• Home
  • About
    • Doug Ramsey
    • Rifftides
    • Contact
  • Purchase Doug’s Books
    • Poodie James
    • Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond
    • Jazz Matters
    • Other Works
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal
  • rss

Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Archives for April 22, 2013

Benny Carter: An Appreciation

In the latest of his occasional series on arrangers and composers, Jeff Sultanof looks at the career and contributions of a man whom I once described in a liner essay as a quintuple threat, then wrote, “That was too conservative. At the height of his career, he played alto, tenor, clarinet and trumpet, composed, arranged, and sometimes played piano and sang. He is—along with Johnny Hodges and Charlie Parker—one of the three great original alto saxophone stylists in jazz. He wrote arrangements in the mid-‘30s that sound fresh today. He was a natural-born leader and teacher and one of the most important catalysts in jazz history.”

Rifftides welcomes another contribution from Mr. Sultanof, a scholar cherished by the US music communitysultanof-w-text for his expertise on big bands, arranging and composing, fields in which he is also a respected practitioner. He has analyzed, studied, edited and taught the music of Gerald Wilson, Robert Farnon, Harry Warren, Russell Garcia, Gerry Mulligan and Miles Davis, among others. The Rifftides staff is honored to present Mr. Sultanof’s thoughts about the importance of Benny Carter.

BENNY CARTER (1907-2003)
By Jeff Sultanof

Writing an article on a legendary figure in any field is relatively easy. There are accomplishments to cite, individual artistic highlights to describe, and maybe a juicy scandal or two. Benny Carter is certainly a legend, but he created great art with no fanfare and no personal issues. His recordings yielded no hits that the general public associates with him. Yet most of the readers of these words know Carter altothat he is right up there with the finest saxophone and trumpet pioneers in the history of jazz, and that he was one of American popular music’s pioneer arranger/composers, alongside such names as Ellington, Fletcher Henderson. Don Redman, John Nesbitt and Bill Challis.

This piece only sketches the history of his life, as details are easily found elsewhere, particularly in Ed Berger’s incredible two-volume bio-discography of Carter. But it does share some personal memories, and more importantly, reports that Mr. Carter may finally have broken through to the most important audience he could possibly have. Carter trumpet

Benny was born in New York in 1907, and was playing alto saxophone in public by the time he was fifteen. He began contributing arrangements to bands, and by the beginning of the depression was one the leading arrangers in popular music. By 1933, he had mastered the trumpet and is one of those rare musicians whosesolos on horns from more than one instrumental family are considered classics. He organized his first band in 1932 and was always able to attract excellent musicians. A young Canadian composer named Robert Farnon credited Carter with showing him that the arranger wrote a score first and then copied the parts; at the time, Farnon did not know that there was such a thing as a score; stock arrangements did not include them.

Carter continued his career in Europe in the mid-thirties, and soon he was writing for the BBC Dance Carter, HawkinsOrchestra. He wrote, played and recorded in Europe for three years, often working with other expatriates such as Coleman Hawkins.

In 1938, he returned to the U.S. and led another excellent band, but once again, because he never had a hit record, he was leading a small group by 1941. Along the way, he was writing for bands led by Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, and Benny Goodman. In 1942, he started yet another big band on the west coast that lasted four years. Instrumentalists included Miles Davis, J.J. Johnson and Art Pepper, all of whose careers Carter encouraged.

In 1943, Alfred Newman, head of music at 20th Century-Fox, needed an arranger for the film Stormy Weather with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Lena Horne. Newman hired Carter, who did such an excellent job that he was regularly called to do work at Fox while he continued to lead his band. Though he was not the first black arranger to work in Hollywood (Will Vodery, William Grant Still and Phil Moore preceded him), he was perhaps the first to break the stereotype of black arrangers being used only for ‘exotic’ (i.e. jungle or primitive) music or jazz. Newman recognized that Carter could write and play anything.

That points up what was special about Benny’s music; it ranged wide through musical styles. “Symphony in Riffs” was in many important dance band books, “Cow Cow Boogie” was a huge hit for the pop/jazz/country crossover artist Ella Mae Morse. “Key Largo” was a ballad covered by many artists after Anita O’DayAnita O'Day (young) (pictured) popularized it. His music is also harmonically interesting, fun to play and often challenging. His choruses for saxophone section (“Lonesome Nights” and “All of Me” are two of the best) are still models for such writing; sax players love practicing them because they are well-written for the instruments and beautiful to hear.

For many years, Benny juggled between playing and writing assignments for recordings, television and motion pictures, but during the 1970s, his playing career entered a new phase, and he became busy playing concerts and festivals. Ed Berger became his manager, and even produced some of his later recordings.

In the mid-1990s, I was working for Hal Leonard Corporation as an editor and consultant. A book of Carter’s songs and solos was already in production when I first joined the company, but Ed Berger was determined that I work with Benny. I suggested that the many Carter arrangements and compositions that Benny kept in his garage should finally be edited and published. In my view, if Ellington’s music was available, certainly Carter’s work was just as important, and I was not the only one who believed that. Eventually, Jazz at Lincoln Center did publish some Carter compositions, but they were often transcriptions.

