Benny Golson Explained

Benny Golson
Birth Date:25 January 1929
Instrument:Saxophone
Years Active:1940s–present
Past Member Of:The Jazztet

Benny Golson (born January 25, 1929)[1] is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger.[2] 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 is 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.[3]

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,[4] and was a recipient of a Grammy Trustees Award in 2021.[5]

Early life and education

Born in Philadelphia, Golson began learning the piano at age nine, then switched to the saxophone when he was 14.[3] While a student at Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia,[6] he played with several other promising young musicians, including John Coltrane, Red Garland, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and Red Rodney. He later attended Howard University.

Career

After graduating from Howard University, Golson joined Bull Moose Jackson's rhythm and blues band; Tadd Dameron, whom Golson came to consider the most important influence on his writing, was Jackson's pianist at the time.

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,[1] with whom he recorded the classic Moanin in 1958.[7]

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,[8] had died in a car accident. Golson was so moved by the event that he composed the threnody "I Remember Clifford", as a tribute to a fellow musician and friend.

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.[9]

From 1959 to 1962, Golson co-led the Jazztet with Art Farmer,[1] mainly playing his own compositions.[10] Golson then left jazz to concentrate on studio and orchestral work for 12 years.[1] 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. 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.[11]

During the mid-1970s, Golson returned to jazz playing and recording. 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.[12] In 1982, Golson re-organized the Jazztet.[13]

Golson played a cameo role in the 2004 movie The Terminal, related to his appearance in "A Great Day in Harlem", a group photograph of prominent jazz musicians taken in 1958.[14] Main character Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) travels to the US from Europe to obtain Golson's signature; Golson was one of seven musicians then surviving from the photo, the others being Johnny Griffin (died 2008), Eddie Locke (died 2009), Hank Jones (died 2010), Marian McPartland (died 2013), Horace Silver (died 2014), and Sonny Rollins. Pianist Ray Bryant's song "Something in B-Flat," which was included on the 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".[15] The album Terminal 1 was released by Golson shortly after the film, as a "homage to Steven Spielberg", its director.[16]

Awards and honors

In 1996, Golson received the NEA Jazz Masters Award of the National Endowment for the Arts.[17]

In 1999, Golson was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music.[18]

In October 2007, Golson received the Mellon Living Legend Legacy Award, 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.[19]

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.

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.[20]

Beliefs

In an interview with "Awake!" on October 08, 1980, Golson said that since the late 60s he had become a member of the religious organization Jehovah's Witnesses

Notable compositions

Gallery

Benny Golson in Denmark (2007)

Discography

See main article: Benny Golson discography.

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Larkin, Colin . Colin Larkin (writer) . 2006 . Golson, Benny . https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofpo0003unse_w1c2/page/806/mode/1up . The Encyclopedia of Popular Music . registration . 3 . 4th . Oxford . . 9780195313734 . 806 . 30 December 2022 . Internet Archive.
  2. Web site: Benny Golson | Biography & History. AllMusic. July 27, 2021.
  3. Book: . 2004 . Benny Golson (1996) . https://archive.org/details/neajazzmastersam00nati_1/page/41/mode/1up . NEA Jazz Masters: America's Highest Honour in Jazz . 2nd . Washington, DC . . 1049898284 . 41 . 30 December 2022 . Internet Archive.
  4. Fitzgerald . Michael . 2017 . Whisper Not: The Autobiography of Benny Golson . subscription . 48 . 1 . ARSC Journal . 47–50,86 . . 2151-4402 . 30 December 2022 . . ProQuest.
  5. Web site: 9 December 2020 . The Recording Academy Announces 2021 Special Merit Awards Honorees: Selena, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Talking Heads, Lionel Hampton, Marilyn Horne, Salt-N-Pepa And More . . Santa Monica, CA . . 30 December 2022 . December 30, 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221230061430/https://www.recordingacademy.com/news/recording-academy-2021-special-merit-awards-lifetime-achievement-award . live .
  6. Merod . Jim . Golson . Benny . amp . 1995 . Forward Motion: An Interview with Benny Golson . registration . Boundary 2 . 22 . 2 . 53–93 . Durham, NC . . 1527-2141 . 10.2307/303820 . 303820 . December 30, 2022 . . December 30, 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221230064629/https://www.jstor.org/stable/303820 . live .
  7. Web site: Moanin' - Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, Art Blakey | Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. July 27, 2021. July 27, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210727144831/https://www.allmusic.com/album/moanin-mw0000241419. live.
  8. Web site: Clifford Brown Discography. Jazz Discography Project. April 23, 2014. July 1, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140701213625/http://www.jazzdisco.org/clifford-brown/discography/. live.
  9. Bailey, Phil and Hancock, Benny (1979) Benny Golson: Eight Jazz Classics, p. iii. Jamey Aebersold Jazz.
  10. Book: Postif, François . 1998 . Jazz me blues: Interviews et portraits de musiciens de jazz et de blues . registration . fr . Paris . Outre Mesure . 2907891162 . 1035905400 . 418 . 30 December 2022 . Internet Archive.
  11. https://www.discogs.com/Eric-Burdon-The-Animals-Eric-Is-Here/release/521118 Credits - Eric Is Here
  12. Yanow, Scott. AllMusic biography, accessed 06 April 2019
  13. Feather, Leonard & Gitler, Ira (2007) The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz, p. 261. Oxford University Press.
  14. Web site: Myers . Marc . Marc Myers . November 2, 2018 . A Great Day in Harlem, Revisited . . New York . December 30, 2022 . December 30, 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221230071805/https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-great-day-in-harlem-revisited-1541168693 . live .
  15. Book: Grandt, Jürgen E. . Gettin' Around: Jazz, Script, Transnationalism . University of Georgia Press . 2018 . 113–120 .
  16. Web site: Fordham . John . John Fordham (jazz critic). July 29, 2004 . Benny Golson, Terminal 1 . . London . 30 December 2022.
  17. Web site: Benny Golson . March 1, 2021 . National Endowment for the Arts . March 19, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210319195215/https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/benny-golson . live .
  18. Web site: Media . Mountain . Golson, Benny . 2020-04-15 . Ejazzlines.com . en . March 30, 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220330014646/https://www.ejazzlines.com/big-band-arrangements/by-arranger/benny-golson-jazz-big-band-charts/ . live .
  19. Web site: Blake . Sharon S. . November 12, 2007 . Jazz Week Capped With Sold-Out Concert . March 1, 2021 . Pitt Chronicle . September 22, 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200922181239/https://www.chronicle.pitt.edu/story/jazz-week-capped-sold-out-concert . live .
  20. Web site: Benny Golson Award . March 1, 2021 . Howard University Jazz Ensemble . March 1, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210301034306/http://huje.org/benny-golson-award/ . live .
  21. Web site: Benny Golson | Songs. AllMusic. July 27, 2021. July 27, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210727144830/https://www.allmusic.com/artist/benny-golson-mn0000135391/songs. live.

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