Sumi Tonooka

Sumi Tonooka Now - Live at the Howland (Artists Recording Collective ARC 2369)
For the past dozen years, Sumi Tonooka has been devoting much of her time to teaching, both privately and at Rutgers and SUNY. She has also been involved with saxophonists Chris Burnett and Erica Lindsay in the founding and development of a recording company, Artists Recording Collective. Then there has been work as a composer, with special concentration on scores for film and television documentaries. Not surprising therefore that Tonooka’s presence on the bandstand has been rather less prominent than it was a few years ago. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she spent time in Boston studying with Margaret Chaloff and Charlie Banacos, then Detroit, where she recorded with Marcus Belgrave, before heading back to her hometown where she worked with Odean Pope, studied with Stanley Cowell, Bernard Peiffer and Dennis Sandole, led her own trio and also worked with Philly Joe Jones for a couple of years. In the early 1980s, Tonooka moved to New York City, playing clubs, festivals, making records, regularly leading her own trio and quartet, working often with leading jazz figures, including Rufus Reid, Akira Tana and John Blake Jr. In the late 1990s, Tonooka moved out of the city to pursue the teaching and composing facets of her busy professional like. Fortunately for all lovers of jazz piano, she has continued to make occasional records, of which Initiation (Artists Recording Collective ARC 2000) is a fine example. This was recorded back in 2004 although not immediately released and is a collaboration with Erica Lindsay (backed by Reid and Bob Braye). The co-leaders separately composed all the music and it provides insight into their distinctive and powerful yet subtle skills.

On 26 June Sumi Tonooka will release a double-album that presents her live in concert at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, NY, on 22 March 2011. A solo concert, it was recorded and is presented here in its entirety. On the first CD, Tonooka plays music by jazz composers such as Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Mary Lou Williams. Among the pieces are Heaven, which is a lesser-known work by Ellington, Monk’s Evidence and a pleasing medley of Williams’s music including Waltz Boogie and   Dirge Blues. There are also some popular standards, among them Cole Porter’s All Of You and Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer’s I’m Old Fashioned. On the second CD, all the music (except an encore) is composed by Tonooka and from this it is clear that her compositions stand comfortably alongside those of her famous forerunners. Included are Phantom Carousel, Mingus Mood (which is also on Initiation) and At Home. The encore is a jaunty stroll through Eubie Blake’s I’m Confessin’, which wittily looks at piano music of a long-past generation through contemporary eyes. Indeed, that particular performance is an appropriate closer to an exceptional concert as throughout the two discs there flows a strong sense of the melodic undertow that has marked Sumi Tonooka’s work across the past two-and-a-half decades. This is music that is not only melodically captivating, but is also intelligent, warm, and a vivid portrayal of how she has embraced much of what has gone before in the history of jazz piano and is helping to keep it alive and flourishing

Remember to take a look at Jazz Journal’s website. If you are not already a reader, this is where you can subscribe and thus correct that omission.

Jeff Hamilton - Jazz Journal Critics' Poll

Jeff Hamilton Trio Red Sparkle (Capri Records 74114-2)

Hard to accept is the description of Jeff Hamilton as a “veteran” , but that’s how he is described in the press release accompanying an excellent new CD from this master drummer. When he first appeared on the jazz scene back in the mid-1970s, his youthful appearance allied as it was to sprightly playing was a joy to many who feared that subtle, rhythmic and always swinging drumming was fading from the jazz scene. These days, happily, there are many drummers who play like this, and I suppose that it must be acknowledged that Hamilton has rather more gray in his hair than most of the others. But listening to his playing on this CD you would certainly never know it. He is joined here by the regular piano player and bass player of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, and the fluid interplay of these three fine musicians, Hamilton, Tamir Hendelman and Cristoph Luty, makes clear how attuned each is to the others. This musical empathy provides one of the reasons why that particular big band is so good and so popular. But this is trio time, and as the spotlight shifts from one to another it is fascinating to hear how all consistently contribute to the group’s overall well-being. Hendelman is a thoughtful pianist, popular with singers, who need a musician of subtlety and grace. But he is also a soloist of distinction and his always inventive playing is a source of great delight. Luty plays with a solid sense of swing, urging along his companions and finding in his solo moments touches of brilliance, especially apparent when he takes an arco solo on, appropriately enough, a Ray Brown composition. But this is Hamilton’s group, and although throughout he makes clear that this is a joint enterprise, the ears are constantly drawn to his tasteful accompaniment, especially notable in his brush work, and in solos that are crisp and perfectly timed and placed. Red Sparkle, in case you are wondering, was the color of Jeff Hamilton’s first drum kit. Fortunate for all of us, it wasn’t his last.

 

 

Those of you who subscribe to Jazz Journal will have already seen the February 2012 issue wherein are the results of the annual Critic’s Poll. Some thirty reviewers have picked their ten best CDs from 2011 (votes are allowed for five new releases and five reissues). Out of interest, the winners are:
(New Releases) Jan Lundgren -Together Again...At The Jazz Bakery; Bobby Wellins - Time Gentlemen, Please; Michael Garrick - Tone Poems; Tommy Smith - Karma; Mathias Eick - Skala; Lee Konitz/Brad Mehldau/Charlie Haden/Paul Motian - Live At Birdland; Gary Burton - Common Ground; Kurt Elling - The Gate; Exploding Star Orchestra - Stars Have Shapes; Joe Lovano Us Five - Bird Songs

(Reissues) Duke Ellington - 1932-1940 Brunswick, Columbia, Master; Louis Armstrong - The Ambassador Of Jazz; John Coltrane - Original Album Series; Buck Clayton - Complete Legendary Jam Sessions; Miles Davis - The Bootleg Sessions Vol. 1; Joe Harriott - The Joe Harriott Story; Coleman Hawkins - The High And Mighty Hawk; Charles Mingus - Blues And Roots; Sonny Clark - Sonny’s Conception; Ornette Coleman - Original Album Series

My choices were:

(New Releases) Marcus Shelby - Soul Of The Movement; Warren Vaché/Alan Barnes - London Session; René Marie - Voice Of My Beautiful Country; Karrin Allyson - ’Round Midnight; Alan Barnes/Ken Mathison - Glasgow Suite. (Reissues) Buck Clayton - Complete Legendary Jam Sessions; Duke Ellington - Complete 1932-1940 Brunswick, Columbia Master Recordings; Jimmy Rushing - Rushing Lullabies + Brubeck And Rushing; Blue Mitchell - Blue’s Moods - Louis Armstrong - Satchmo: Ambassador Of Jazz

For the rest, and they make fascinating reading, you need to see the magazine and if you are not a subscriber then take a look at Jazz Journal’s website where you can correct that omission in your jazz reading.

Dave Tough

Little Giant

During his short and troubled life, Dave Tough consistently proved himself to be a masterful drummer, comfortable in a wide range of settings, willing to confront and overcome stylistic revolutions. He always displayed musical, technical and intellectual gifts, that might well have taken him to the top of any artistic pursuit and served him for a generous lifetime. At times, he seemed to have the ambition for this; but he also had disturbing flaws that not only circumscribed his career but also tragically shortened his life.

He was born, David Jarvis Tough, on 26 April 1907, in Oak Park, Illinois. He first played drums while a small child and he was still a Chicago schoolboy when he became a member of the Austin High School Gang. This was a loose gathering of white tyro jazzmen who were fascinated with and deeply influenced by black jazz musicians whose playing set alight the clubs and speakeasies of 1920s Chicago. The Gang formulated what became known as Chicago style jazz and Dave, who early mastered the art of playing subtle and infectiously swinging drums, was a significant member of the group. In that same decade, he visited Europe and also spent time in New York City where he made records under the nominal leadership of other members of the Chicago school, notably Eddie Condon and Red Nichols.

He began the 1930s inauspiciously, spending many months inactive through illness, a portent of the future. Tiny and frail, he was repeatedly struck by illnesses that more robust individuals might have shrugged off; and he gave himself no help by drinking heavily. By 1935, however, he was ready to make a mark in a different area of jazz. Until now, the bulk of his work had been in small groups, but the big bands that would dominate the forthcoming swing era were now on the rise. He played first with Tommy Dorsey, then moved swiftly and often fleetingly through many bands: Red Norvo, Bunny Berigan, Benny Goodman, back to Tommy Dorsey, then Jimmy Dorsey, Bud Freeman, Jack Teagarden, Artie Shaw, and others, including depping with Woody Herman.
There were several reasons for his restlessness. Dave insisted on musical perfection: while this was a characteristic shared by some of the leaders for whom he played, it was ignored by others. Added to personal differences, he had an intense dislike for the characterless music demanded by the realities of commercial success that were a sometimes onerous feature of life in the swing era. And there was his own occasionally unstable personality, a characteristic aggravated by his drinking, which was now sometimes excessive. In his private life, he flouted the racial taboos of the time by marrying a black dancer. He also found himself often at odds with former musical associates, and sought to establish an alternative career as a writer. He was briefly inducted into the military during World War 2, playing for a short while in the US Navy band directed by Artie Shaw, but was soon discharged on medical grounds.

