Benny Carter

Carter was born in New York City in 1907. He was given piano lessons by his mother and others in the neighborhood. He played trumpet and experimented briefly with C-melody saxophone before settling on alto saxophone. In the 1920s, he performed with June Clark, Billy Paige, and Earl Hines, then toured as a member of the Wilberforce Collegians led by Horace Henderson.{{cite book|last1=Berger|first1=Edward|editor1-last=Kernfeld|editor1-first=Barry|title=The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz|date=2002|publisher=Grove's Dictionaries|location=New York|isbn=1-56159-284-6|page=172| volume=1|edition=2nd}}

He appeared on record for the first time in 1927 as a member of the Paradise Ten led by Charlie Johnson.{{cite web|last1=Yanow|first1=Scott|title=Benny Carter|url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/benny-carter-mn0000790083/biography|website=AllMusic|access-date=April 26, 2018}} He returned to the Collegians and became their bandleader through 1929, including a performance at the Savoy Ballroom in New York City.

In his early 20s, Carter worked as arranger for Fletcher Henderson after that position was vacated by Don Redman. He had no formal education in arranging, learning by trial and error, getting on his knees and looking at the existing charts, "writing the lead trumpet first and the lead saxophone first—which, of course, is the hard way. It was quite some time that I did that before I knew what a score was."{{cite book|last1=Gioia|first1=Ted|title=The History of Jazz|date=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-19-539970-7|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofjazz00gioia/page/108 108–]|edition=2|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofjazz00gioia/page/108}}

He left Henderson to take Redman's former job as leader of McKinney's Cotton Pickers in Detroit. In 1932, he formed a band in New York City that included Chu Berry, Sid Catlett, Frankie Newton, Dicky Wells, Wayman Carver, and Teddy Wilson.{{Needs verification|date=February 2025}} Carter's arrangements were complex. Among the most significant were "Keep a Song in Your Soul", written for Henderson in 1930, and "Lonesome Nights" and "Symphony in Riffs" from 1933, both of which show Carter's writing for saxophones.{{cite book|last1=Martin|first1=Henry|last2=Waters|first2=Keith|title=Jazz: The First 100 Years|date=2006|publisher=Thomson / Schirmer|location=Belmont, California|isbn=0-534-62804-4|edition=2}}

By the early 1930s, Carter and Johnny Hodges were considered the leading alto saxophonists. Carter also became a leading trumpet soloist, having rediscovered the instrument. He recorded extensively on trumpet in the 1930s. Carter's short-lived Orchestra played the Harlem Club in New York but only recorded a handful of records for Columbia, OKeh and Vocalion. The OKeh sides were issued under the name The Chocolate Dandies.

Image:Robert Goffin, Benny Carter, Louis Armstrong, Leonard Feather 1942.jpg, Louis Armstrong, and Leonard Feather in 1942.]]

In 1933, Carter participated in sessions with British composer/musician Spike Hughes, who visited New York City to organize recordings with prominent African American musicians. These 14 sides plus four by Carter's big band, titled at the time Spike Hughes and His Negro Orchestra, were initially only issued in England. The musicians were from Carter's band and included Red Allen, Dicky Wells, Wayman Carver, Coleman Hawkins, J. C. Higginbotham, and Chu Berry.{{cite book|last1=Yanow| first1=Scott|title=Jazz on Record|date=2003|publisher=Backbeat|location=San Francisco, California| isbn=0-87930-755-2| page=169}}

Carter moved to London and spent two years as arranger for the BBC Big Band. In England, France, and Scandinavia he recorded with local musicians, and he took his band to the Netherlands. In these settings, Carter played trumpet, clarinet, piano, alto and tenor saxophone, and provided occasional vocals. In 1938, he recorded in Paris with Django Reinhardt I'm Coming Virginia and Farewell Blues in his own arrangement. He returned to America that same year and found regular work leading his band at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem through 1941. The band included Shad Collins, Sidney De Paris, Vic Dickenson, and Freddie Webster. After this engagement, he led a seven-piece band which included Eddie Barefield, Kenny Clarke, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Image:Benny carter loc.jpg, New York City, c. October 1946]]

In the mid-1940s he moved to Los Angeles, forming another big band, which at times included J. J. Johnson, Max Roach, and Miles Davis. But these would be his last big bands. With the exception of occasional concerts, performing with Jazz at the Philharmonic, and recording, he ceased working as a touring big band bandleader. Los Angeles provided him many opportunities for studio work, and these dominated his time during the decades. He wrote music and arrangements for films, such as Stormy Weather in 1943. During the 1950s and '60s, he wrote arrangements for vocalists such as Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, and Sarah Vaughan. On something of a comeback in the 1970s, Carter returned to playing saxophone again and toured the Middle East courtesy of the U.S. State Department. He began making annual visits to Europe and Japan.

