Goodbye, Benny Golson

We've lost another hard bop jazz legend, and there aren't many left.

I just read that the great jazzman Benny Golson died at his Manhattan home a little over a week ago, at the age of 95.

This makes me really sad.

Golson was never viewed as a fire-breathing groundbreaker like his buddy John Coltrane, but that wasn’t his thing. He was a deeply respected composer, saxophonist, and arranger who was responsible for such jazz standards as “Killer Joe,” “Blues March,” “Whisper Not,” and “I Remember Clifford,” his tribute to the later, great trumpeter, Clifford Brown.

Golson played in peak form for years and years. Like Sonny Rollins, he was still going strong long after most of his peers had either put away their instruments or had entered the Big Sleep.

He was among the cream of the crop of jazz musicians who either hailed from or established their names in Philadelphia in the late Forties and early Fifties. There must have been something in the water in Philly. Such legendary artists as Golson, Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, and all three of the Heath brothers (Percy, Jimmy, and “Tootie”) got the ball rolling there.

Golson bounced around, but he contributed everywhere he went, both as a writer and as an instrumentalist. At the beginning of his career, he worked with Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, and Dizzy Gillespie, among several others.

Although he played with Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers for only a brief period of time, he wrote four of the six tunes on “Moanin,” which many people feel is Blakey’s single greatest album, and there are more than a few to choose from.

Golson had an unexpected bit of career resurgence in the early 2000s when he made a cameo appearance—and was a plot point—in the Steven Spielberg / Tom Hanks picture, “The Terminal.”

Here’s a gorgeously swinging performance of Golson’s “Killer Joe,” from the album “Terminal 1,” which was recorded in the wake of the film.

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I actually have a Benny Golson story, and here it is:

When my son Jack was still an infant, I found that I could calm his more excessive crying fits by bouncing him on my knee and playing him certain jazz tunes on my computer. One of them, although I don't remember which one exactly, was by Benny Golson.

Late one night when the rest of the family was fast asleep, I stumbled upon Golson's email address while surfing the Internet. So I decided to send Golson an email telling him about the success I had playing jazz for Jack and that I thought it was constructive to play jazz for little kids because its complexity might naturally open their minds to deeper thinking.

No more than a couple of minutes later, I got a response from Golson! I mean, almost instantly! He said, "Thank you so much for telling me this. This is very encouraging!"

I now know for a fact that this wasn’t a new idea to Golson. Years later, I stumbled upon this fantastic photo from the early Sixties of Golson and his Jazztet bandmate Art Farmer—no slouch himself—playing for a bunch of kids on a random uptown stoop!

It's kind of crazy to think that a musician as successful as Benny Golson would be openly pleased to receive encouragement from a total stranger, but I've had other great jazz artists over the years tell me how much it hurts that more people don't listen to their music.

Jimmy Heath once pointed out to me, and he wasn’t chuckling when he said it, that people will pay $100 for a pair of ripped blue jeans, but they won’t spend $25 to get into a jazz club.

So do me a favor: the next time you have a chance, play a baby some jazz!

I guarantee you, Benny Golson will smile down on you. And the baby may very well thank you later.