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Benny Carter: Royal Garden Blues-Quadromania Jazz Edition

Benny Carter: Royal Garden Blues-Quadromania Jazz Edition

  • Number of Discs: 4
  • Total time: 4:26:02
  • Label: Membran
  • Availability: In stock
  • Item #: 8008024
SALE ends Apr 22nd
  • List Price: $24.98
  • Member Price: $14.98
You Save: $10.00

Review

Read About This Recording

To say that Benny Carter had a remarkable career would be an understatement. Although never the best known or flashiest performer in jazz, his accomplishments rank with just about anyone else in jazz history. Carter debuted on record in 1927 as an altoist and arranger with Charlie Johnson's Orchestra. Seventy years later at the age of 90, he was still performing and writing.

Throughout that 70-year period, Carter was always one of the best alto-saxophonists, displaying an immediately distinctive tone and a smooth and unhurried but consistently creative swing style. In addition, he was a significant arranger, a skilled songwriter, an excellent trumpeter and he took credible solos at various times on tenor, clarinet, piano and, on one occasion, trombone. Long ago he was nicknamed The King by his fellow musicians for his brilliance, reliability and professionalism. Despite the passing of decades, he never sounded dated.

This four-CD set has highlights from Carter's career that date from 1936-54. Most of the first two discs are from 1936-38, his period spent in Europe. Carter is heard leading big bands in several countries, introducing his song When Lights Are Low (which became a standard), pioneering the jazz waltz on Waltzing the Blues, jamming with a few combos and welcoming guests Coleman Hawkins and Django Reinhardt on a session apiece.

Some of the other recording dates included in this set are big band sessions made back in the United States during 1939, 1943, 1945-46 and 1949; sidemen include trombonist J.J. Johnson (taking his first recorded solo on 1943's Love for Sale), pianist Eddie Heywood, drummer Max Roach, trombonist Al Grey, tenors

Don Byas and Flip Phillips and singer Maxine Sullivan. This generous four-CD set concludes with a full disc of Carter's 1952-54 recordings with the Oscar Peterson Quartet, featuring his playing at its prime.

When one considers that Benny Carter first recorded nine years before the earliest selection on this collection, and that his career still had 43 years left in 1954, it gives one an idea how astonishing both his longevity and consistency were throughout his life. Many of the highpoints of Carter's productive career are on this well-conceived European import.

-Scott Yanow

Contents

Imported from Europe!

Remastered!

CD 1: Accent on Swing; You Understand; Scandal in A-flat; Gin and Jive; If I Could Only Read Your Mind; I Gotta Go; When Lights Are Low; Waltzing the Blues; Tiger Rag; Blue Interlude; Bugle Call Rag; Memphis Blues; When Lights Are Low; Some of These Days; Gloaming; Poor Butterfly; Drop in Next Time You're Passing; The Man I Love; That's How the First Song Was Born; There'll Be Some Changes Made; Jingle Bells; Carry Me Back to Old Virginny; Royal Garden Blues.

CD 2: Gin and Jive; Nagasaki; There's a Small Hotel; I'm in the Mood for Swing; Rambling in C; Black Bottom; Rambler's Rhythm; New Street Swing; I'll Never Give In; Skip It; Lazy Afternoon; I Ain't Got Nobody; Blues in My Heart; Somebody Loves Me; Mighty Like the Blues; Pardon Me, Pretty Baby; My Buddy; I'm Coming, Virginia; Farewell Blues; Blue Light Blues; Plymouth Rock; Savoy Stampede; Melancholy Lullaby.

CD 3: Love for Sale; Just a Baby's Prayer At Twilight; Poinciana; Hurry, Hurry!; A Good Deal; Daddy-O; Malibu; Just You, Just Me; Prelude to a Kiss; Forever Blue; Patience and Fortitude; Jump Call; Some of These Days; Who's Sorry Now; Diga Diga Doo; I'm the Caring Kind; Looking for a Boy; Rose Room; I'm Lost; I Surrender Dear; I Can't Escape From You; I Can't Get Started.

CD 4: Long Ago (And Far Away); I've Got the World on a String; Gone With the Wind; I Got it Bad (And That Ain't Good); Pick Yourself Up; Imagination; I Get a Kick Out of You; Street Scene; That Old Black Magic; Laura; The Song is You; Angel Eyes; You Took Advantage of Me; Prisoner of Love; Poinciana; Frenesi; A Foggy Day.