File:BennyCarter1985.jpg in 1985.]]

In 1969, Carter was persuaded to spend a weekend at Princeton University by Morroe Berger, a sociology professor at Princeton who wrote about jazz. This led to a new outlet for Carter's 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 gave him an honorary doctorate. He conducted teaching at workshops and seminars at several other universities and was a visiting lecturer at Harvard for a week in 1987. Morroe Berger wrote Benny Carter – A Life in American Music (1982), a two-volume work about Carter's career.{{cite book|last1=Berger|first1=Morroe|last2=Berger|first2=Edward| last3=Patrick|first3=James|title=Benny Carter: A Life in American Music|date=1982|publisher=Scarecrow Press and the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University|location=Metuchen, N.J.|isbn=0-8108-1580-X}}

Time had little effect on Carter's abilities. During the 1980s, he wrote the long composition Central City Sketches which was performed at Cooper Union by the American Jazz Orchestra. Another long composition, Glasgow Suite, was performed in Scotland. Lincoln Center commissioned him to write "Good Vibes" in 1990.Pareles, Jon. '[https://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/09/arts/review-jazz-benny-carter-revisits-the-swing-era.html Benny Carter Revisits the Swing Era]', in The New York Times, 9 August 1990, Section C, p. 15 The National Endowment for the Arts gave him a grant that led Tales of the Rising Sun Suite and Harlem Renaissance Suite. This music was performed in 1992 when he was 85 years old.

Carter had an unusually long career. He is one of few musicians to have recorded in eight different decades. Another characteristic of his career was its versatility as musician, bandleader, arranger, and composer. He helped define the sound of alto saxophone, but he also performed and recorded on soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, and piano. He helped establish a foundation for arranging as far back as 1930 when he arranged "Keep a Song in Your Soul" for Fletcher Henderson's big band. His compositions include the novelty hit "Cow-Cow Boogie" recorded by Ella Mae Morse, and the expansive Central City Sketches, written when he was 80 years old and recorded with the American Jazz Orchestra.

Carter died at the age of 95 in Los Angeles at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on July 12, 2003, from complications of bronchitis.{{cite web|last1=Wilson|first1=John S.|title=Benny Carter – jazz career spanned 8 decades| url=https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Benny-Carter-jazz-career-spanned-8-decades-2603537.php| website=SFGate| access-date=April 26, 2018|date=July 14, 2003}}{{cite web|title=Benny Carter: August 8, 1907 - July 12, 2003|url=http://www.bennycarter.com/july122003.shtml|website=www.bennycarter.com|access-date=April 26, 2018}}

He was inducted into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1977. In 1978, he was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.{{citation|last=Giddins|first=Gary|title=Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w-oMvvaaYgwC&pg=PA150|access-date=April 26, 2018|date=November 15, 2004| publisher= Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-534816-3|pages=150–}} In 1980, he received the Golden Score award of the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers. His 75th birthday was commemorated by a radio station in New York that played his music nonstop for over a week. The National Endowment for the Arts gave him the NEA Jazz Masters Award for 1986.[http://www.nea.gov/national/jazz/Award.html Official NEA Jazz Masters Awards List] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927195209/http://www.nea.gov/national/jazz/Award.html |date=September 27, 2007 }}