It was shortly after his discharge that Dave made his greatest impact on the jazz world when he joined Woody Herman. As the records of Herman's First Herd were played around the world, fans of big band jazz became aware that for all his physical frailty, tiny Dave Tough was a powerful giant among drummers. Yet, despite his undoubted playing skills, Dave had serious doubts about his suitability for bop. His drinking habit had by now became uncontrollable. Observers at the time remarked upon the combination of his discomfort with his role in the changing jazz scene and a deterioration in his physical and mental state, and how it led inexorably to fits. Sometimes, and deeply disturbing to fellow musicians and audiences alike, these fits occurred on the bandstand.
Many of the people who knew him, did their best to help him; not just musician friends but also the writer Leonard Feather and impresario John Hammond Jnr. But Dave would not be helped; portents of disaster had shadowed his entire professional life, and finally they came to pass. Exactly what happened one winter night can never be known. He appears to have fallen in the street while walking home from a gig. Maybe he had another fit; perhaps he was drunk; or he might simply have slipped or stumbled in the dark. Whatever the cause, he fell, fractured his skull, and died from the injury on 9 December 1948 in Newark, New Jersey. His body lay unclaimed, indeed unrecognized, in the morgue for three days.

Whether playing in the small Chicago-style groups of which he was a charter member, or in any of the big bands to which he brought uncommon fluidity, he consistently demonstrated his subtle talents. It was with Woody Herman, however, that Dave Tough reached the apogee of his brief but shining career. In that band he exceeded even his own high standards, urging along one of the finest of the period's jazz orchestras with sizzling enthusiasm, flair and irresistible swing that was rarely equaled and almost never surpassed.

Recommended CDs (all with Woody Herman): The Complete Woody Herman (1945-7) 7-CD boxed set (Mosaic 223); The Woody Herman Story 4-CD boxed set (Properbox 15); The Thundering Herd: Original Recordings 1945-1947 (Naxos Jazz Legends 8.120739); The V-Disc Years (Hep CD2/3435 2)

For more about this remarkable musician, go to Drummerworld where among many things there are several excellent photographs.

 

Daryl Sherman - Jane Stuart

Daryl Sherman Mississippi Belle (Audiophile ACD 342)

One of the most entertaining of musicians, Daryl Sherman has a fully deserved worldwide reputation as a fine jazz pianist and singer. On this, her latest CD (released late December 2011), she delves into a trove of music with which she is wonderfully familiar, the songs of Cole Porter. For many years, Daryl has played and sung regularly at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel; what’s more, she has done so seated at the piano Cole Porter had in his suite when he stayed there, a Steinway given to him by the hotel. This CD is subtitled ‘Cole Porter in the Quarter’, that being, of course, the French Quarter of New Orleans, which is not only home to Audiophile Records but also where Daryl has often chosen to perform, particularly after Hurricane Katrina. Among the songs Daryl sings here are the familiar, which include Let’s Do It, Rosalie, Get Out Of Town, You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To and From This Moment On, and some that are less so, including Ours, Tale Of The Oyster, Use You Imagination and Looking At You. To her interpretations of all the songs, Daryl brings her unmistakable charm and wit, cloaking everything in her superb musicianship. Daryl’s instrumental collaborators here are clarinetist and tenor saxophonist Tom Fischer and bassist Jesse Boyd. The always admirable New Orleans-based singer, Banu Gibson, joins Daryl for By The Mississinewah. This is lovely stuff, a CD that will have very wide appeal.

Jane Stuart Don’t Look Back (Jane Stuart Music JSM 002)

Jane Stuart’s debut CD was 2007’s Beginning To See The Light, which won the Blue Chip Award for “Best Jazz Vocals” from the International Association of Jazz Educators. By now very much appreciated for her live performances, sometimes solo and sometimes as leader of her band, Airtight, in the New York and New Jersey area, Jane has built upon her very good start in the tough world of jazz singing and her new CD shows just how far she has come. This is a mature and confident performance, and her repertoire shows the breadth of her musical appreciation; among the songs here are Cole Porter’s Experiment, Dave Frishberg’s Wheelers And Dealers and You Are There (co-composed by Johnny Mandel), Lennon and McCartney’s Eleanor Rigby and I’ll Follow The Sun, Rodgers and Hart’s I Didn’t Know What Time It Was and an especially attractive version of the Gershwin classic, Summertime. Jane’s accompanists are pianist Rave Tesar, tenor saxophonist Frank Elmo, bassists Kermit Driscoll and Sue Williams share tracks and drummer Rick De Kovessey (who is her husband). Also on hand are percussionist Emedin Rivera and background vocalists Orlando Quinones and Paige Sandusky. There are also guests in the very welcome form of guitarist Dave Stryker and saxophonist Dick Oatts. This is a singer who deserves your attention.

