[Dixielandjazz] Bandleader, composer-arranger Benny Carter died on July 12, 2003 at age 95

[Norman Vickers]

This story below is  from CNN. com.

 I had occasion to talk with Mobile, AL.native, trombonist Urbie Green today
at his home in Delaware Water Gap, PA. He was unaware that Benny Carter had
died yesterday, July 12.  He related that he and Benny shared the same birth
date August 8  (obviously not the same year).  In talking about unique
experiences, Urbie had been to Thailand, a number of years ago, several
times for  jazz festivals.  He said that Benny Carter, pianist Ross
Tompkins, cornetist Warren Vache' Jr, saxophonist Scott Hamilton had been on
that gig.  He didn't remember the bassist and drummer but thought it was
from the group with which  Benny Carter was currently working. Green said
that the king of Thailand, a jazz saxophonist, would invite them to the
palace after the festival for a jam session which might go on until 8 AM.
Even then, the King might be reluctant to quit.

Carter was somewhat an anomaly in that he played both trumpet and saxophone.
When I saw him regularly at the Dick Gibson Colorado Jazz Parties 1985-93,
he mostly played saxophone. Carter was the subject of a PBS program
originating from the Smithsonian--"American Masters."

Always a charming man, he was the  first recipient of an award from the
American Federation of Jazz Societies.  The award has been given annually
under the chairmanship of writer/jazz historian Floyd Levin.

Jazz musician Harold Andrews of Pensacola relates that Carter married a
Pensacola native named  Hilda.  They had a son named Bobby, who subsequently
became a trumpter.  Andrews, in his 80s, indicates that he and Bobby went to
high school together in Pensacola.According to Andrews, Bobby played around
Washington, DC. Andrews has not had contact with Bobby Carter in recent
years. Presumably Benny Carter's  marriage didn't last as Hilda lived in
Pensacola until her death, according to Andrews.

No doubt there will be more obituary notices giving greater detail.


Norman Vickers,
JazzDoc
Pensacola, FL
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Jazz master Benny Carter dies at 95
Sunday, July 13, 2003 Posted: 8:51 PM EDT (0051 GMT)



Alto saxophonist and composer Benny Carter

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RELATED
• Benny Carter Web site

"A great human being."
-- Producer and friend Quincy Jones.


LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Jazz great Benny Carter, a master of melodic
invention on the alto saxophone who also was a renowned composer,
instrumentalist, orchestra leader and arranger, has died, friends said
Sunday. He was 95.

Carter died Saturday, after being hospitalized for about two weeks with
bronchitis and other problems, said family friend and publicist Virginia
Wicks.

"A big, big person walked out of the room yesterday," said friend and
producer Quincy Jones. "A great human being."

Carter was largely self-taught as a musician, playing both saxophone and
trumpet before becoming a bandleader in the late 1920s.

In a career that spanned more than six decades, he was considered among the
top altoists in jazz. He performed with or wrote music for nearly all of
jazz's early greats, including Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington
and Dizzy Gillespie.

He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of
Recording Arts and Sciences in 1987, and won two Grammy awards during his
career.

St. Louis-based trumpeter Clark Terry, another early jazz pioneer, said
Carter was truly revered by other musicians.

"We always called him the king because he was probably the most highly
respected musician of the whole lot of us," Terry said.

Though he is perhaps best remembered as a saxophonist, Jones said Carter's
greatest contributions to the form were his compositions and arrangements.

Carter was a member of a generation of early jazz musicians responsible for
changing public attitudes about the style, which grew out of blues and
spiritual music and was largely performed by black musicians, Jones said.

"They came out of this thing that was supposed to be the wicked music, and
they brought it to life, and it turned into one of our greatest art forms,"
Jones said.

Bennett Lester Carter was born August 8, 1907, in New York City. He saved up
for months to buy a trumpet as a child, turning to saxophone when he
couldn't master the trumpet fast enough. By the time he was 15, he was
sitting in at night clubs in Harlem, and at 21 was leading his own band.
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