After several years during which he wrote several songs for Louis Jordan and recorded with King Pleasure, he teamed up with Dave Lambert, who conceived the idea to record a selection of Count Basie's instrumental numbers with voices replacing the Basie orchestra's wind instruments. Jon wrote the lyrics, and they sold the idea to Creed Taylor, who had recently started working as an A&R man for ABC-Paramount Ampar. After a disastrous initial attempt to record the songs with a choir, they decided to multi-track their own voices, with Annie Ross providing the high notes. It was not the first time the technique of overdubbing had been used, but it was an early and innovative example. The result was a best-selling album, "Sing a Song of Basie." Its success prompted them to form the legendary vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross (LH&R). With Hendricks as lyricist and Lambert as arranger, the trio perfected the art of vocalese and took it around the world, earning them numerous awards and accolades. In September 1959, they appeared on the cover of Down Beat under the headline "The Hottest New Group in Jazz", which they adopted as the title of their Grammy-nominated fourth album.