In the second installment of Jeff’s appreciation of Benny Carter, he recounts his visit with the Carters in Los Angeles and discloses the nature of the new audience that is helping to expand Benny’s living legacy.

Unaccountably and unforgivably, the Sony combine that acquired RCA Records has allowed a CD with recordings of Carter’s masterly scoring to go out of print. It contains the “All of Me” that Jeff mentions. Amazon has two new copies in stock for $85 dollars each. That price is the bad news. The good news is that Amazon also lists a number of used copies of that invaluable album at a tiny fraction of the cost of a new one.

Benny Carter, An Appreciation, Continued

Please see the previous post for the first installment.

BENNY CARTER, PART 2
By Jeff Sultanof

In 1999, I went to Los Angeles to celebrate New Year’s Eve with Jerry Graff, my mentor and second father, as well as to visit with Gene Lees and Roger Kellaway. I got a call from Ed Berger to see Benny; he was sorting out his catalog and needed some guidance. I went to his beautiful home in Beverly Hills. Carter immediately took me aback when he said, “I understand you are a very fine arranger.” He introduced me to his wife Hilma and we sat down in his living room, surrounded by gorgeous African art.

Carter had an interesting problem. During the late 1950s through to 1960s, Benny was working at Revue Studios, which was the television arm of Universal Pictures. He wrote many hours of music for various television shows, most notably “M-Squad” (now available on DVD). His boss was a man named Stanley Wilson,m-squad who supervised the music for the company. Wilson gave many composers their starts in writing for film and television; Carter, Elmer Bernstein, Dave Grusin, Quincy Jones, Juan Garcia Esquivel, Oliver Nelson, Lalo Schifrin and John Williams (when he was still known as Johnny Williams). Wilson kept them very busy.

What was the problem Berger wanted me to help Benny with? Carter was putting together a master list of all of his compositions, and was trying to sort out his work for Revue. When a composer wrote a score for television, in some cases the cues (individual pieces of music written as underscoring) would go into a library to be re-used in other shows to save time and money. CBS did the same thing: there were compositions by Bernard Herrmann, Nathan Van Cleave, Fred Steiner and Jerry Goldsmith in their collection. This was perfectly legal, since the composers wrote this music as work-for-hire. As long as they were paid royalties, it was a true win-win situation because a TV show generated composer monies when it was seen anywhere in the world, and the music continued to be used in new TV series. I suggested to Benny that some Mr and Mrs Benny Carterof his cues may have been cut or altered and given new names, creating new compositions which were unknown to him since he didn’t own the music. “As long as they are paying me,” he said. Obviously, these old shows were still in reruns. He told me that his royalty checks were healthy. “They help me continue the lifestyle to which Hilma and I are accustomed,” he grinned. He never did finish the list, but the encounter was a great opportunity to sit and visit with him.

At lunch, I told him of my dream that his music be properly published and available. He was enthusiastic about the idea; he was pleased with the book Hal Leonard had already published and fully expected to continue his association with them. His pianist, Chris Neville, was assembling a book of his lead sheets, and Benny wanted me to work on it with him. Neither project happened. I offered to work on the lead sheet book gratis, but Benny found that unacceptable.

Earlier, I said that Benny has finally found an appreciative audience that loves his music and loves to play it. This phase of his career began when he started teaching at Princeton University in 1969. He revised his earlier scores and continued to write new music, initially for students and then later for concerts with all-star bands. I’ve spoken to one or two students who studied with him while he was at Princeton, and they described a warm, gracious, highly skilled musician who was open to any kind of music. It is clear that he changed their lives.

Sierra Music published his Kansas City Suite for Count Basie. Many middle and high schools in the U.S. now have at least one of the sectionsBasie KC Suite in their books. Here was true educational music: written for professionals, playable by amateurs and students. The writing is perfect for training an ensemble to become an even better one, and the chord structures are interesting but basic enough for young improvisers. Now, a lot of young players know who Benny is. Jazz Lines Publications now has an agreement with the Carter estate; 29 Carter compositions and arrangements have been released so far (many for big band, but some for saxophone ensemble), and they are among the company’s biggest sellers, to the surprise and delight of Ed Berger and Hilma Carter. There is more to come: more compositions (some quite modern) and even arrangements that he prepared for vocalists. Quite a few of the works are at Brigham Young University, repository of a collection of scores recorded for Capitol Records.

The beauty of great art is that it lives on to entertain, enlighten and inspire people many years after it was created. Benny Carter’s music has finally come into its own with those who will keep the tradition of big bands and combos alive for many years to come.

Jeff’s previous Rifftides piece concerned Gerry Mulligan’s unperformed arrangement of “Yardbird Suite” for Charlie Parker and strings. It came in two parts, here and here, and it contains a link to a synthesized performance of the arrangement.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, … [MORE]

Subscribe to RiffTides by Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Rob D on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • W. Royal Stokes on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Larry on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Lucille Dolab on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Donna Birchard on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside