{"id":102,"date":"2005-08-23T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-23T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/?p=102"},"modified":"2005-08-23T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-23T08:05:00","slug":"a_benny_carter_story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2005\/08\/a_benny_carter_story\/","title":{"rendered":"A Benny Carter Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles drummer and leader Dick McGarvin responded to Benny and Miles<\/a> with this communique:<\/p>\n

When Lights Are Low Priced<\/strong>
\nIn the early 1990s, I decided I wanted to do WHEN LIGHTS ARE LOW with my group. However, all my music books had the one with the Miles Davis bridge. And I didn’t have a recording of the correct version so I could take it down off the record.
\nThen I remembered – Benny lives in LA. Why not go to the source? I got out my Local 47 directory and called the number – kind of expecting to reach an office or a business manager. But, it was Benny who picked up the phone. I identified myself, told him why I was calling. He was very gracious…and grateful that I wanted to do his tune correctly and said he’d be happy to send me a leadsheet.
\nI figured there’d be some kind of charge for it. At the very least, I wanted to reimburse him for the postage. So I asked him how much it would be. And Benny said, “Fifteen hundred dollars!” There was a moment of silence and, realizing he was kidding, I said, “Would you take a check?”
\nWe laughed – and he said there would be no charge…on one condition. And I said, “What’s that?” He said, “I’ll send it to you ONLY if you let me send you some of my other songs, as well.” And I thought – yeah, I can handle that.
\nSome days later, a packet arrived containing WHEN LIGHTS ARE LOW and half a dozen other Benny Carter originals.
\nGod Bless him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No one who knew Benny will be surprised by his generosity or his humor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles drummer and leader Dick McGarvin responded to Benny and Miles with this communique: When Lights Are Low Priced In the early 1990s, I decided I wanted to do WHEN LIGHTS ARE LOW with my group. However, all my music books had the one with the Miles Davis bridge. And I didn’t have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}