Bill Berry

Hot ‘n’ Happy

One of the outstanding big bands of the 1970s, Bill Berry’s LA Band was rich in talented soloists, powerful in execution, and dedicated in its approach. Sadly, it was barely recorded although many off-air and private recordings exist and I count myself lucky in having several of these. Officially, only two albums were released, Hello Rev (Concord Jazz CJ CCD 4023) and the almost impossible to find vinyl, Hot 'n' Happy (Beez 1), the latter on Bill Berry’s own label. The CD incarnation of Hello Rev is therefore a ‘must have’ for all lovers of big band jazz at its fiery best. Soloists include Blue Mitchell, Cat Anderson, Jack Sheldon, Jimmy Cleveland, Tricky Lofton, Richie Kamuca, Marshal Royal and Dave Frishberg. This album almost matches the awesome experience of hearing the band live.

I heard the band live just once, at Carmelo’s, a Los Angeles jazz club. That night, the band included Sheldon, Cleveland, Kamuca and Frishberg, as well as Pete and Conte Candoli, Bob Efford, Jack Nimitz, Monty Budwig and Frank Capp among a truly star-studded personnel. If only more of my memories were made of evenings like this.
Bill Berry also led small groups and they have fared a little better in the CD age. Of these Shortcake (Concord Jazz CJ CCD 4075) also abounds in distinguished soloists, including Marshal Royal, Lew Tabackin, Bill Watrous and Dave Frishberg and additionally is marked by ingenious and witty charts. In the 1990s, Bill Berry and his wife Betty organized the Pacific Jazz Party, a richly rewarding trans-oceanic collaboration between musicians from America and Japan. The fine mainstream set, Jazz Party (Jazz Cook JCCD 1003) is one result of this meeting of musical minds. Cornetist Bill co-leads with his counterpart, clarinetist Eiji Kitamura, and they are joined by tenor saxophonist Sam Sadigursky and a pulsating rhythm section that draws from both countries: pianist Kotaro Tsukahara and the veteran bass and drums team of Ray Brown and Jake Hanna. Then there is Live at Capozzoli’s (Woofy WPCD 54), which was recorded during a late 1990s Las Vegas club date. The uncommon front line of Bill’s cornet and Jack Nimitz’s baritone saxophone lend interesting textures to a nice selection of numbers, most of which are standards.

Bill Berry's death, in November 2002, brought to an end a personal friendship that existed between us since the late 1970s. I miss Bill but count myself lucky to have known him and to have heard him play many times live, with various small bands and that never-to-be-forgotten occasion with his mighty big band. At least, we still have the records, all of which exemplify something Bill once observed: “You can be 100% serious about music, and still have fun.”

Illinois Jacquet

Although he became especially well known for his fiery work with Jazz At The Philharmonic, where his playing reflected his breakthrough with Lionel Hampton in the early 1940s and his solo on Flying Home in particular, Illinois Jacquet was a thoroughly accomplished tenor saxophonist with a richly varied repertoire.

He was born in Boussard, Louisiana, on 31 October 1922, but was raised from the age of one in Texas and would thus later be welcomed by those who established what became known as the ‘tough Texa’ style of playing the tenor saxophone. Jacquet was born into a very musical family, his father, Gilbert, leading a band that included Illinois’s brothers Julius, Linton and Russell; he boys’ sister and their mother were also accomplished musicians. While still at school, he danced as a member of the Jacquet Brothers dance team and also played drums. Later, he switched instruments, taking up alto and soprano saxophones. As early as 1938, while still at school, Jacquet sat in with various visiting bands, including that led by Milt Larkins. After graduating from high school, he left Texas to look for musical work in California. There, he worked with Floyd Ray and chanced to meet Nat Cole and was introduced to Lionel Hampton who was in the process of forming a band. Hampton happened to want a tenor player and offered Jacquet a job on the condition that he switch to tenor. Jacquet set out to master the instrument and in 1941 became a key figure in Hampton’s entourage. The recording session that produced the legendary Flying Home was on 26 May 1942. Jacquet’s solo was outstanding and became so inextricably intertwined with Hampton’s composition that it was later integrated into the number and Jacquet’s successors were expected to use it as the basis for their own solos. Deceptively simple, the riff-based solo set a standard and helped establish Jacquet as a major figure in jazz.

