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ANDREW GILBERT: JAZZ TALK
Benny Carter's musical legacy continues in the 21st century
Contra Costa Times
Alto saxophonist Benny Carter would have been 100 years old on Aug. 8. With a career spanning almost the entire hitory of jazz, Carter almost made it, passing away in 2003 at the age of 95. Mel Martin, the powerhouse Bay Area saxophonist who considers himself blessed to have counted Carter as a friend, wants to make sure the occasion doesn't go unnoticed. He's organized a series of concerts with the Benny Carter Centennial Tribute Band, which performs at Yoshi's on Aug. 15, featuring the prodigious pianist Roger Kellaway, Cal Tjader bassist Robb Fisher, drummer Winard Harper, vocalist Jackie Ryan, and saxophonists Harvey Wainapel, Charles McNeil, and Andrew Speight, who as an aspiring teenage musician growing up in Australia formed a tight bond with Carter.
"I wrote him a letter when I was about 15 and he wrote back in his beautiful handwriting and told me about the classical violin books he had studied from," Speight said. "That's how our friendship started. I met him in 1987 and we had a chance hang out, and after that I often stayed with him and his wife at their house in Beverly Hills. He was an incredible man. When they talk about Duke Ellington, Benny's of the same caliber. He was way bigger than just the saxophone."
It's difficult to sum up the vast range of Carter's contributions. He helped create jazz's orchestral language with his arrangements for Fletcher Henderson's seminal big band. Along with Johnny Hodges, he pioneered the use of the alto saxophone in jazz (with a style that sounds as sophisticated today as it did in the 1930s). Carter went on to become one of the swing era's finest trumpeters. He was a creative force for so long that he ended up absorbing influences from musicians who were originally schooled on his innovations, like bebop progenitor Charlie Parker. But by the 1990s, Carter often seemed overlooked, except by his musical peers, who had long ago crowned him King Carter.
"In my opinion Benny Carter is the most underrated musician of the 20th century," said Martin, who recently released "Just Friends" (Jazzed Media), a lovely live album he recorded with Carter at Yoshi's in 1994. "It's controversial to say this, but he was as good a composer as Ellington and Strayhorn. He was a great trumpeter. He recorded with Billie Holiday on clarinet. Stan Getz did one thing great. He played a beautiful tenor sax, and you could focus on him and his sound. Benny did so many things at such a high level, and he was always highly regarded, but that isn't the same as being really famous with audiences."
One reason Carter isn't better known in the mass media is that he was notoriously reluctant to give interviews, and when he did sit down with a journalist, he was elusive and taciturn. His friends describe him as a funny and warm raconteur, but after cooperating with Morroe Berger, Edward Berger and James Patrick on a magisterial 1,360-page biography, Carter seemed to feel he had said his piece. I interviewed him a couple of times in the mid-'90s, and while he was unfailingly polite, he quickly made it clear that he only wanted to discuss his most recent album. "I've discontinued doing interviews because I've pretty much said all that I have to say," Carter said. "At my age, or at this stage, or whatever you want to call it, time is pretty much my most precious commodity."
Carter was also a pioneering social figure who opened many doors for African-Americans. He was one of the first black arrangers and composers to work in the Hollywood studios. And he played an important role in the amalgamation in Los Angeles of the black Musicians Union 767 with white Local 47.
"Benny opened the eyes of a lot of producers and studios, so that they could understand that you could go to blacks for things outside of blues and barbecue," said Quincy Jones in the Bruce Ricker documentary "Benny Carter: Symphony in Riffs," which was recently reissued on DVD by Rhapsody Films. "He made it possible for that doubt to be taken away."
Details: The tribute shows are 8 and 10 p.m. Aug. 15 at Yoshi's, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. Tickets are $12 (late show) to $20. Contact 510-238-9200 or http://www.yoshis.com.
Benny Carter's 100 Years Of Music
By RICHARD S. GINELL
(Hollywood Bowl, 17,376 seats, $93 top) Presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. Reviewed Aug. 8, 2007.
Performers: James Moody; Roy Hargrove; Marlena Shaw; Russell Malone; Roberta Gambarini; Mel Martin; Eldar; Gerald Clayton; Benny Carter Trio featuring Chris Neville, Steve Johns and Steve LaSpina; Benny Carter Sax Ensemble featuring Mel Martin, Jeff Clayton, Keith Fiddmont, Rickey Woodard and Lee Callet; Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra conducted by John Clayton and Quincy Jones. Emcee: Quincy Jones.
On Aug. 8, the protean musician Benny Carter would have been 100 years old. Apparently, he intended to be around for that day but fell short by five years. The Hollywood Bowl nevertheless went ahead with a centennial tribute, which fortuitously happened to fall on a Wednesday night, the traditional jazz night here. The lineup was star-studded and high-minded, and the musicmaking was often superb.
Carter remains an enigma to the general public; his abilities and range were so vast, extending over such an awe-inspiring span of time, that it is difficult to get a bead on exactly where his place in jazz is. Aside from biographer Ed Berger's cogent summary of Carter's career in the printed program and a too-little-too-late video montage near the end, this scattershot concert barely even tried.
Carter was still going strong at his 90th birthday party at the Bowl in 1997, playing alto sax brilliantly with amazing freshness. One wonders whether a tape from that concert exists -- if so, it should have been played -- but lacking that, a new release by the Mel Martin/Benny Carter Quintet live at Yoshi's from 1994 (Jazzed Media) proves how durable he remained in the 1990s.
Quincy Jones emceed virtually the entire concert, his words melting like honey, spinning fascinating anecdotes left and right, yet never quite managing to put Carter's career into focus. But we did have the rare, welcome, latter-day opportunity of watching Q lead a big band, the crack Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, in his early, robust "Stockholm Suite."
Many songs and arrangements -- no doubt by Carter -- went unidentified in the first half, although that gap was rectified in the second half. This is important, for Carter's contributions to the Great American Songbook are not as well publicized as others. "When Lights Are Low" -- probably his most famous tune -- was name-checked, and it received a confident, swinging, beautifully scatted performance from one of Carter's last and most talented protegees, Roberta Gambarini.
The CHJO and Carter's last piano trio alternated as expert anchors for almost all of the program. Martin himself was present, playing fluid tenor and soprano saxes and participating in a sax quintet that precisely performed two excerpts from Carter's "Further Dimensions" album. Trumpeter Roy Hargrove was in a mostly subdued mood in most of his solos; guitarist Russell Malone made liquid unaccompanied work of "All About You"; James Moody continues to create subtle, swinging tenor bop lines at 82. Jeff Clayton's swooping sounds on alto sax were actually closer in spirit to those of another jazz alto titan whose own centennial was observed two weeks ago, Johnny Hodges.
The grand finale, a selection from an album that Carter wrote for Count Basie's band, "Kansas City Suite," found the CHJO doing an uncanny impression of the Basie sound via Carter's hand. He was a consummate craftsman, a gentleman supreme to all who knew him -- yet Carter's versatility and adaptability may explain why his image isn't as clear to us as those of other major jazzmen of his stature.
Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com
Mel Martin/ Benny Carter Quintet
Just Friends
By Mark Keresman
Published: August 8, 2007
Know it or not, longtime Bay Area musicheads have likely heard tenor saxophonist Mel Martin — aside from leading Bebop & Beyond, he's played with Cold Blood, Santana, the Escovedo family, and assorted other homies. If you're a hardcore jazz fan, you've likely heard the legendary Benny Carter, as an alto saxophonist, arranger, composer, and/or conductor who, aside from leading small and large combos, has played with Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others. Here, these longtime buds go to town on standards and originals, recorded live in 1994 at Yoshi's original location. Backed by a world-class trio featuring pianist Roger Kellaway (that's him on the closing theme to All in the Family), Carter and Martin make a fascinating match. Carter's alto is supple, old-school elegant, unpredictably fluid; Martin's tenor is slightly breathy, big-toned, luxuriant, and blues-drenched — to hear them intertwine is riveting. Other high points include Kellaway's jolly dissonant jabs on the charging "Perdido," and if extraterrestrials landed near your dwelling and asked, "What is this thing you humans call a 'jazz ballad?" you'd play them "People Time," which features Martin's achingly beautiful, meditative flute. Released this year to commemorate the late Carter's centennial, Friends is darn near everything a jazz disc ought to be.
JAZZ REVIEW
Talent-packed Bowl tribute to Benny Carter
By Don Heckman
August 10, 2007
The Benny Carter tribute Wednesday at the Hollywood Bowl couldn't have come on a more appropriate date: the 100th anniversary of the birth of the iconic, multiskilled artist who died in 2003. So it wasn't surprising that Carter's creative imagination -- a vital element through nearly eight decades -- was a constant presence in the long and varied program.
The event-packed evening, hosted by Quincy Jones, featured a diverse group of performers. The piano bench, for example, was claimed -- at different times -- by Tamir Hendelman, Gerald Clayton, Eldar and Chris Neville. The saxophone spotlight embraced James Moody, Mel Martin, Jeff Clayton and most of the sax section of the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. And vocals were provided by Roberta Gambarini, Marlena Shaw and -- too briefly -- the ever-whimsical Moody.
Add the engaging guitar work of Russell Malone, the articulate trumpet playing of Roy Hargrove and the power and glory of the CHJO, and there was enough firepower on stage to trigger a pyrotechnic display of music written, arranged and inspired by Carter.
