Q&A: Wayne Henderson on the reunited Jazz Crusaders, Beatles and Stones and being laughed at by Miles Davis

The Jazz Crusaders had a decade-long run in the 1960s before becoming fusion pioneers, eventually shortening their name to the Crusaders. In the acoustic format, they'll also be digging into their collection of covers that brought them attention in the pop world -- their versions of Lennon & McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby," Carole King's So Far Away" and Sly Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)."

"Melodies," Henderson says, explaining the Crusaders' crossover appeal, "sincere melodies. They were always part of the music we listened to as kids in Houston. Our melodies were indicative of the region we grew up in, the Gulf Coast, where you were exposed to gospel, R&B, a little bit of country, bayou music. But we were jazz musicians, too, and we were looking to play lots of notes.

"When we improvise, it's bebop. But in the bebop days nobody could remember the songs. So we set out to play songs you could hum. But not like this snoozy stuff you hear today."

As jazz acts go, few have had as many pop hits as the Crusaders, who had 19 albums land on the Billboard 200, eight of them in the top 50. Henderson, who has known Sample since he was four years old, talked about the Crusaders' history.

SoundSpike: You say the Jazz Crusaders will emphasize songs people know, and in this day and age it sounds crazy to suggest that there was a time in which a jazz band could have an instrumental hit on the radio, which is where a lot of people first heard your music.

Wayne Henderson: We actually got a hit on KHJ (L.A.'s premier top 40 station in the '60s and '70s), when Johnny Magnus would take one of our songs and play it while he was doing the weather. "It's a little cloudy at the beach," he might say, and you'd hear us doing this nice walking tune. We called the tune "Weatherbeat," and it became well known because people heard it every day.

Joe, yourself, Wilton and your original drummer Stix Hooper did things a bit differently than most other jazz artists of your time. For starters, you were a band of peers rather than a leader with hired hands. Did that seem different to you at the time from the way other jazz musicians were working?

When we left Houston we had a plan -- we wanted to bring out our Southern roots. Miles, [John] Coltrane, Cannonball [Adderley] -- they were our mentors, but we wanted to maintain our vibe. At 13 and 14 years old we'd go up and down the Gulf Coast playing with Joe Tex, Big Walter, Bobby Bland, B.B. King. We play strip clubs, hole-in-the-walls -- anywhere to make some lunch money for school. When we came to the [West] Coast, we had those unique melodies and the unique sound of the tenor trombone and tenor saxophone. It was two horns playing in unison that people could not tell apart unless one of us played an octave higher or lower. That made people say, "Who are these guys?" And we played songs people could hum.

Unlike so many other bands you appeared to have no leader. Was that true and how did that effect the way you worked together?

Everybody in the band had the same name -- Jazz Crusader -- and some people might say it's Joe's band because they like what he does and someone else would say no it's Wilton's or Stix's. We had a united front. I had a big mouth so I was the mouthpiece, but we all had equal billing, which made us unique.

Your audience was filled with lot of musicians, no?

So much so that whenever Miles Davis would be in town and we were playing, he would come find us because there was not another band like us. He'd show up at a gig and never talk to us, just stand in front of the band for a few tunes. Everybody would get scared. Lots of times he'd start laughing -- and this went on for three years. One night he walks in and points to this euphonium, a baby tuba, that I had onstage and he says "play that" and people start applauding. I didn't really want to, so I said "you play it," and the crowd went crazy. So Miles picks it up and tried to play it, but he could barely get any sound out of it because the mouthpiece is three or four times larger than a trumpet. But he loved the band, and eventually we became friends. He did "Jack Johnson" after seeing us.

The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" was a mainstay in the acoustic band's repertoire, and when you went electric you kept adding pop songs of the day like "So Far Away." It's interesting that you would take a Carole King song and stretch it out for 12 minutes and then play a Sly and the Family Stone song just straight with no solos. What drove those decisions?

In all of those songs we could hear melodies that stood on their own, that were musically interesting. That's where our heart was. We did other Beatles songs, covered "Golden Slumbers" and "Hey Jude." "Thank You" has that great hook, and hooks were where we lived. With "So Far Away," the melody just felt so indicative of the trombone and tenor sax, the elongated lines. It was a perfect marriage, and that led to us getting asked to open shows for the Rolling Stones (in 1975). We were the first jazz band to ever open shows for the Stones. We knew they were fans and we knew Lennon and McCartney had our albums.

You left the band and had a successful career as a producer working with artists such as Ronnie Laws and generating hits with fusion artists. Was there something about the Crusaders that was not going right back in the mid-'70s?

I had gotten a little space on Western Avenue and 76th Street [in Los Angeles] and formed Chisa Records to do a little production thing around 1970. I got a funky set of drums from a pawn shop for 20 bucks and a Fender Rhodes keyboard and a Revbox tape recorder. I'd go in every day and record ... and give things to ([Crusaders producer] Stewart Levine and the guys, and we'd work on [the music] as a co-operative. Eventually, Stix says let's expand Crusaders Productions and teach little black kids how to play. I liked the idea, but it didn't matter what color they were to me, I just wanted to help kids become proficient on their instruments. I always wanted to help youth. That was an extension of what's inside me and I realized that it didn't need to be done as part of the band. I could do it on my own. Another factor was that we had a manager who wanted me to either be a producer or be in the Crusaders, and I felt I wanted to exercise this other spirit inside me. In my heart I was always a member of the band.

You now have Moyes Lucas playing drums and Joe's son Nick playing bass. But I have to ask -- why did the Jazz Crusaders and then the Crusaders have so many bass players? It's a staggering number of guys, many of whom would last only one album.

They couldn't do what we wanted to hear. You know who played bass on 80 percent of 'Crusaders 1'? Wilton. He was an R&B bassist playing on Jackson 5 and Barry White records. He played with Marvin Gaye. When we had the upright bass we had Leroy Vinegar, Buster Williams, Jimmy Bond -- and when we went to the fink fusion, Wilton would show guys what we wanted. There were plenty of good musicians who played with us, but the key to the Crusaders sound was that Southern spirit. There's a spirit in the music, and the concept that tells you what needs to be done. New York has a different spirit. Omaha has a different spirit. A lot of guys who are not from the South don't get that.