Jazz Articles about Benny Carter

Birth of the Big Bands 1923 - 1936)

by Russell Perry
January 15, 2019

In the last hour, we listened to the pioneering jazz orchestra of Duke Ellington. Large jazz ensembles, such as Ellington's, soon to be known as “Big Bands," evolved through the 1920s with significant innovations led by bandleaders Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, Jimmie Lunceford and Don Redman, and arrangers Carter, Redman, Edgar Sampson and Sy Oliver. By the mid-1930s Big Bands dominated popular music. Playlist Host Intro 0:00 Fletcher Henderson and his Orchestra “Dicty Blues" from Study in Frustration ...

Benny Carter: Symphony in Riffs

by Jerry D'Souza
May 27, 2008

Benny Carter Symphony in Riffs Rhapsody Films 2008

Benny Carter was a man of many parts. He played the trumpet and saxophone, he scored music for films and television, he was an educator, and he was an arranger in a class of his own. Carter was born in 1907, and in commemoration of his 100th birth anniversary, Rhapsody Films has re-released Symphony in Riffs. Though the original was released in 1989, the ...

Benny Carter: Just Friends & The Benny Carter Centennial Project

by Andrew Velez
October 6, 2007

Mel Martin/Benny Carter Quintet Just Friends Jazzed Media 2007 Various Artists The Benny Carter Centennial Project Evening Star 2007

Recorded live at Yoshi's in Oakland in April 1994, Just Friends is a celebration of the longtime musical partnership of saxophonist/flutist Mel Martin and composer/alto sax legend Benny Carter. Timed to coincide ...

Benny Carter: Sax ala Carter!

by Mitchell Seidel
July 25, 2004

This album represents just a small facet of Benny Carter's musical activity during the '50s and '60s, a good deal of which was occupied by writing and arranging in Hollywood. Nevertheless, Carter always seemed to be involved in a number of projects, this 1960 release being just one.

Accompanied by a first-rate trio of Jimmy Rowles (piano), Leroy Vinnegar (bass) and Mel Lewis (drums), the “King" tackled a collection of fairly familiar tunes on a then-United Artists album in 1960. ...

Benny Carter: Jazz Giant

by David Rickert
November 18, 2003

“Jazz giant” is a term immediately greeted with skepticism, yet Benny Carter fills the role better than most. Perhaps the greatest of the big band leaders that most people have never heard of, Carter finally settled down in Hollywood in the fifties and began to record the full-length albums that eventually cemented his reputation. Jazz Giant is an excellent piece of work that serves as a relic from a bygone era when Kansas City swing was in its prime.

Benny Carter (1907-2003)

by AAJ Staff
October 28, 2003

Submitted on behalf of Michael Anthony During 2003 we lost the last survivors of a hardy and influential generation. They were men and women who were born at the turn of the last century. They influenced the culture of the 20th Century. These tireless artists via the new mediums that were available to them (radio, motion pictures and television) changed how we laughed (Bob Hope), how we viewed women (Katharine Hepburn), how we heard music (Benny Carter) ...