Arthur Eugene Jenkins, Jr. (December 7, 1936 – January 28, 2009) was an American keyboardist, composer, arranger and percussionist who worked with many popular music icons such as John Lennon

John Lennon

John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

, Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte

Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...

, Bob Marley

Bob Marley

Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...

 and Chaka Khan

Chaka Khan

Chaka Khan , frequently known as the Queen of Funk, is a 10-time Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter who gained fame in the 1970s as the frontwoman and focal point of the funk band Rufus. While still a member of the group in 1978, Khan embarked on a successful solo career...

.

Jenkins was born in The Bronx

The Bronx

The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...

, New York and began playing piano at the age of 5. After studying music at Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio, Jenkins returned to New York and began his professional career. He played for two years at a club called Blue Moracco. The first year was with a singer named Irene Reid

Irene Reid

Irene Reid was an American jazz singer.Reid was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia. She sang in church and in high school in Georgia, and moved to New York City in 1947 after her mother died. Toward the end of 1947, she tied out for an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and won the...

 and the second was with a new singer from Ohio named Nancy Wilson.

Next began a 9-year collaboration as musical director and accompanist to singer Johnny Nash

Johnny Nash

John Lester "Johnny" Nash, Jr. is an American pop singer-songwriter, best known in the US for his 1972 hit, "I Can See Clearly Now". He was also the first non-Jamaican to record reggae music in Kingston, Jamaica.-Life and career:...

, which included Nash's 1972 smash "I Can See Clearly Now

I Can See Clearly Now

-Certifications:-Charts:-Other covers:The song also appears in various other films, such as Grosse Pointe Blank, The Break-up, Thelma & Louise, Antz, Deep Blue Sea, Envy, Hitch, Shrek 2s Far Far Away Idol, Viktor Vogel – Commercial Man and Jennifer's Body, as well in a 2009 advertisement for Lipton...

". While with Nash, Jenkins traveled to Jamaica where he also worked on recording projects with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh

Peter Tosh

Peter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh , was a Jamaican reggae musician who was a core member of the band The Wailers , and who afterward had a successful solo career as well as being a promoter of Rastafari.Peter Tosh was born in Grange Hill, Jamaica, an illegitimate child to a mother too young...

.

Jenkins had now become a much sought-after studio musician, and soon was the arranger for Harry Belafonte, with whom he also recorded and toured. He worked in the same capacity for Patti Austin

Patti Austin

-Life and career:Austin was born in Harlem, New York. She made her debut at the Apollo Theater at age four and had a contract with RCA Records when she was only five. Quincy Jones and Dinah Washington have proclaimed themselves as her godparents....

 and Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

, who were co-performers on Belafonte's tours.

Jenkins then joined Antisia Publishing (co-owned by Ralph MacDonald

Ralph MacDonald

Ralph MacDonald is an American percussionist and song-writer. He joined Harry Belafonte's band at age 17. He wrote the Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway song "Where is the Love" with songwriting partner William Salter. Probably his best-known composition is the Grover Washington, Jr...

 and William Salter), and forged a lifelong friendship and musical partnership with MacDonald, which led to more hit recordings like "The Hustle

The Hustle (song)

"The Hustle" is a famous disco song by songwriter/arranger Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony. It scored #1 on the "Billboard Hot 100" and the "Hot Soul Singles" charts during the summer of 1975. It also peaked at #9 on the Australian Singles Chart and #3 in the UK...

" with Van McCoy

Van McCoy

Van Allen Clinton McCoy was an accomplished musician, music producer, arranger, songwriter, and orchestra conductor. He is known best for his 1975 internationally successful song "The Hustle", which is still played in dance halls and on radio to this day more than thirty years since his death...

, "Where Is the Love" with Roberta Flack

Roberta Flack

Roberta Flack is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who is notable for jazz, soul, R&B, and folk music...

 and Donny Hathaway

Donny Hathaway

Donny Edward Hathaway was an American soul singer-songwriter and musician. Hathaway contracted with Atlantic Records in 1969 and with his first single for the Atco label, "The Ghetto, Part I" in early 1970, Rolling Stone magazine "marked him as a major new force in soul music."His collaborations...

 and "Just The Two of Us" with Grover Washington, Jr.

Grover Washington, Jr.

