Today, August 8th, we celebrate the life and times of Bennett Lester Benny Carter (August 8, 1907 – July 12, 2003); an African-American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognized as such by other jazz musicians who called him King. In 1958, he performed with Billie Holiday at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival. The National Endowment for the Arts honored Benny Carter with its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award for 1986. He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987, and both won a Grammy Award for his solo Prelude to a Kiss and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994. In 2000 awarded the National Endowment for the Arts, National Medal of Arts, presented by President Bill Clinton. Born in New York City in 1907, the youngest of six children and the only boy, received his first music lessons on piano from his mother. Largely self-taught, by age fifteen, Carter was already sitting in at Harlem night spots. From 1924 to 1928, Carter gained valuable professional experience as a sideman in some of New Yorks top bands. As a youth, Carter lived in Harlem around the corner from Bubber Miley who was Duke Ellingtons star trumpeter, Carter was inspired by Miley and bought a trumpet, but when he found he couldnt play like Miley he traded the trumpet in for a saxophone. For the next two years he played with such jazz greats as cornetist Rex Stewart, clarinetist-soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, pianists Earl Hines, Willie The Lion Smith, pianist Fats Waller, pianist James P. Johnson, pianist Duke Ellington and their various groups. He first recorded in 1928 with Charlie Johnsons Orchestra, also arranging the titles recorded, and formed his first big band the following year. He played with Fletcher Henderson in 1930 and 1931, becoming his chief arranger in this time, then briefly led the Detroit-based McKinneys Cotton Pickers before returning to New York in 1932 to lead his own band, which included such swing stars as Leon Chu Berry (tenor saxophone), Teddy Wilson (piano), Sid Catlett (drums), and Dicky Wells (trombone). Carters arrangements were sophisticated and very complex, and a number of them became swing standards which were performed by other bands (Blue Lou is a great example of this). He also arranged for Duke Ellington during these years. Carter was most noted for his superb arrangements. Among the most significant are Keep a Song in Your Soul, written for Fletcher Henderson in 1930, and Lonesome Nights and Symphony in Riffs from 1933, both of which show Carters fluid writing for saxophones. Carter moved to Europe in 1935 to play trumpet with Willie Lewiss orchestra, and also became staff arranger for the British Broadcasting Corporation dance orchestra and made several records. Over the next three years, he traveled throughout Europe, playing and recording with the top British, French, and Scandinavian jazzmen, as well as with visiting American stars such as his friend Coleman Hawkins. Returning home in 1938, he quickly formed another superb orchestra, which spent much of 1939 and 1940 at Harlems famed Savoy Ballroom. His arrangements were much in demand and were featured on recordings by Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa, and Tommy Dorsey. Though he only had one major hit in the big band era (a novelty song called Cow-Cow Boogie, sung by Ella Mae Morse), during the 1930s Carter composed and/or arranged many of the pieces that became swing era classics, such as When Lights Are Low, “Blues in My Heart, and Lonesome Nights. In 1969, Carter was persuaded by Morroe Berger, a sociology professor at Princeton University who had done his masters thesis on jazz, to spend a weekend at the college as part of some classes, seminars, and a concert. This led to a new outlet for Carters talent: teaching. For the next nine years he visited Princeton five times, most of them brief stays except for one in 1973 when he spent a semester there as a visiting professor. In 1974 Princeton awarded him an honorary master of humanities degree. He conducted workshops and seminars at several other universities and was a visiting lecturer at Harvard for a week in 1987. Morroe Berger also wrote the book Benny Carter – A Life in American Music, (1982) a two-volume work, covers Carters career in depth, an essential work of jazz scholarship. One of the most remarkable things about Benny Carters career was its length. It has been said that he is the only musician to have recorded in eight different decades. Having started a career in music before music was recorded electrically, Carter remained a masterful musician, arranger and composer until he retired from performing in 1997. In 1998, Benny Carter was honored at Third Annual Awards Gala and Concert at Lincoln Center. He received the Jazz at Lincoln Center Award for Artistic Excellence and his music was performed by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Diana Krall and Bobby Short. Wynton accepted on Bennys behalf. (Back trouble prevented Benny from attending). Carter died in Los Angeles, at Cedars-Sinai Hospital from complications of bronchitis at the age of 95. In 1979, he married Hilma Ollila Arons, who survived him, along with a daughter, a granddaughter and a grandson.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 01:55:58 +0000
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