In Memoriam: Benny Golson, 1929–2024

By Frank Alkyer I Sep. 24, 2024

Benny Golson soaks in the music during a late-career performance at Chicago’s Jazz Showcase.
(Photo: Michael Jackson)

Benny Golson, one of the greatest composers and saxophonists of the bebop era, passed away Saturday, Sept. 21, at his home in Manhattan. He was 95.

Golson composed some of the most indelible songs in the jazz canon — from “I Remember Clifford,” written in 1956 as a tribute to his friend, trumpeter Clifford Brown, who died in a car crash; to “Killer Joe,” “Stablemates,” “Along Came Betty,” “Are You Real” and numerous other masterfully crafted pieces long considered to be standard fare and essential listening in the jazz world.

On stage, Golson played with a tone, tenor and intelligence that thrilled audiences throughout his eight-decade career. After graduating from Howard University, he emerged on the New York scene during the post-Charlie Parker bebop era, performing with the likes of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie. A stint with Tadd Dameron heavily influenced him to compose. In less than a year with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, he began to write intensely, with three of his future jazz standards — “Are You Real,” “Along Came Betty” and “Blues March” — appearing on Blakey’s 1958 Blue Note album Moanin’. He then came to another level of prominence co-leading the Jazztet with trumpeter Art Farmer, which recorded and performed from 1959 to 1962, then regrouped for reunions in the 1980s and 1990s prior to Farmer’s death in 1999.

“I’ve been fortunate,” Golson told writer John McDonough in a 2009 cover feature for DownBeat. “I had such a desire to get into this music, not to become famous, not even to make money, but to have my things played and please the people who would hear it. And it’s happened in great abundance, more than I had anticipated. It’s been good to me.”

Good to Golson meant one of the longest-running and decorated careers in jazz. He was named an NEA Jazz Master in 1996. He was voted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 2018. He also received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004 and honorary doctorate degrees from Berklee College of Music and Butler University, which named their jazz festival after him.

For all of his success, Golson was best known to the general public for being the central figure, and making a cameo appearance, in the 2004 movie The Terminal starring Tom Hanks. The film centered on one of the most iconic photos in jazz, “A Great Day In Harlem,” taken in 1958 and portraying a historic gathering of esteemed mid-century American jazz artists, including Golson. At the time of the movie’s release, there were seven musicians in the photo who were still alive. With Golson’s passing, only saxophonist Sonny Rollins remains.

In that 2009 DownBeat interview, Golson looked at the photo and reflected, “I had just come to town, one of the young lions of 1956. [jazz writer] Nat Hentoff called me for that picture. I don’t know how he had heard of me. I was playing with Dizzy when that was taken, so I knew Diz. Also Art Farmer, Horace Silver, Johnny Griffin and Emmett Berry. But I had never met any of the others. Look at that. Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Gene Krupa, Charlie Mingus, Basie. I had to keep myself from asking for autographs. We didn’t do that in those days. I was a nobody and just glad to be there.”

Jason Franklin, the saxophonist’s longtime manager and agent, said Golson passed away after a short illness. Franklin has been working on a documentary about Golson’s life called Benny Golson: Going Beyond The Horizon, which is currently in post-production. Franklin said Golson got to see, and enjoyed, a rough cut of the film before his passing.

“Over the last few months, Uncle Benny was fairly ill,” Franklin said. “A few weeks ago, I gave him a call. His voice was strong and he was in good spirits. I said to him, ‘Do you have a little time to look at something?’ and he replied, ‘I have nothing but time.’ We laughed and I replied, ‘Right on! I’m going to send you something.’ I sent him a link to the documentary. I informed him that it was 99% finished, and it had to go in for color and sound correction. He understood. A few days later he called and said, ‘Jason, I didn’t know you were sending me the whole movie. I thought you were sending me a scene. I can’t believe it. This is the whole two-hour movie.’ I nervously asked, ‘What did you think?’ He eagerly replied. ‘I loved it! I absolutely loved it. This is the story of my life. I can’t believe it. You got everything in there. I didn’t think you could do it, but you got everything in there. Wow! This is the story of my life!’ His excitement and joy brought a tear to my eye. Who am I kidding? It brought several tears to my eyes. I promised him that I would do right by him, and thank God I did.”

Golson spoke and wrote as eloquently as he played. He penned several articles for DownBeat, which were full of thoughtfulness and grace. His use of vocabulary in even basic email could send “even the most literate reader to a dictionary,” according to McDonough.

That thoughtfulness is what made his compositions so lasting and well-loved.

“What gives a composition validity is the knowledge of the person writing it, the experience he can draw on,” Golson said. “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.” DB