Sorry this is late, but Saturday (August 8) would have been Benny Carter's 108th birthday, and I couldn't let the occasion pass without adding to my previous posts about Benny (ATJ #2, and ATJ #14,).  Although I wouldn't be so presumptuous to say we were friends, Benny and I were more than acquaintances, and his artistry, intelligence, humor, dignity, warmth and exacting standards made a deep and lasting impression on me.  I think of him, and miss him, often (and not just when I'm listening to his music).

ATJ #2 presented Benny's virtuosity on the alto sax, and ATJ 14 featured two of his great Swing Era arrangements.  So today we'll look at Benny the composer, by presenting one of his loveliest tunes, the lush, haunting and bittersweet "People Time."  Originally written for the soundtrack to a 1975 animated film by John and Faith Hubley, Carter resurrected the melody as "People," the third movement of the Central City Sketches suite that he wrote for his 1987 performance with the American Jazz Orchestra.  (Alas, there is no YouTube clip of this, but the entire wonderful CD is still available on Amazon, and Lew Tabakin's solo, on flute, of the melody to "People" is worth the price of the whole album.)

Phil Woods (ATJ #16), Benny's fellow alto player, and great admirer, has recorded "People Time" a few times.  This version features a relatively subdued, but still smoldering, Phil with the Barcelona Jazz Orchestra.   

Singers have also taken on "People Time," both without words (Roberta Gambarini) and with (Grace Kelly, with Phil Woods).   (The lyrics were written by Deborah Pearl for her wonderful CD Souvenir of You: New Lyrics to Benny Carter Classics ).   

If a great melody can be described as "lush, haunting and bittersweet," one can only hope that it would come to the attention of Stan Getz, and thankfully, People Time" did.  This is the title track on the same duet album with pianist Kenny Barron featured in last week's ATJ.  Stan's sound is typically gorgeous, and his musical statement is passionate and yearning.  Kenny's solo, while no less romantic, is leavened by an ever-so-slight lilt. 

Benny, of course, also recorded his own tune.  Reminiscent of the sax/piano duet of Getz and Barron, Carter (on alto sax) played "People Time" with his fellow octogenarian, pianist Hank Jones, on Benny's Legends album.  And, he picked up his trumpet for his My Man Benny, My Man Phil encounter with Phil Woods

More than 100 years after Benny's birth and more than 85 years after he made his first recordings, Benny's contributions to jazz as an instrumentalist, band leader, composer and arranger remain vital and ever-present.  If you tune into a jazz radio station anywhere in the world and listen for even a little while, you're likely to hear someone playing or singing one of his great melodies or to hear five saxophones swinging in close harmony.  Or, if you're really lucky, you'll hear Benny himself, playing one of his own tunes.  And this will continue to be so for as long as we are listening to jazz.

Happy birthday, Benny.