In 1943, Jacquet joined Cab Calloway, staying for about a year before moving on to play with various small bands and also to lead his own group in which brother Russell appeared as did Charles Mingus. A brief but telling appearance in the 1944 Gjon Mili-Norman Granz film, Jammin’ The Blues, was followed by regular dates with Granz’s Jazz At The Philharmonic and he was also with Count Basie’s band. Much of his mid-1940s to mid-1950s work is presented on The Illinois Jacquet Story on Properbox Records. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Jacquet toured with his own small groups and with JATP, becoming in the process a welcome figure on the international jazz club and jazz festival circuits. In some ways, his time with JATP, while valuable and lucrative, was somewhat limiting to his enormous talent. On the JATP bandstand he acquired a reputation as a wild man of the tenor, performing honks and high-note squeals on up-tempo rafter-raising numbers and while these demonstrations of his remarkable technical ability cannot be denied, they were always balanced with exquisite ballad performances as can be heard on many live and studio recording sessions, several on Verve Records, not only in these years but ever afterwards.

Meanwhile, Jacquet continued to form his own groups for club dates, tours and recording sessions, along the way working with many leading jazz instrumentalists and singers. His recordings included the very popular Robbins Nest and Black Velvet. He made a brief instrumental departure by playing bassoon in a jazz context and also from time to time he returned to the alto saxophone on which he displayed his admiration for Charlie Parker. For several years through the late 1960s and into the following decade, Jacquet fronted a trio with Milt Buckner and Jo Jones and worked also with Slam Stewart and Buddy Rich. From time to time he would return to Hampton for concert appearances, and he also worked in several all-star ensembles. His European tours with a Texas Tenors band, along with Arnett Cobb and Buddy Tate, was very well received by audiences and critics alike.

After having been artist-in-residence at Harvard in the early 1980s, Jacquet formed a big band for occasional concerts and recording sessions, including Atlantic Records’ Jacquet’s Got It!. He continued to form occasional big bands through the 1990s, a time when he was also a regular visitor to European jazz festivals. A fine example of the Texas tenor style, indeed one of the prototypes of the genre, Jacquet should not be overlooked by those who seek to delineate the history of the tenor saxophone in jazz. He was an important transitional figure in the development of the instrument, retaining a lifelong affinity for the blues while keeping himself attuned to the changes taking place in the bop and post-bop periods of jazz. An admirer of Charlie Parker and Lester Young, he successfully became his own man and set standards for others to follow. Late in life, Jacquet was a dignified on-stage presence as an elder statesman of jazz, while his playing always impressively combined the earthy swing of his Texan upbringing with the melodic grace of an impassioned balladeer. In all that he played, Jacquet sought and found the emotional heart of the material, playing solos that are intense in their fire and rhapsodic in their elemental command. And throughout his career, at the warm heart of his playing there was always the blues.

In 1991 came the release of Arthur Elgort’s documentary film, Texas Tenor: The Illinois Jacquet Story, which captures all that was good about this exceptional musician.

Jean-Baptiste Illinois Jacquet, died in New York City on 22 July 2004. Of his playing on that 1942 version of Flying Home, he would remark, ‘God bless my solo.’ To which his many fans might well chorus, ‘Yes indeed!’

The foregoing has been adapted from a piece written a few years ago for Jazz Journal.

Benny Carter - Part 2

Despite his deep involvement in writing for films and television, in the 1950s, and shrugging off a 1956 heart attack, Benny Carter still found time to play with Jazz At The Philharmonic and to form and lead bands for residencies, short tours, and recording sessions. Notable among these recording dates were Aspects, 1961’s influential Further Definitions album, on which he was joined by Coleman Hawkins, Phil Woods and Charlie Rouse, and 1966’s Additions To Further Definitions, with a band that included Mundell Lowe and Teddy Edwards. This music has can be found on a Decca Records release. The musicality and musicianship Carter possessed endeared him to singers and he wrote arrangements for a wide range of jazz and jazz-influenced pop singers, among them Louis Armstrong, Pearl Bailey, Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Lou Rawls, Mel Tormé and Sarah Vaughan.

