This is amazing. Great format. It would be cool to link original recordings too, but merely nice-to-have, not essential. I love being able to listen to the solos unaccompanied.
He wrote the lyrics for that entire album (Vocalese) and sings on it too -- one of the solos on "Airegin", and a scat solo somewhere else (maybe the Night in Tunisia thing, been a while since I listened).
He also wrote the lyrics for their versions of "Birdland" and "Four Brothers", and maybe four of the tracks on Swing, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm not thinking of.
I was wrong about "Another Night in Tunisia" -- the solo Jon sings starting around 1:40 actually has lyrics. I think the melody scatting for most of the rest of the song is actually Bobby McFerrin.
Oh, there we go, the scat solo starting at 2:30 in "Ray's Rockhouse" is Jon.
Weirdly enough, if I cam to believe Discogs got the liner notes faithfully, they're not crediting Jon with singing a solo on "Airegin". I'm still 99% certain Jon sings the last solo in that song. (Interestingly, singing lyrics over his own scat solo from the original Lambert, Hendricks & Ross recording of "Airegin".) For sure it sounds like him, no one other than Manhattan Transfer is credited with vocals on that track, and when they recorded it live they don't even attempt to sing it, replacing it with a sax solo.
"Sing Joy Spring", lyrics by Jon Hendricks. Jon wrote lyrics to dozens (hundreds?) of jazz solos. Was one hell of a singer, too -- check him out singing John Coltrane's solo on "Freddie Freeloader" [1]