For the most part, it was a display to remember. Instrumentally, the CHJO' s rendering of "Symphony in Riffs," "Coalition" and -- as a climax -- the Carter-through-Count Basie "Vine Street Rumble" captured the craftsmanship and the swing characteristic of Carter's big-band scoring. Curiously, on the one number that featured an extended alto sax solo -- "Souvenir" -- Jeff Clayton elected to play in a manner rich with the melodic bends and sliding glissandos typical of Johnny Hodges, whose playing in the '30s and '40s was both the counter and the competition to the more crisp, tonally centered Carter style.
Gambarini's versions of two memorable Carter ballads -- "When Lights Are Low" and "Only Trust Your Heart" -- were other high points of the evening. Blessed with superb musicality and a seemingly intuitive grasp of jazz vocal elements tracing back to Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae, Gambarini captured the songs' subtle interplay of words and music.
Other highlights included the brisk improvisational exchange between Moody and Hargrove on "Courtship," Malone's captivating take on "All About You," Eldar's partnership with Malone on "Melancholy Ballad" and the sturdy saxophone work of Martin with the Benny Carter Trio and the Benny Carter Sax Ensemble. Shaw's off-putting version of "Here's to Life" was both an odd choice and an eccentric interpretation. Matters improved with her reading of Carter's "Brothers Under the Skin."
All in all it was a much deserved tribute, and the best moments came with the brief film clips of Carter -- virtuosic on both alto saxophone and trumpet -- in action.
Mel Martin/Benny Carter Quintet - Just Friends - Jazzed Media
A welcome reprise of more Mel Martin and the master, Benny Carter
Mel Martin/Benny Carter Quintet - Just Friends - Jazzed Media JM 1025, 62:53 (1994) *****:
(Mel Martin, tenor sax and flute; Benny Carter, alto sax; Roger Kellaway, piano; Jeff Chambers, bass; Harold Jones, drums)
A big Thank You has to go out to Jazzed Media's Graham Carter for finding more session material from Mel Martin and Benny Carter's live 1994 sessions at the SF Bay Area's premiere jazz club, Yoshi's. That 1994 meeting was documented in an Enja 1994 release, Mel Martin Plays Benny Carter. In honor of the centennial celebration of Benny Carter in 2007, we have the good fortune of having more tracks from the Yoshi's concerts brought to us a jazz public service by Jazzed Media, who once again keep their impeccable streak of brilliant releases by our jazz masters alive. Martin has been a Carter devotee for years and since Carter passed away in 2003, Mel has kept Carter's flame lit. It is hard to believe that Carter was 87 when these tracks were recorded.
The proceedings get off to a roaring start with Juan Tizol's Perdido. Martin has a blistering solo and Benny shows he was still on his game. You can count on one hand anyone who still had their tone and swing like Carter did at age 87. Kellaway is a perfect complement to the two reedmen and has a swinging solo with great blues feel.
After Perdido, each track is at least ten minutes long and the musicians really have room to stretch out with their solos. Martin's ethereal solo flute highlights People Time with great comping by Kellaway. You could imagine Benny soaking in Mel's interpretation like a proud father. Secret Love blends Martin and Carter and their respect for each other is brought out in full force.
Spritely features Mel with the trio only and Chambers and Kellaway are given room to shine. One of my all time favorite Carter compositions - Elegy in Blue - follows, and again, the two horns blend as one. Carter gets full solo time and his mournful melody, written as a tribute to a close Japanese friend's passing, is moving. Our re-visit with Mel, Benny and company ends with Just Friends, and you can feel the love and empathy between the master and Bebop and Beyond's group leader, Mel Martin. If you own the Enja Martin/Carter '94 release, this new addition to that session is a "must have" and a Carter Centennial requirement purchase. Let's just be a bit greedy and hope that there is more unreleased Benny Carter material out there. Graham, the next move is yours.
TrackList: Perdido, People Time, Secret Love, Spritely, Elegy in Blue, Just Friends
- Jeff Krow
Copyright 2007 Audiophile Audition
Thoroughly Modern Benny
BY WILL FRIEDWALD
July 30, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com
Benny Carter's contribution to jazz is inestimable. Except for the bit about taking drugs and dying young, the alto saxophonist lived every part of the jazz experience. He was one of the all-time masters of his instrument — not to mention one of the first saxophone virtuosos in jazz — and he played half a dozen other instruments brilliantly as well. He was a marvelous arranger and that rare jazz composer of his generation whose works continue to be played into the modern era. He spent years on the road, and was one of the first black musicians to go international; he later spent decades toiling in the film and recording studios, where he also opened up new doors for jazz musicians of every color.
But he was defined by the music. When Carter put together an album — writing most of the tunes and all of the charts, and handpicking the soloists to play them — the results were inevitably brilliant. Give me the 1961 "Further Definitions" on my iPod and I will happily relocate to the desert island of your choice.
