Benny Golson
January 25, 1929 -
September 21, 2024
Benny Golson can best be thought of as one of jazz's true Renaissance Men. With a career that literally lasted seven decades, Golson moved seamlessly from small groups to big bands to movies and TV, composing, playing, and arranging at the highest level for many, many years.
Born in Philadelphia, Golson began playing as a teenager with other aspiring young musicians in that first-class jazz city such as John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, the Heath Brothers and more. He developed a friendship with Coltrane and they spent a lot of time together working on music.
He started out playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Tadd Dameron, and others, absorbing various styles, and soon had a major role in the development of hard bop as a classic part of the jazz canon. He was tremendously influenced by his years with Dameron in the 1950s, and went on to play in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Lee Morgan for that group's seminal Moanin' record, contributing Along Came Betty and Blues March. He was a major influence on the young Morgan, significantly helping with the star trumpeter's early recordings. Golson then went on to co-found the Jazztet with Art Farmer; this small group had two notable eras, from 1959-1962 and then was later reformed and had great success in the 1980s and 1990s.
He moved to Hollywood as some prolific jazz giants did during this era, and in the 1960s and early 1970s worked in televsion and film as well as music, with figures ranging from The Partridge Family to Lou Rawls to Eric Burdon.
The 1970s saw a return to focusing on performance, which Golson continued into his 90s. His longevity meant that he was one of two jazz stars still around from Art Kane's classic 1958 photo A Great Day in Harlem; Benny's passing leaves Sonny Rollins as the only one standing. This photo of course led to Golson's appearance in the Tom Hanks film The Terminal, where Hanks's character is desperately in search of Golson's autograph for his late father's copy of jazz's most famous photgraph, which had the autographs of every other musician but Benny.
Benny Golson was joyous and gracious, a man of hip and suave erudition, and exceptionally thoughtful as well. We quote him at length from DownBeat's Frank Alkyer's fine tribute: “What gives a composition validity is the knowledge of the person writing it, the experience he can draw on...But when you get to the meat of it, it’s in the intervals, what follows what. That’s what a melody is. When I write my songs, I’m conscious of intervals. Art Farmer was conscious of intervals. That’s why he played so beautifully. You get the right intervals in place and you’ve got something that will live past your time — Duke, Coltrane, Bill Evans, Claude Thornhill.”
While he may be remembered most for his compositions, which are revered and studied for their memorable melodic brilliance and their versatility as vehicles for inspiring group playing, he was a fantastic player as well. His time with Blakey especially demonstrates this, with he and Lee Morgan forming an intimidating front line, playing with stunning power and grace.
Golson did not just leave behind standards, he left behind major classics like I Remember Clifford, Whisper Not, Blues March, and Killer Joe, among others.
Jazz Lines Publications is extremely proud to have published many of Benny's fabulous arrangements for years. Doing our part to help ensure the continued vitality of his library is something we do with great joy. Charts ranging from the small group Blues After Dark to the big band I Remember Clifford are absolutely wonderful testaments to the depth and breadth of the skills of one of jazz's foundational figures of composing and arranging.
