Benny Golson

From Vero - Wikipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Use American English Template:Infobox musical artist

Benny Golson (January 25, 1929 – September 21, 2024) was an American bebop and hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He came to prominence with the big bands of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, more as a writer than a performer, before launching his solo career. Golson was known for co-founding and co-leading The Jazztet with trumpeter Art Farmer in 1959. From the late 1960s through the 1970s Golson was in demand as an arranger for film and television and thus was less active as a performer, but he and Farmer re-formed the Jazztet in 1982.

Many of Golson's compositions have become jazz standards, including "I Remember Clifford", "Blues March", "Stablemates", "Whisper Not", "Along Came Betty", and "Killer Joe". He is regarded as "one of the most significant contributors" to the development of hard bop jazz, and was a recipient of a Grammy Trustees Award in 2021.

Early life and education

He was born Benny Golson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 25, 1929.<ref name="Schudel" /><ref name="Larkin">Template:Cite book</ref> His father, also Bennie Golson, left the family early. His mother Celadia brought the family up, working as a seamstress and a waitress.<ref name="Williams" /> Golson witnessed racism first at age eight on a trip to Georgia with an uncle.<ref name="Williams" /> He began taking piano lessons at age nine;<ref name="NEA">Template:Cite book</ref> his interest in music was nurtured at Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia giving him ambitions to become a concert pianist;<ref name="Williams" /><ref name="Merod">Template:Cite journal</ref> he was fascinated by the music of Brahms and Chopin.<ref name="Habersetzer" /> At age 13, he was taken to New York's Minton Playhouse, where bebop was born, and he experienced some bop pioneers including Thelonious Monk.<ref name="Williams" /> He saw Lionel Hampton's band, featuring Arnett Cobb on tenor saxophone, at Philadelphia's Earle Theatre.<ref name="Schudel" /><ref name="Williams" /><ref name="NEA"/> Inspired, he switched to the saxophone at age 14.<ref name="NEA"/> At the high school, he played with several other promising young musicians, including John Coltrane, Red Garland, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and Red Rodney.<ref name="Williams" /><ref name="Habersetzer" /> He later attended Howard University.<ref name="Schudel" /><ref name="Williams" />

Career

File:Benny Golson.jpg
Golson in New York City in 2006

After graduating from Howard University, Golson joined Bull Moose Jackson's rhythm and blues band;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Tadd Dameron, whom Golson came to consider the most important influence on his writing, was Jackson's pianist at the time.<ref name="Larkin" />

From 1953 to 1959, Golson played with Dameron's band and then with the bands of Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Earl Bostic, Dizzy Gillespie, and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers,<ref name="Larkin"/><ref name="Williams" /> with whom he recorded the classic Moanin' in 1958.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Golson was working with the Lionel Hampton band at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1956 when he learned that Clifford Brown, a noted and well-liked jazz trumpeter who had done a stint with him in Dameron's band,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> had died in a car accident. Golson was so moved by the event <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> that he composed the threnody "I Remember Clifford", as a tribute to a fellow musician and friend.<ref name="Williams" /><ref name="Habersetzer" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In addition to "I Remember Clifford", many of Golson's other compositions have become jazz standards. Songs such as "Stablemates", "Killer Joe", "Whisper Not", "Along Came Betty", and "Are You Real?", have been performed and recorded numerous times by many musicians.<ref>Bailey, Phil and Hancock, Benny (1979) Benny Golson: Eight Jazz Classics, p. iii. Jamey Aebersold Jazz.</ref>

From 1959 to 1962, Golson co-led the Jazztet with Art Farmer,<ref name="Larkin"/> mainly playing his own compositions.<ref name="Postif">Template:Cite book</ref> Golson then left jazz to concentrate on studio and orchestral work for 12 years.<ref name="Larkin"/> During this time, he composed music for such television shows as Mannix, Ironside, Room 222, M*A*S*H, The Partridge Family and Mission: Impossible.<ref name="Williams" /> He also formulated and conducted arrangements to various recordings, such as Eric Is Here, a 1967 album by Eric Burdon, which features five of Golson's arrangements, conducted by Golson.<ref>Credits – Eric Is Here Template:Webarchive; Discogs.com. Retrieved July 8, 2017.</ref>