Benny Carter, Clarinet/Alto Sax/Tenor Sax/Piano; Shorty Rogers, Max Goldberg, Tommy McQuarter, Axel Skouby, Olaf Carlsson, Kurt Pederson, Thore Ehrling, Rune Ander, Gosta Petersson, George van Helvoirt, Jack Buleterman, Sam Dasberg, Cliff Woodridge, Rolf Goldstein, Joe Thomas, Lincoln Mills, George Woodlen, Claude Dunson, Vernon Jake Porter, John Ted Buckner, Freddie Webster, William Johnson, Alfonso Talib Dawud Barrymore, Felix Barboza, Loyal Walker, Irving Lewis, Fred Trainer, Gerald Wilson, Emmett Berry, Paul Cohen, Louis Gray, Wallace Jones, Lewis Botton, Idris Sulieman, Joe Newman, Neal Hefti, John Carroll, Karl George, Edwin Davis, Milton Fletcher, Trumpets; Leslie Thompson, Trumpet/Trombone; J.J. Johnson, Lew Davis, Ted Heath, Peter Rasmussen, Palmer Traulsen, Uno Gorling, George Vernon, Bill Mulraney, Marcel Thielemans, George Chisholm, Harry van Oven, Jimmy Archey, Vic Dickenson, Tyree Glenn, Alton Moore, Shorty Haughton, George Washington, Henry Coker, Louis Taylor, Charles Johnson, Al Grey, John Morris, Trummy Young, Sandy Williams, Dicky Wells, Bart Varsalona, Trombones; Charles Redland, Clarinet; Freddy Gardener, Andy McDevitt, Aage Voss, Wim Poppink, Andre van der Ouderaa, Tony Scott, Clarinets/Alto Saxes; Bertie King, Clarinet/Tenor Sax; Kai Ewans, Alto Sax/Vocals; Olle Thalen, Tony Mason, Louis Stephenson, Fletcher Allen, James Powell, Carl Frye, Porter Kilbert, Jewell Grant, Joe Epps, Russell Procope, Alto Saxes; Willard Brown, Alto Sax/Baritone Sax; John Taylor, Baritone Sax; Coleman Hawkins, Buddy Featherstonhaugh, Knut Knutsson, Henry Hagemann, Zilas Gorling, George Evans, Sal Doof, Bernie King, Jimmy Williams, Alix Combelle, Ernie Powell, Castor McCord, Eugene Porter, Bumps Myers, Harold Clark, Don Byas, Flip Phillips, Tenor Saxes; Oscar Peterson, Billy Munn, Gene Rodgers, Christian Jensen, Stig Holm, Evert Heden, Gerry Moore, Eddie McCauley, Freddy Johnson, Yorke de Souza, Eddie Heywood Jr., Humphrey Ted Brannon, Rufus Webster, Sonny White, John Simmons, Gerald Wiggins, Pianos; Django Reinhardt, Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Albert Harris, Bernard Addison, Hans Ulrik Neumann, Olle Sahlin, Ivor Mairants, Ray Webb, Ulysses Livingston, Hermann Mitchell, James Cannady, Al Casey, W.J. Edwards, Guitars; Ray Brown, Kelof Nielsen, Curly Russell, Charles Drayton, Thomas Moultrie, Bass Guitars; Wally Morris, Thore Jederby, Nich de Royp, Jack Pet, Len Harrison, Hayes Alvis, Stand-up Basses; Buddy Rich, Max Roach, J.C. Heard, Bobby White, George Elrick, Earl Kragh, Sture Aberg, Gosta Heden, Al Craig, Kees Kranenburg, Robert Montmarche, Henry Morrison, Oscar Bradley, Percy Brice, Drums; Elisabeth Welch, Savannah Churchill, Timmie Rogers, Bixie Harris, Maxine Sullivan, Dick Gray, Vocals; Benny Carter's Orchestra; Benny Carter's Swing Quartet; Benny Carter's Swing Quintet; Benny Carter's Med Sonora Swing Band; Benny Carter's Med All-Star Orchestra; Kai Ewans's Orchestra; Timmy Rogers's All-Star Orchestra.

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