 

The 1970’s saw Carter’s re-emergence as a concert and touring artist and he made numerous national and international tours, playing jazz clubs and concert halls, and making many albums. In 1987, he teamed up with John Lewis and the occasionally-assembled All-American Jazz Orchestra for concerts dedicated to performing works written especially for big bands. To this repertoire, Carter contributed a major long work, Central City Sketches, rehearsing, conducting and playing solo alto at its premiere. Also in 1987, Ken Mathieson commissioned Carter to compose a suite for a big band for the Glasgow Jazz Festival. In 1989, his 82nd birthday was honored by a concert at New York's Lincoln Center at which some of his songs were sung by Sylvia Syms and Ernestine Anderson. He celebrated his 85th birthday with a concert at Rutgers University, premiering two new suites written especially for the occasion: Tales Of The Rising Sun Suite and Harlem Renaissance Suite. In 1997, a special concert was held in honor of his 90th birthday at the Hollywood Bowl at which a new composition by John Clayton was played. Dedicated to Carter, the three-part suite was entitled, very appropriately, Maestro. The concert could not, though, be held on Carter’s actual birth day; instead, it was held two days earlier because on his birthday the indefatigable maestro had a gig in Norway. In May 2000, the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra premiered two of Carter's new works, Time To Remember, memorializing President John F. Kennedy, and Again And Again, a ballad performed by alto saxophonist Jeff Clayton. The occasion was a concert at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, remembering the city’s Central Avenue jazz scene, at which Maestro was reprised.

As a soloist, Carter’s fluent playing on alto saxophone and the liquid sound he created made him kin to his near-contemporary, Johnny Hodges, and between them they effectively ruled the world on that instrument until the arrival of Charlie Parker. Although less well known, his clarinet playing was similarly rich and flowing. All these comments can be applied just as readily to his trumpet playing. Very few musicians double on reeds and brass; of those few that do, it is hard to think of any who achieve this with such apparent ease as Carter. Bill Berry recalled an appearance with Carter in Tokyo who was, as usual, playing alto that night. Someone in the audience requested that Carter play trumpet. Although he did not have his own trumpet, and as far as anyone knew had not picked one up in years, Carter borrowed Berry's cornet and played with the perfection of someone who was in daily practice. Carter’s playing skills never deserted him, as can be heard on many recordings from late in his life, among them a set at New York’s Iridium Club released by Nimbus.

Carter’s composing blended silky melodies with vibrant swing. Among his compositions are Blues In My Heart, which is one of the most recorded of his instrumentals, When Lights Are Low, also extensively recorded as an instrumental and as a vocal, with lyrics by Spencer Williams, Blue Star, Devil's Holiday, Dream Lullaby, Blue Interlude, Lonesome Nights, Doozy, which defies anyone not to swing when playing it, Symphony In Riffs, which was also the title of a 1995 video release, and he also wrote Kansas City Suite for Count Basie's band in the 1960s. As composer and arranger he ranks with Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, Edgar Sampson, and a handful of others as an important architect of swing era big band concepts. His writing for the saxophone section was perhaps the most instantly recognizable element of his arranging talent. The gorgeous, flowing, seemingly simple yet decidedly complex sound he created was just one of the many joys that this remarkable man brought to jazz.

Fortunately, Carter attracted the biographer he merited and in 1982 Morroe Berger, brought out his two-volume biography, Benny Carter: A Life In American Music, written in collaboration with Ed Berger and James Patrick, which fully documents the life of this amazing musician. Except, of course, in 1982, Carter still had two decades of music making ahead of him.

The official Benny Carter web site, run by Ed and Laurence Berger, should not be missed by anyone interested in the life and career of this extraordinary man. Carter died on Saturday, 12 July 2003, leaving behind an incomparable musical legacy. We shall not see his like again.

In 2011, singer Deborah Pearl released, Souvenir Of You, an album of songs for which she wrote lyrics to compositions by Benny Carter. This very interesting CD is reviewed elsewhere on this Blog. Also in 2011, Ken Mathieson teamed up with Alan Barnes and Woodville Records to re-explore Carter’s Glasgow Suite, recording the work with Mathieson’s 8-piece Classic Jazz Orchestra, along with several other Carter compositions and arrangements. In so doing, they demonstrated not only their own musical skills but also the durability of the music of Benny Carter.