Jazz standards that bring a smile to the lips:
I Remember Clifford,
Along Came Betty,
Killer Joe,
Whisper Not: they were all written by tenor saxophonist
Benny Golson. First he worked with Dizzy Gillespie and Lionel Hampton. For many, the jazz veteran from Philadelphia (1929) is a legendary figure, because of his career since 1958 with The Jazz Messenger, at a time when “modern” jazz was very popular among young people. Golson wrote lots of new material, including melodious themes like
Along Came Betty and
Are You Real? and even a marching tune, the trademark of the The Messengers:
The Blues March. A year later Golson and trumpeter Art Farmer started their own group, together with three wind instruments: The Jazztet. Subsequently he started composing commercially for the studios. He wrote scores for TV series, movies and commercials. At the end of the seventies Benny Golson got the itch again and started touring anew, as he is thankfully still doing today.