During the mid-1970s, Golson returned to jazz playing and recording.<ref name="Williams" /> Critic Scott Yanow of AllMusic wrote that Golson's sax style underwent a major shift with his performing comeback, more resembling avant-garde Archie Shepp than the swing-era Don Byas influence of Golson's youth.<ref>Yanow, Scott. AllMusic biography Template:Webarchive, accessed April 6, 2019</ref> He made a successful second career playing in clubs and on festivals internationally.<ref name="Williams" /> In 1982, Golson re-organized the Jazztet with Farmer.<ref name="Williams" /><ref>Feather, Leonard & Gitler, Ira (2007) The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz, p. 261. Oxford University Press.</ref>

Golson is central to the plot of the 2004 Steven Spielberg movie The Terminal, and makes a cameo appearance as himself. In the film, main character Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) has the autographs of everyone who appears in A Great Day in Harlem, a famous 1958 photo of prominent jazz musicians,<ref name="Williams" /><ref name="Myers">Template:Cite web</ref> except Golson's; he has traveled to the US from Europe to obtain this final signature. Pianist Ray Bryant's song "Something in B-Flat," which was included on Golson's debut album as a leader, Benny Golson's New York Scene, can be heard during a scene where Viktor is painting and redecorating part of an airport terminal; in a later scene, Golson's band performs "Killer Joe".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The album Terminal 1 was released by Golson shortly after the film, as a "homage to Steven Spielberg".<ref name="Fordham">Template:Cite web</ref>

Musical style

Golson's early playing has been described as "characterised by a distinctively fibrous, slightly hoarse tone ... firmly within the mainstream-modern tradition exemplified by another of his heroes, the tenor player Don Byas." During the 1960s, however, he absorbed some of the techniques pioneered by his friend John Coltrane, whom he described as "an inextinguishable example of spiritual nobility."<ref name="Williams" /> He is regarded as "one of the most significant contributors" to the development of hard bop jazz.<ref name="Fitzgerald">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Personal life

Golson was married to Seville Golson; they had three sons, Odis, Reggie and Robert, and the marriage ended in divorce.<ref name="Schudel" /> He married the ballet dancer Bobbie Hurd in 1959;<ref name="Williams" /> they had a daughter, Brielle.<ref name="Schudel" /><ref name="Williams" /> In an interview with Awake! on October 8, 1980, Golson said that since the late 1960s he and his wife had become members of Jehovah's Witnesses.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Golson died, following a short illness, at his home in Manhattan, New York, on September 21, 2024, at the age of 95.<ref name="Schudel">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Williams">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Habersetzer">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards and honors

In 1996, Golson received the NEA Jazz Masters Award of the National Endowment for the Arts.<ref name="NEA-web">Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1999, Golson was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In October 2007, Golson received the Mellon Living Legend Legacy Award,<ref name="NEA-web" /> presented by the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation at a ceremony at the Kennedy Center. Additionally, during the same month, he won the University of Pittsburgh International Academy of Jazz Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award at the university's 37th Annual Jazz Concert in the Carnegie Music Hall.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In November 2009, Golson was inducted into the International Academy of Jazz Hall of Fame, during a performance at the University of Pittsburgh's annual jazz seminar and concert.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

He received the Grammy Trustees Award in 2021.<ref name="RA">Template:Cite web</ref>

The Howard University Jazz Studies program created a prestigious award in his honor called the "Benny Golson Jazz Master Award" in 1996. Many distinguished jazz artists have received this award.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Notable compositions

Template:Div col

  • "Stablemates", 1955<ref name="Fitzgerald" />
  • "Whisper Not", 1956<ref name="Fitzgerald" />
  • "Are You Real?", 1958<ref name="NEA" />
  • "I Remember Clifford", 1957<ref name="NEA" />
  • "Blues March", 1958<ref name="NEA" />
  • "Along Came Betty", 1958<ref name="NEA" />
  • "Five Spot After Dark", 1959<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • "Killer Joe", 1960<ref name="NEA" />

Template:Div col end

Discography

Template:Main

Sources:<ref>Benny Golson Discography jazzdisco.org</ref><ref>Discography AllMusic</ref>

Template:Div col

Template:Div col end

References

Template:Reflist

Template:Commonscat

Template:Benny Golson Template:The Jazztet Template:Jazz Messengers Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=Benny_Golson&oldid=179858"