Additions To Further Definitions - Benny Carter

 

Come On Back

Additions To Further Definitions

Benny Carter

Produced by George Cates and Bob Thiele

Engineer: Jim Lockert

Cover and Liner Photos: Fred Seligo

Cover Design: Robert Flynn/Viceroy

Liner Design: Joe Lebow

Impulse! A-9116

Personnel:

Recorded March 2, 1966

If Dreams Come True, Fantastic, That's You, Come Back, Prohibido

Benny Carter - Alto Sax

Bud Shank - Alto Sax

Buddy Collettee, Teddy Edwards - Tenor Sax

Bill Hood - Baritone Sax

Don Abney - Piano

Alvin Stoller - Drums

Ray Brown - Bass

Barney Kessel - Guitar

Recored March 4, 1966

Doozy, We Were In Love, Titmouse, Rock Bottom

Same as above except Bill Perkins for Buddy Collette, Al McKibbon for Ray Brown and Mundell Lowe for Barney Kessel

Bud Shank courtesy World Pacific Records

Barney Kessel courtesy Emerald Records

Benny Carter plays a Selmer Saxophone

From the inside cover: Nobody writes for saxophones with such skill and flair as Benny Carter. This was axiomatic even before the famous Paris coupling of "Crazy Rhythm: and "Honeysuckle Rose". It was especially evident when he himself led the section, and it is a s true now as it 3as three decades ago. ("Then and now, he's timeless," Oliver Nelson maintains.) His arrangements and playing are equally imbued with suppleness, mobility, lyricism and unsugared richness. In short, his mucis "sings" and moves with graceful distinction – and certainly it swings. In the years before Charlie Parker, he and Johnny Hodges reigned supreme as soloists in a kind of dualism, each with a specific, complementary sphere of influence. Today, his style reflects his awareness of the last quarter-cent's innovations, and his taste and selectivity in incorporating what is appropriate to his own musical personality.

"My original inspiration on the saxophone, " Benny Carter said, "was Frank Trumbauer. I don't think I ever had his facility. He was a great technician on the instrument, but he wasn't an exhibitionist. He played beautiful solos, but very seldom would you hear him make a fast run. When he did, you know he had that instrument under control. the mastery of it beneath his fingers and thumbs. Do you remember a thing de did called 'Trumbology'? That told you what he could do on the instrument, but when he played a solo he just played something simple and beautiful. That's the kind of thing I like to hear. He never tried to display his technique, but he had it."

"Who were my arranging influences?" Benny Carter repeated. "That's a very good question. I guess there that there are the real, basic influences were people like Archie Bleyer, Jimmy Dale and Jack Mason – the people who did the stock arrangements. I would also add the name of Bill Challis, and one arrangement in particular that he did for the Goldkette orchestra on 'Blue Room'. It was kind of revolutionary for its day. Even before then I was attempting to arrange. I started off by writing saxophone choruses, along the chord structures I knew the rhythm section would be playing. Form there on, I would take each part from an orchestra, put them on the floor and study them, part by part. And I started arranging like that. It was many years before I learnt to make a score. I used to do each part for the orchestra. That was the hard way. So this was the meagre beginning, as I've heard somebody say!

"I liked the way both Horace Henderson and Smack wrote, and one of the first to impress me in the field of jazz arranging was Don Rodman. I still remember his 'I'm Coming, Virginia' and 'Whiteman Stomp.' Joining the Fletcher Henderson orchestra naturally made a great impression on me, too. My goodness, that as the band everybody was hoping to play with! It was the acid test. If you could make it with Fletcher, you could make it with anybody. It was the hardest music and the best music around."

At the time when bandleaders were being allowed noble titles, Benny Carter also receiving one. Characteristically, he didn't use it long, but the earliest version of his famous composition, "Blues In My Heart", came out on record as being by "King" Carter and His Orchestra, and this was a title a great many musicians felt he fully deserved. – Excerpted from Benny Carter an interview by Stanley Dance in JAZZ, July 1966

Fantastic, That's You

Come On Back

We Were In Love

If Dreams Come True

Prohibo

Doozy

Rock Bottom

Titmouse