Those of us who knew Benny were certain that he would live to play and write new music in his 100th year; that he died four years short of that in 2003 is one of the only disappointments of his career. We can hardly complain, because he never stopped creating, and was active right to the end. Now, to mark his centennial, two new albums have been issued (and other events are being planned for the fall) to give listeners the highly comforting feeling that Benny Carter is still making music.
Fittingly, of the two new releases, one features Carter mostly as a player and the other mostly as a composer. "Just Friends," is a previously unissued live performance from 1994, co-starring the tenor saxophonist Mel Martin; "The Benny Carter Centennial Project" is a compendium of Carter compositions newly recorded for the occasion.
The former, recorded at Yoshi's at San Francisco, offers a generous sampling of Carter's improvisations, withthetwosaxesstretching out luxuriously on all of six tunes, including two Carter compositions. Carter was, above all, a brilliant saxophonist, with a tone like no other, sweet and pungent, with a distinct vibrato and an unmistakable way of bending the edges of a note to give them a more vocalized sound. His solos, as becomes especially clear on the standards "Secret Love" and "Just Friends," flow so logically from one point to the next that they're almost the musical equivalent of a crossword puzzle. His partner in this enterprise, the Californiabased Mr. Martin (who demonstrated his allegiance to Benny with an album of Carter compositions 10 years ago), contributes his most sterling moment with an appropriately eloquent flute solo on one of Carter's last great tunes, "People Time," a stunning ballad that gave Stan Getz one of his best late-career moments.
The "Centennial Project" is the work of Ed Berger, of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, who is the son of Carter's friend and biographer, Morroe Berger. It primarily features musicians who worked with Carter through the years, from the veteran big band trumpeter Joe Wilder to bop star Phil Woods (who helped make "Further Definitions" a classic), to a roster of contemporary swing-oriented soloists in their 40s and 50s. Amazingly, although the players span a range of generations, instruments, and styles, everything here sounds so much like Carter's music that it's easy to picture him playing on every track.
The disc opens with a pair of outstanding trumpeters, Warren Vaché and Randy Sandke, taking the title of Carter's "I'm in the Mood for Swing" rather literally in a two-trumpet team-up. Later, each gets a solo, with Mr. Sandke playing especially warmly on the lesser-known ballad "Again and Again." Mr. Vache gets the more exotic "Key Largo," which he delivers with both a mute and characteristic grace while drummer Steve Little imbues the piece with a sultry feel. A few tracks later, Carter's 85-year-old colleague, Joe Wilder, plays "The Blessing" with both a flair and a restraint that are almost classical.
Mr. Woods plays two duets with the pianist John Coates, while Bill Kirchner updates the swing era theme "Melancholy Lullaby" on soprano saxophone. Tenorist Loren Schoenberg tackles a medley of two lesser-known Carter tunes, "Angeline" and "Where the Warm Winds Blow," that sound especially modern (and not just for a composer born at the turn of the last century). Both the playing and the tunes sound like they could be modal waltzes by Wayne Shorter, and though Messrs. Woods, Kirchner, and Schoenberg sound nothing like one another, they all sound a little bit like Carter when playing his music.
In Carter's legacy, however, solo saxophones are hardly the whole point. Carter was a pioneer of the jazz sax on at least two levels — both as one of the first soloists and as one of the first and greatest writers for the saxophone section (behind only Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn).
"I'm Coming Virginia," for four saxes and rhythm, is an elaboration on an arrangement that Carter recorded in Paris in 1938 with a largely French band (finding room for a solo by guitarist Django Reinhardt). It's classically Carterian in the smoothness of the blend and in the agility in which he arranged for the two altos and two tenors to play melodic variations that sound like a single monster horn — Carter x 4.
The other saxophone ensemble work, a further variation on a prehistoric standard, "All of Me," is quite different: Carter began by adding a fifth sax, a baritone, which begins the piece, rather than having the five saxes play in a seamless blend. At first they're all over the place and each other, yet Carter was controlled even at his most chaotic, and when the quintet all comes together, the blend is glorious.
Mr. Berger would be the last to trumpet the "Project" as a definitive work; rather he seems to have deliberately left off many of Carter's most famous pieces (i.e., "When Lights Are Low," which has been recorded hundreds of times, and "People Time") in favor of neglected works. The CD closes with Carter's last recording, a piano solo on an apparently new tune titled "All About You," recorded in 2001 when the composer was 94. Now released for the first time, it is here preceded by a new guitar solo from Russell Malone (who phrases it somewhat like Eddie Lang's 1927 waltz "April Kisses"). In both statements, the piece is beautiful, sweet, and simple — a perfect coda for the career of an understated jazz giant.
wfriedwald@nysun.com
