style (and part of the reason why AllMusic's Alex Henderson compared her to Annie Ross) comes from her choice of material--her father's material, especially. George Gordon was a unique composer--and I use "unique" in its original sense. I don't believe anyone else did what he did. "Vocalese" was in its heyday back then, and it meant the same thing for everyone who practiced, from the innovative work of Eddie Jefferson and King Pleasure through the complex arrangements of Dave Lambert to the lyric inspiration of Annie Ross -- who wrote the brilliant "Farmer's Market" and the now-classic "Twisted" in one night, after Bob Weinstock had played her "Moody's Mood" and asked if she could do something like that. It meant writing a vocal line to a jazz soloist's improvisation.
But George Gordon did something a little different. You can listen to "My Kokomo" and start digging through your old wax or your new Spotify to find the "Kokomo" and the improvised solo it came from, but to no avail. Gordon wrote the whole thing, words and music. The only exception is "Strollin'," where Gordon put a lyric to Charles Mingus's "Nostalgia in Times Square." George Gordon was a remarkable composer, and Honi Gordon a fitting interpreter (and, except for "Strollin'," her father's only interpreter).
Honi does four of her father's songs on this album: "Strollin'," "My Kokomo," "Love Affair," and "Cupid." She also stretches her range in other directions. There are standards: "Ill Wind" (Harold Arlen Ted Koehler) and "Why Try to Change Me Now" (Cy Coleman, Joseph McCarthy). There's a song by Esmond Edwards, who didn't write all that many -- "Lament of the Lonely." Both of her champions are included: Mingus with "Strollin'," Mary Lou Williams with "Walkin' Out the Door." "Why" was written by Consuela Lee Moorhead, who had something in common with George Gordon. He wrote for his daughter; she contributed music, and a song, to a movie by her nephew, Spike Lee.
Honi Gordon's adventurous spirit is shown in her choice of musicians for the session, the equally adventurous Jaki Byard and Ken McIntyre (later Makanda Ken McIntyre).
Honi Gordon Sings was a Prestige release.
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