Benny Carter was apparently was one of the class acts in jazz, according to just about everything written about him. Only people who knew him can say that definitively. What any listener can say is how great a musician he was. Here is the start of his bio at SwingMusic.net:
Benny Carter has been as admired as virtually any saxophonist in jazz. As a trumpeter, although he only occasionally played the instrument, he achieved a rich tone and had a highly personal and original style. He will forever be remembered as much for his composing skills as his playing. His compositions, which include When Lights Are Low (1936) and Blues in My Heart (1931), became jazz and big band standards.
While mainly a self-taught musician, Carter came from a musical family and studied piano with his mother and sister at 10 years old before receiving lessons from a private teacher for a year. He turned to the trumpet as an early teen but soon grew impatient and switched to saxophone. His early influences included the growl style trumpeter Bubber Miley and a cousin, trumpeter Cuban Bennett. Carter went to Wilberforce University to study theology but instead left to play with Horace Henderson’s Wilberforce Collegians. Carter worked briefly with Duke Ellington in the 1920s and in 1928 made his recording and arranging debut as a member of Charlie Johnson’s Orchestra. With no formal music education, he taught himself to arrange music on two of the orchestra’s recordings, Charleston Is the Best Dance After All and Easy Money. Later that year, he joined Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra and assumed arrangement duties. Other early affiliations included the bands of Chick Webb (1931), the Chocolate Dandies and McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Continue Reading…
Here is Carter’s site. “Misty” is above. “Blue Lou,” below, features Carter, Coleman Hawkins, Teddy Wilson, Louie Bellson and Bob Crenshaw.
