Hard Bop Jazz was the fare of the night when Jazz Master Benny Golson graced the August Wilson Center for African American Culture stage to play alongside the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra for their annual spring concert.
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BENNY GOLSON
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“I’ve played with a lot of bands and the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra is one of the best bands I’ve played with,” said Golson. “They are ripe with imagination and they speak with the voice of Mike Tomaro (saxophone player and Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra’s co-artistic director). What a show off this guy is with his saxophone and his ambitious pen. I don’t know whether to put out a contract on him or kiss him.”
“This is some serious stuff. The future will unashamedly disrobe itself and these guys are giving the future of Jazz a face of its own,” Golson continued. “When I grow up I want to be just like them.”
The first half of the program featured the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra on traditional songs like “Charming William” and Tomaro arranged gems like “Something in the Water,” and “To No Avail.”
“It’s overwhelming to have a band like this play music,” Tomaro said.
Golson performed six songs with the orchestra including some of his biggest hits, “Whisper Not,” “Killer Joe,” “Straw Boss” and “I Remember Clifford.”
He also composed and arranged a song especially for the August Wilson Center and the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra entitled “Stage Center,” which he debuted during the concert.
“Stage Center” started off snappy and toe tapping before simmering into and ending in a mellow groove.
“Benny Golson has absolute mastery of the jazz medium. He is one of the few true inventors whose performing and recording career literally redefines the term jazz,” said Sean Jones, the AWC’s artistic director for music initiatives and the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra’s artistic director. “Hard Bop would not have been the same without Benny Golson. We are honored to share the stage with him.”
In between each aria, Golson told a story of how the song came to fruition.
He said that his famed hit, “Whisper Not,” was named after two words he liked and was written in 20 minutes while playing in Dizzy Gillespie’s band.
Before launching into the sentimental “I Remember Clifford,” Golson told how it took him almost two weeks to write the song following a horrific car accident that claimed the life of his friend, Clifford Brown, who was an up-and-coming musician.
“The year was 1957. I was playing with Dizzy Gillespie at the Apollo Theater in New York. It was a hot summer day and the theater was air conditioned but it was dismal and we all decided to go outside and brave the heat,” Golson recalled. “As we were walking down the street, we heard that our friend had been killed in an automobile accident.”
“I wrote the song to help people remember him. It pained me to write the song and it took me so long to write it because I wanted people to know everything about him. No one knew who I was in those days and Dizzy thought the song was beautiful and asked if he could record it. I couldn’t believe that Dizzy wanted to record my song and on the outside I was being cool because I thought all musicians had to be cool. But on the inside I was bungee jumping and skydiving! I said “yeah,” Golson said.
The song has since been recorded by numerous Jazz artists including Dinah Washington, Sonny Rollins, and The Manhattan Transfer. To date, “I Remember Clifford” has been recorded more than 500 times.
“I think about him often and wonder what his life would have been like if it hadn’t been snuffed out,” Golson said.
“Benny Golson is one of the finest Jazz musicians to ever walk the earth.” Jones said.
Golson, a Philadelphia native, is the only living Jazz artist to have written eight standards for jazz repertoire. In addition to Gillespie’s band, Golson has played with the bands of Art Blakey, Lionel Hampton and has composed and arranged music for Count Basie, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Diana Ross and Ella Fitzgerald. In 1996, he was awarded the Jazz Masters Award by the National Endowment of the Arts, the highest honor bestowed upon jazz musicians in the United States.
Golson has recorded more than 30 albums for recording companies in the United States and Europe under his own name and many more with other major artists.
He has penned more than 300 compositions including musical scores for hit television series and films including “Mission Impossible,” “Mannix” “The Partridge Family,” and the Academy Awards.
He has penned catchy ditty’s for national radio and television commercials for major advertising companies representing brand names like Chevrolet, Texaco, Dodge, Nissan, McDonald’s, Pepsi Cola and Clorox.
Passionate about the next generation of Jazz musicians, Golson has lectured at the Lincoln Center through a special series by Wynton Marsalis, Julliard School of Music, Howard University, The University of Pittsburgh, Stanford University and at the Paris Conservatory, France.
Legends are made and the humble and charismatic Golson is one of them.
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