Benny Golson

Infobox Musical artist
Name = Benny Golson

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Background = non_vocal_instrumentalist
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Born = birth date and age|1929|1|25
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
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Instrument = Tenor saxophone
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Genre = Bebop
Hard bop
Occupation = Saxophonist, Arranger, Composer
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Benny Golson (born January 25, 1929) is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger.

While in high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Golson played with several other promising young musicians, including John Coltrane, Red Garland, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and Red Rodney. 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.

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 Hampton's band, 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.

Golson has composed several other jazz standards such as "Stable Mates", "Killer Joe", "Whisper Not", "Along Came Betty" or "Are You Real?".

From 1959 to 1962 Golson co-led the Jazztet with Art Farmer. Golson then left jazz to concentrate on studio and orchestral work for 12 years. During this time he composed music for such television shows as "Ironside", "Room 222", "M*A*S*H", and "The Six Million Dollar Man". During the mid-1970s Golson returned to jazz playing and recording. In 1983 he re-organized the Jazztet.

In 1995 Golson received the NEA Jazz Masters Award of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Golson made a cameo appearance in the 2004 movie, "The Terminal", related to his appearance in the A Great Day in Harlem photo. As of 2007, he tours regularly.

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.

Discography

* "Benny Golson's New York Scene" (Fantasy Records, 1957)
* "The Modern Touch" (Fantasy Records, 1957)
* "The Other Side of Benny Golson" (Original Jazz Classics, 1958)
* "Groovin' With Golson" (Fantasy Records, 1959)
* "Gone With Golson" (Original Jazz Classics, 1959)
* "Gettin' With It" (Original Jazz Classics, 1959)
* "Meet the Jazztet" (Geffen, 1960)
* "Stockholm Sojourn" (Original Jazz Classics, 1964)
* "Up, Jumped. Spring" (LRC Ltd., 1990)
* "Up Jumped Benny" (Arkadia Jazz, 1997)
* "Tenor Legacy" (Arkadia Jazz, 1998)
* "Tune In Turn On To The Hippest Commercials of the Sixties" (Verve Records, 1999)
* "That's Funky" (Arkadia Jazz, 2000)
* "One Day Forever" (Arkadia Jazz, 2001)
* "Terminal 1" (Concord Records, 2004)
* "Free" (Argo Records, 2004)
* "Turning Point" (Verve Records, 2005)
* "The Masquerade Is Over" (Azzurra Music, 2005)
* "The Many Moods of Benny Golson" (Arkadia Jazz, 2007)
* "Take A Number From 1 to 10" (Verve Records, 2007)
* "Three Little Words" (Synergie OMG, 2007)

External links

* [http://www.bennygolson.com/ Official Site]
* [http://www.bobrosenbaum.com/transcripts/golson1.pdf Listening In: An Interview with Benny Golson] by Bob Rosenbaum, Los Angeles, February 1982 (PDF file)