"He was as good as he wanted to be on anything he attempted," trumpeter Clark Terry told The Times on Sunday.
"He was the king, we all respected him that much," Terry said. "Musicians called him from time to time just to recharge their batteries. He was a beautiful person."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday July 15, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 0 inches; 25 words Type of Material: Correction
Benny Carter photo -- The photo accompanying the obituary of Benny Carter was incorrectly credited to Associated Press. It was from the New York Times.
Carter was born Bennett Lester Carter, in the Bronx, N.Y. A cousin, Cuban Bennett, was a skilled trumpet player, and became one of young Carter's heroes. Carter bought a cornet from a pawnshop, hoping to emulate his cousin, but soon traded the difficult brass instrument for a C-melody saxophone.
Although his mother encouraged him in his playing, she did not want him to become a professional musician. "After all," he said decades later, "jazz was a dirty word to many black people, who saw it played in an unwholesome atmosphere.... She would have been most pleased if I could have combined music with a respectable career, say, as a clergyman."
Carter was a teenager when his family moved to Harlem and he began learning the jazzman's trade from great players such as Bubber Miley of the Ellington band.
His first professional job probably was at Harlem Connor's Inn in 1923, where on the recommendation of Miley, Carter earned $1.25 a night as a substitute for another C-melody sax man.
Carter played all over Harlem and Manhattan and worked with virtually all the leading jazzmen of the time.
It was Willie the Lion Smith who persuaded Carter to give up the C-melody sax and take up the alto sax, an instrument on which he became one of the masters in jazz.
Carter played with Earl Hines, Chick Webb, Horace Henderson and Fletcher Henderson, among other jazz legends. By the mid-'20s he was a well-established and much-sought-after sideman, playing in famous clubs like Small's Paradise.
Impeccable Reputation
His reputation already was impeccable. Johnny Hodges, himself a jazz giant and an alto sax player not known for his modesty, once told a colleague: "When you got time, you go to Small's Paradise and hear the greatest alto saxophone player in the world." He was talking about Carter.
Carter began arranging in the late '20s, a few years after he began recording. He became an arranger of some note, working with Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, and many jazz historians say his work revitalized the band.
"Carter was now the arranger everyone followed," music scholar Gunther Schuller said of Carter's time with Henderson. By 1933, he formed his first big band and won considerable critical acclaim, but was not financially successful.