He was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987. In 1994 he won a Grammy Award for his solo on "Prelude to a Kiss" and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 1989, Lincoln Center celebrated Carter's 82nd birthday with a set of his songs sung by Ernestine Anderson and Sylvia Syms. In 1990, he was named Jazz Artist of the Year in the DownBeat and JazzTimes polls. He was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1996 and received honorary doctorates from Princeton (1974),{{Cite web|url=http://www.bennycarter.com/bio4.shtml|title=Benny Carter: Biography|website=Bennycarter.com|access-date=October 15, 2019}} Rutgers (1991),{{cite web|last1=Crespo|first1=Roberto|title=Benny Carter The Rutgers Connection|url=http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/ijs/bc/rutgers.htm|website=newarkwww.rutgers.edu|access-date=April 26, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101104011732/http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/ijs/bc/rutgers.htm|archive-date=November 4, 2010|url-status=dead}} Harvard (1994), and the New England Conservatory of Music (1998).[http://www.newenglandconservatory.edu/reports_factsheets/honorarydegrees.html New England Conservatory Honorary Doctor of Music Recipients] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071019121920/http://www.newenglandconservatory.edu/reports_factsheets/honorarydegrees.html |date=October 19, 2007}} In 2016, the National Museum of American History made Carter the subject of its Jazz Appreciation Month poster.{{cite web|last1=Salocks|first1=Meg |last2=Shrumm|first2=Regan| title=3 things to know about Benny Carter, an unsung champion of jazz|url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/3-things-know-about-benny-carter-unsung-champion-jazz| website=National Museum of American History|access-date=April 30, 2018|date=March 31, 2016}}

In 2000, he was given the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton.{{cite web| title=Benny Carter: Gallery: Book Vintage Record Labels|url=http://www.bennycarter.com/galmedal.shtml| website=Benny Carter|access-date=April 26, 2018}}[http://www.nea.gov/honors/medals/medalists_year.html National Medal of Arts List] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721054307/http://www.nea.gov/honors/medals/medalists_year.html |date=July 21, 2011 }}

• Wins: 3
• Nominations: 9{{cite web|title=Benny Carter|url=https://www.grammy.com/grammys/artists/benny-carter|website=GRAMMY.com|access-date=April 27, 2018|date=May 14, 2017}}

Information from AllMusic.com{{cite web|title=Benny Carter {{!}} Album Discography {{!}} AllMusic|url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/benny-carter-mn0000790083/discography|website=AllMusic|access-date=April 27, 2018}}

With Louis Bellson

• Skin Deep (Norgran, 1953)

With Ella Fitzgerald

• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Song Book (Verve, 1961)

With Dizzy Gillespie

• The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (Bluebird, 1937–1949, [1995])

With Jazz at the Philharmonic

• The Drum Battle (Verve, 1952 [1960])

With Peggy Lee

• Blues Cross Country (Capitol, 1962) -- also some arrangements

With Dave Pell

• I Remember John Kirby (Capitol, 1961)

With Nancy Wilson

• The Sound of Nancy Wilson (Capitol, 1968)
• Nancy (Capitol, 1969)

• "Blues in My Heart" (1931) with Irving Mills
• "When Lights Are Low" (1936) with Spencer Williams
• "Cow-Cow Boogie (Cuma-Ti-Yi-Yi-Ay)" (1942) with Don Raye and Gene De Paul
• "King Size Papa" with Paul Vandervoort II (1947)
• "Key Largo" (1948) with Karl Suessdorf, Leah Worth
• "Rock Me to Sleep" (1950) with Paul Vandervoort II
• "A Kiss from You" (1964) with Johnny Mercer
• "Only Trust Your Heart" (1964) with Sammy Cahn

• Thousands Cheer (1943)
• An American in Paris (1951)
• Clash by Night (1952)
• The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)
• Buck and the Preacher (1972)
• Jazz at the Smithsonian: Benny Carter (1982)
• Benny Carter in Japan (1986)
• Wolf Trap Salutes Dizzy Gillespie (1988)
• Benny Carter: Symphony in Riffs (1989)

• List of jazz arrangers

{{Reflist}}

{{commons category|Benny Carter}}

• [http://americanhistory.si.edu/smithsonian-jazz/education/bennys-music-class Benny's Music Class], Audio clips at the National Museum of American History web site
• [http://www.swingmusic.net/Benny_Carter.html Biography on swingmusic.net] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220128154838/http://www.swingmusic.net/Benny_Carter.html |date=January 28, 2022 }}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060526212056/http://www.jazzimprov.com/links/legends.cfm?legend_id=5 Benny Carter's entry in Jazz Improv magazine]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20111023193443/http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/~danadml/IJS/MellonProject/index.html Benny Carter Audio Collection], Institute of Jazz Studies, Dana Library, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey
• [https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/benny-carter Benny Carter Interview] NAMM Oral History Library (1994)
• [https://americanhistory.si.edu/smithsonian-jazz/collections-and-archives/smithsonian-jazz-oral-history-program#BennyCarter Benny Carter interview], Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program at the National Museum of American History
• [https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/103374 Benny Carter recordings] at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
• Benny Carter Oral Interview at the Institute of Jazz Studies

{{Benny Carter}}

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