Carter's band included such players as Teddy Wilson on piano, Chu Berry on tenor and J.C. Higginbotham on trombone.
Carter disbanded in 1934 to join an orchestra as featured soloist in Paris. He became a huge success in Europe and virtually a cult figure in Denmark. With the help of a young critic named Leonard Feather, who years later became the jazz critic for The Times, Carter was hired as a $300-a-week arranger for the BBC dance band in London, where he also led a British band on several recording sessions. In 1937 he organized the world's first international and interracial jazz orchestra for a summer residency in the Netherlands. Carter returned to the U.S. in 1938 to resume his career as a recording artist, arranger and composer.
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.
He formed a new band that played a long residency at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem and toured the country. While on the West Coast with that band in 1943, he was asked to do arrangements for "Stormy Weather," an early all-black musical.
He gave up the orchestra in 1946 to concentrate on film and television work. Over the years Carter played on more than 100 movie soundtracks and orchestrated and arranged music for scores of films, among them "The Gene Krupa Story," "The Five Pennies," "Thousands Cheer," "A Man Called Adam," "Buck and the Preacher," parts of "The Guns of Navarone" and the jazz sequences for "Flower Drum Song."
He also composed background music for dozens of television shows. Carter took his last big band on the road in 1946, but continued to play as a featured soloist in jazz concerts and on recordings into the late 1990s.
Ed Berger, associate director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University and co-author of the definitive biography of the musician, "Benny Carter: A Life in American Music," told The Times on Sunday that Carter's career was phenomenal in terms of longevity.
"He is the only artist to have made an acoustic recording through an old-fashioned horn before electrical records and then lived to see his own Web site," Berger said.
And in his 80s, when many musicians see a decline in their work, Carter was extremely active and vital.
"He recorded 15 albums in all types of settings, duo to combined jazz band and chamber orchestra," said Berger, who also produced many of Carter's recordings and was his road manager. "He wrote and performed six extended works. His most recent was commissioned by the Library of Congress in 1996. Called 'Peaceful Warrior,' the work was dedicated to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr."
