[Dixielandjazz] More on Benny Carter

[Ken Mathieson]

Following on from my post of 13th Nov about Benny Carter's important 
role in the merger of segregated musicians' unions in LA and Bert's post 
on the 14th about Coleman Hawkins and Carter in Netherlands in the 1930s 
and Norman's apprciative off-line mail about these posts, I thought I 
should share some of my experiences of knowing Benny with he wider 
group. For a musician who was so highly respected in his lifetime that 
everybody in the jazz business referred to him as "the King", it seems 
astonishing that his name is rarely heard nowadays.

I first met Benny when I was booked to play in the trio of local 
musicians (David Newton, piano, and fresh out of music college, and an 
outstanding bassist, Francis Cowan) to back Benny and Herb Ellis in a 
concert in Edinburgh. There was no time for a rehearsal, so we had a 
brief talk through in Herb's dressing room. Herb talked to David and 
Francis were discussing repertoire and keys at one end of the room and 
Benny and I were sitting on a settee at the other end. Benny wasn't in 
the discussions as he knew all the tunes in any key and I was excluded 
as I would just go ting-ting-a-ting or swish, swish, swish throughout. 
Benny and I talked about people we both knew in the business, especially 
British musicians he had played with when he lived in London in the 
1930s, like trombonist George Chisholm and trumpeter  Tommy McQuater, 
both of whom were friends of mine and had played at the Jazz Club where 
I was the house drummer. The concert was recorded by BBC Radio Scotland 
and was a delight from beginning to end, except that the rhythm section 
was spaced well apart in order to give the recording engineer separation 
of the instruments, so it was a tricky night with the sound echoing off 
the high ceiling and walls of the Queen's Hall, but an unforgettable 
experience.

The next time I met Benny was in 1987 when I ran the first Glasgow 
International Jazz Festival and hired Benny to play and also 
commissioned him to write a special suite for the occasion. He had cameo 
appearances/performances with Glasgow-born singer Carol  Kidd and with 
the Strathclyde Youth Jazz Orchestra as well as fronting a 
specially-assembled big b.sposed key along the staff for the lead 
instrument (generally 1st trumpet). Then, without voicing the horn parts 
on the Clavinova, he'd write each of parts on the relevant line in 
transpose key all the way down from 2nd trumpet to baritone sax, then 
the rhythm parts. Effectively he had voiced the parts in his head and 
committed the 8 bars to paper in about 2 minutes. I asked him he was 
able to do that and his reply was along the lines of "I don't know, I've 
just always been able to do it, but it does help by being able to play 
all the instruments and visualise the fingering etc."

Benny's wife, Hilma, a striking-looking lady of Finnish ancestry, was 
very interested in Visual Arts, so she spent the days in art galleries 
and museums in Glasgow and Edinburgh, leaving Benny in peace to get on 
with the writing. I found them both to be charming, polite, modest, 
intelligent and interesting company - a genuine credit to the human 
race. Benny's performance with the youth orchestra is still talked about 
by the youngsters who have remained active on the Scottish jazz scene, 
and again he came over to them as a very positive man and full of 
encouragement and enthusiasm - no big time attitude. The star 
attractions of that first festival besides Benny were Sarah Vaughn, 
Dizzy Gillespie, MJQ and Chick Corea with Gary Burton.

Sarah was on the night before Dizzy, but Dizzy had come in 24 hours 
ahead, so I arranged for best-seat comps for Diz, Benny and Hilma. Sarah 
had arrived in a wheelchair following ligament damage from a fall in a 
shower, but like the trouper she was, she insisted that the show must go 
on, but no visitors to be allowed in her dressing room. Both Benny and 
Diz had given her big breaks in her early career and both said they 
wanted to say hello. I had an All-Areas pass, so I got Benny and Diz 
back-stage and knocked on Sarah's dressing room door, went in and said 
"Sarah, there's a guy says he knows you from way back in New York and 
wants to say hello." She said "no way, I'm not talking to some jerk who 
saw me once in a night club 30 years ago." I said "he's very insistent 
and says he was in the band at one of your first gigs in New York." She 
said "who is this guy" and I said "he didn't say", so she said "OK let 
him in, but just for a minute, then get him out of here." I went got Diz 
and pushed him in the door and shut it quickly so she couldn't see Benny 
waiting outside. We heard Sarah yell with joy and let the noise go on 
for a minute or so, before I knocked again, wnt in and said "you're not 
going to believe this, but there's another guy here who says he knew you 
when you first arrived in New York." She gave me the "what's going on" 
look and said "OK, but no more surprises after this - I've got a show to 
do." Benny was propelled into the room and again Sarah was hollering in 
delight. When she got her 5-minute call, I went back in to get the guys 
back to their seats and Sarah had forgotten her pain and was really 
looking forward to the show.

At the 2 minute call she was in the wheelchair, which I wheeled up to 
the wings, and when she was announced to the house, she got up, walked 
purposefully on to the stage and sat on a high stool placed centre stage 
in front of a jazz big band to one side and the strings of the Scottish 
National Orchestra on the other. The audience had no idea she was in 
considerable pain or that it was touch and go whether the show might be 
cancelled. Because she was getting medical treatment in the afternoon, 
she missed the rehearsal and sound check. Again the BBC were recording 
it for Radio 3, so they had to balance the sound live as the concert 
started and the producer, a musician pal of mine, Dave Bachelor, was 
literally sick with nerves at the thought of balancing "on the hoof" a 
world-famous singer, her trio, an 18-piece big band, approximately 40 
string players and Robert Farnon conducting. As it turned out, nobody 
should have been worried: these were pros with the highest levels of 
skill, talent and experience and they just made it all happen 
seamlessly. The concert happened almost exactly 50 years to the day 
since George Gershwin had died, so the programme centred on his music 
and Sarah's had brought over Marty Paich's charts of Gershwin material 
that had been used for a recording session in LA. The result was 
sumptuous music of the highest order and a capacity audience really got 
their money's worth.

That's probably enough for now, but if anyone's interested, I could 
write about the entirely serendipitous invitation to dinner at Benny and 
Hilma's home on Skyline Drive in the Hollywood Hills.