Grover Washington, Jr. was an American jazz-funk / soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with George Benson, John Klemmer, David Sanborn, Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Herb Alpert, and Spyro Gyra, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre.He wrote some of his material and...

 and Bill Withers

Bill Withers

William Harrison "Bill" Withers, Jr. is an American singer-songwriter and musician who performed and recorded from 1970 until 1985. Some of his best-known songs are "Lean on Me", "Ain't No Sunshine", "Use Me", "Just the Two of Us", "Lovely Day", and "Grandma's Hands"...

.

Jenkins was brought to the attention of John Lennon by May Pang

May Pang

May Fung Yee Pang is best known as the former girlfriend of John Lennon. She had previously worked as a personal assistant and production coordinator for Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono....

, production coordinator for many albums by Lennon and Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono

is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...

. Pang booked Jenkins for Ono's Feeling The Space

Feeling the Space

Feeling the Space is Yoko Ono's fourth album, her last one on Apple Records and her last release of the 1970s. . The entire album adopts a feminist theme, focusing on the plights of women in the 1970s...

album, and Lennon, who was about to record his Mind Games

Mind Games

Mind Games is John Lennon's fourth post-Beatles album, and was recorded and released in 1973. Like his previous album, the politically topical and somewhat abrasive Some Time in New York City, Mind Games was poorly received by music critics...

album, asked Pang to retain him for that session. Jenkins played on all subsequent Lennon albums, including Walls and Bridges

Walls and Bridges

Walls and Bridges is the fifth album by John Lennon; it was issued on 26 September 1974 in the United States and on 4 October in the United Kingdom. Written, recorded and released during his 18-month separation from Yoko Ono , the album captures Lennon in the midst of The Lost Weekend...

(for which he was awarded an RIAA gold record), Double Fantasy

Double Fantasy

Double Fantasy is an album released by John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, in 1980. Though initially poorly received, the album is notable for its association with Lennon's murder three weeks after its release, whereupon it become a worldwide commercial success, and went on to win the 1981 Album...

and the posthumous Milk and Honey. Lennon would jokingly credit Jenkins for "all the bells and whistles" on his records.

Jenkins also worked on Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 and lent his distinctive sounds to popular commercials for McDonald's

McDonald's

McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...

, Chemical Bank and other products. He also released two CDs of his own material, Alone With Arthur and Alone With Arthur Again.

Jenkins died unexpectedly at his Manhattan apartment.

Discography

With Ronnie Foster

Ronnie Foster

Ronnie Foster is an American funk and soul-jazz organist, and record producer. His albums recorded for Blue Note Records in the 1970s has obtained a cult following after the emergence of acid-jazz.-Biography:...

• The Two Headed Freap
  The Two Headed Freap
  The Two Headed Freap is the debut album by American organist Ronnie Foster recorded in 1972 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:...
  
  (Blue Note, 1972)

With Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

, Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins

Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...

, Sonny Stitt

Sonny Stitt

Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...

• Sonny Side Up
  Sonny Side Up
  Sonny Side Up is an album by Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins, recorded and released in 1957 on the Verve label.Pianist Ray Bryant, bassist Tommy Bryant, and drummer Charlie Persip provide the rhythm section.-Track listing:...
  
  (Verve, 1957)

With Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments...

• The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color
  The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color
  The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color is an album by jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk originally released as a double LP, with side 4 appearing blank - although side 4 did have a hidden track, the contents of which are released as track #20 on the CD rerelease...
  
  (1975)
• Other Folks' Music
  Other Folks' Music
  Other Folks' Music is an album by jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk featuring performances by Kirk withRichard Williams, Kermit Moore, Gloria Agostini, Trudy Pitts, Hilton Ruiz, Henry Mattathias Pearson, Roy Haynes, Sonny Brown, Arthur Jenkins and Joe Habad Texidor recorded in March...
  
  (1976)

With Marlena Shaw

Marlena Shaw

Marlena Shaw is an American singer. Shaw began her singing career in the 1960s and is still singing today. Her music has often been sampled in hip hop music, and used in television commercials.-Biography:She was first introduced to music by her uncle Jimmy Burgess, a jazz trumpet player...

• From the Depths of My Soul
  From the Depths of My Soul
  From the Depths of My Soul is an album by American vocalist Marlena Shaw recorded in 1973 and released on the Blue Note label.-Track listing:# "Prelude / I Know I Love Him" - 3:11# "Hum This Song" - 3:08# "But For Now" - 3:48# "Easy Evil" - 3:39...
  
  (1973)