[Dixielandjazz] Benny Carter Tribute

[Norman Vickers]

Listmates:  I had sent this out to a number of friends.  Bob Ringwald
suggests that it is an appropriate piece and would be of interest, I hope,
to the DJML list.

Here it is:



Here is a tribute to Benny Carter by Gary Giddins from the Village Voice. I
thought it was particularly enlightening.  I hope you will find it of
interest.

If you are a subscriber to the American Rag, this month's issue has a
tribute by Floyd Levin accompanied by a photo I took of Benny Carter at a
Dick Gibson Jazz Party.  The American Federation of Jazz Societies (AFJS)
has an award for service to jazz named for Benny Carter and Carter was, of
course, the first recipient. I was present in Los Angeles for an AFJS
convention and had opportunity to meet Carter for the first time and to
photograph the award ceremony.  ( Should you wish to subscribe, the go to
the JSOP website www.jazzpensacola.com and click on the American Rag link. )

Norman  Vickers
JazzDoc

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>From The Village Voice



Weatherbird by Gary Giddins Benny Carter, 1907-2003 A Gentleman You Didn't
Mess With: The King and His Honors and His Many Revolutions August 20 - 26,
2003

Ten years ago, a woman from the Kennedy Center Honors called to pick my
brain. The committee, she said, had decided that a jazz artist should be
among the next group of honorees. At that time those awards for lifetime
achievement in the performing arts had only recently become the sick joke
they remain today. Good intentions had been subverted by TV, so that genius
itself was insufficient to warrant recognition. Additional criteria included
popularity and/or tokenism: The winners' circle required a woman, a black, a
Jew or other ethnic, an unthreatening highbrow, a pop or film star. Everyone
knew that. Still, I could hardly believe this woman's candor.

Peggy Lee had been suggested, she said. Was she worthy? I told her Peggy Lee
deserved all kinds of awards, but pointed out that she was a tangential
figure in jazz and that genuinely great jazz figures ought to have priority.
Such as? The obvious choice, I told her, was Benny Carter-a patriarchal
figure in his early eighties whose achievement was beyond dispute.

She laughed: "That's so funny, I just hung up the phone with Quincy Jones
and he said exactly the same thing."

"So what else do you need to know?"

"Well, I'm sure he's deserving, but we can't give a Kennedy Center Honor to
Benny Carter."

"Why not?"

"This is for television. No one's ever heard of him."

They ignored jazz that year. Yet Hollywood forces led by Jones and Leonard
Feather mounted a campaign on Carter's behalf, and, taking advantage of
President Clinton's purported love of jazz, succeeded in getting him
selected in 1996. Four years later, Clinton awarded him the National Medal
of Arts.

Carter-who died on July 12, a month short of his 96th birthday-never lacked
awards. The Times obit showed him sitting before a wall of plaques,
statuettes, Grammys, citations, and medals. That he never achieved much
popular renown was partly a result of career choices that buried him in
Hollywood studios for two decades, and his intransigence about what he would
and wouldn't do. He was often neglected by jazz fans and critics as well.
Among musicians, however, he was known as The King. No one in jazz
history-including Armstrong, Ellington, Gillespie, Parker, you name him or
her-was more universally admired by his brethren.

Much of the regard had to do with his demeanor, a sober mix of modesty and
authority. He was invariably referred to as a gentleman, which meant two
things: that his manners were impeccable and that you didn't mess with him.
He could cut you on the bandstand and off, but sweetly and with a smile. I
once saw him negotiate a record deal over dinner. An executive wanted him to
forgo union-mandated arranger fees. Benny calmly changed the subject to the
label itself; it wasn't one of those fly-by-night bargain operations, was it
? "Absolutely not," the exec boasted. "We do not discount, everyone pays
full price." "And yet," Benny said, thoughtfully chewing, "you want a
discount from me." End of discussion. While recording Carter's 1961
masterpiece, Further Definitions, the producer asked Dick Katz to put "a
little more Basie" in his solo. Benny countered, "I want to hear more Dick
Katz in that solo!" At a 1987 session with the American Jazz Orchestra, he
interrupted a soloist who quoted a pop song, admonishing, "Please don't play
other people's music when you're playing my music," which had the instant
effect of making everyone in the band focus more intently on their
improvisations.

Carter was notoriously reticent with journalists. Being a gentleman, he
agreed to an interview for Ken Burns's Jazz, but being Benny he gave him
almost nothing to use. Off mic, he was generous with his time and wisdom; on
mic, he seemed to find too many complexities lurking behind every question,
inclining him toward monosyllabic responses. I once tried to get him to
concede his contribution as musician, arranger, composer, bandleader. "I
don't know. And I'm not being modest," he said: "Contribution to what-to my
livelihood?" Yet he enabled Morroe Berger, Edward Berger, and James Patrick
to write the recently revised two volumes of Benny Carter: A Life in
American Music, an essential work of jazz scholarship.

Here's a short version. Along with Johnny Hodges, he established the alto
saxophone as a major instrument, forging a style as timeless in 1985
("Lover Man") as in 1933 ("Krazy Kapers"). He was also an exceptional
clarinetist
("Dee Blues," 1930) and trumpeter ("More Than You Know," 1939). By 1930, he
was in the vanguard of big-band composers, helping to codify what would
become swing's style and substance. He tore away the baroque ornamentation
of dance bands, streamlined rhythm, and established a parity between
composition and improvisation in such classics as "Blues in My Heart,"
"Symphony in Riffs," "When Lights Are Low," "Lonesome Nights," and his
payoff hit, "Sleep." His three years in Europe before the war permanently
changed the face of European jazz. Unlike many contemporaries he greeted
Charlie Parker as an innovator and not a threat; his bands gave a big hand
up to J.J. Johnson, Max Roach, Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon, and Miles Davis.
He crashed Hollywood's racial barriers as the first African American to
score top films and TV. Sixty years ago Carter said, "Every year more and
more people turn from the European culture to the American. That's why swing
and dance music in general continue to improve so consistently."

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