Benny Carter

Benny Carter's autograph

I’m back, after a too long absence. I hope I didn’t lose too many of my dozen readers! My time has been spent on getting my genealogy website online. It’s at www.jamesbowiefmc.com, dedicated to my great-great-great-great grandfather, James Bowie, free man of color and his descendants. The web site is still in the formative stages, but I’ll be trying to get back to weekly entries here at Blog-O-Jazz.

Back to the music….

One of the cool things about Los Angeles is that you can run into celebrities without really trying. For me, those of movie and TV fame don’t impress me that much and I would never care enough to ask one of them for their autograph. But as you know, a jazz musician is a totally different matter.

Back in 1979, at an Ellington tribute concert, I happened to turn around to find the great Benny Carter [1907-2003] seated directly behind me. Benny Carter was a great arranger and composer and pretty much played every instrument. His specialties were alto sax and trumpet. He was an amazing musician with an amazingly long career, with recordings from the 1920s to the 1990s!