Opening Reception: Time and Spaces: The Life of Eddie Henderson

Time and Spaces: The Life of Eddie Henderson
opening reception: Thursday, February 1, 4-7 pm
on view: February 1–April 21, 2024

Time and Spaces is an immersive look at the life of Dr. Eddie Henderson. Jazz trumpeter, doctor, professional figure skater, Air Force Pilot, and so much more.

Dr. Eddie Henderson is a renowned American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. Eddie Henderson received his first trumpet lesson from Louis Armstrong at nine. When Eddie turned fourteen, his family relocated to San Francisco, where he studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1954–1956. In 1957, Eddie met Miles Davis for the first time. Miles, a longtime family friend, admired the gorgeous tone of Henderson’s trumpet playing. Davis encouraged Eddie to pursue a music career. While studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Henderson attended a professional ice skating show and became consumed with figure skating. Eddie competed in both the Pacific Coast and Midwestern Ice Skating Championships in the late fifties and early sixties, and he was undaunted by racism and the race barrier that existed in the skating world at the time. During the Vietnam War, Henderson enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. After serving his country, he relocated to Colorado. He was permitted entrance into the Denver Figure Skating Club, and in 1960, Eddie represented the club in the Midwestern Figure Skating Championships in Minneapolis. In the 1960s began to pursue dual careers in medicine and music, earning a Bachelor of Science in zoology in 1964 at the University of California at Berkeley and an M.D. at Howard University Medical School four years later in 1968.

During the 1960s, Henderson began performing with jazz legends such as Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders, and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Throughout the 1970s, Henderson recorded several more albums as a bandleader and collaborated with other notable musicians such as McCoy Tyner and Benny Golson. He also recorded his first album, Realization, in 1973, which featured Hancock, Sanders, and others.

This exhibition is made possible in part by the University of Colorado President’s Fund for the Humanities Grant and the University of Colorado Denver’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.