Tenor saxophonist and composer Benny Golson died on Sept. 21 at his home in Manhattan. He was 95. Some of his compositions became jazz standards during his seven-decade career that also included writing and arranging music for TV and film.
His daughter, Brielle Golson, confirmed the death but did not provide a specific cause.
In a brief movie appearance, Golson played himself in Steven Spielberg’s 2004 movie, “The Terminal,” in which Tom Hanks plays an Eastern European caught in bureaucratic red tape at JFK International Airport for months while hoping to complete his father’s quest: getting Golson’s autograph, the only one missing of the 57 musicians in the “Great Day in Harlem” 1958 Esquire photo, taken (in front of 17 East 126th Street) by Art Kane.
Golson was featured in the 1994 Oscar-nominated documentary about the photo, directed by Jean Bach. With Golson’s passing, Sonny Rollins is the sole surviving musician from the historic jazz photo.
“Even now, at 90, I don’t know everything there is to know, so, when I teach master classes, sometimes the teacher learns from the kids,” Golson told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2019. “That’s the way it is. That’s the way it should be. Like Sonny Rollins said to me once: ‘There’s no end to this music.’”
Golson was the recipient of such awards as the 1996 NEA Jazz Masters, 2021 Grammy Trustees Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, in addition to honorary degrees from the Berklee College of Music, the University of Pittsburgh, and Howard University, where the Jazz Studies program created the “Benny Golson Jazz Master Award” in 1996.
Many of Golson’s compositions have become jazz standards, including “I Remember Clifford” (written in memory of trumpeter Clifford Brown, shortly after he died in a car accident in 1956), “Blues March,” “Along Came Betty,” “Stablemates,” “Whisper Not,” and “Killer Joe.” His friend Quincy Jones recorded two versions of “Killer Joe” on his album “Walking in Space” (A&M Records, 1969) and “Q’s Juke Joint” (Qwest Records, 1995) that catered to a sophisticated young hip-hop and jazz crowd.
The track featured Tone Loc, Queen Latifah, and Nancy Wilson. The Grammy-winning album reached No. 1 on the Billboard jazz albums chart.
“Benny Golson was a true master of composition and the saxophone,” said alto saxophonist and composer Jaleel Shaw. “He is part of a long lineage of truly incredible musicians from Philadelphia [who] are an important part of the history of this music.”
To describe Golson, it would have to be in the image of “Killer Joe”: cool Joe, hip Joe, always looking exceptional in his suits and shined shoes (cleaner than the board of health), with a vocabulary that sent many a scholar to their nearest dictionary. His big, bold tenor tone danced in riffs and pulled you close on those lyrically intoxicating ballads. That’s Golson, the “Killer Joe” you should know.
In his book “Whisper Not: The Autobiography of Benny Golson” (Temple University, 2016), Golson related the impact as a teenager of seeing the Lionel Hampton band, Earl Bostic, and Dizzy Gillespie with Charlie Parker when they came to town: “This lyrical thunder, this majestic, joyful sound, changed my life.”
After his departure from Howard University, Golson went to New York City and performed with the likes of Hampton and Gillespie. Golson noted his playing experience with Tadd Dameron was the major influence that began his career as a composer. His composing blossomed with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, 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’.”
In 1959, Golson went on to co-lead his best-known band, the Jazztet, with trumpeter and flügelhorn player Art Farmer. They recorded and performed from 1959 to 1962. The group launched the careers of pianist McCoy Tyner and trombonists Grachan Moncur III and Curtis Fuller. Golson and Farmer met for reunions during the 1980s and ’90s before Farmer’s death in 1999.
By the mid-1960s, Golson was ready to stretch beyond his saxophone playing and take his music writing to Los Angeles, where his friend Quincy Jones was making inroads in writing and arranging music for television and film. “I wanted to do more than play the tenor sax,” he said, in a New York Times interview. “I wanted to write.”
Within a short period in Los Angeles, Golson had scored such beloved TV shows of the era as “M*A*S*H,” “Mission: Impossible,” and “The Partridge Family.” His jazzy music defined these shows and became just as noteworthy as his jazz standards. He also wrote the music for the 1969 film comedy “Where It’s At.”
Golson was born on January 25, 1929, in Philadelphia. His father, also named Bennie, worked for the National Biscuit Company; his mother, Celedia, was a seamstress. He later changed the spelling of his first name to Benny.
He started playing the family’s upright piano at 9 but switched to saxophone at 14, after watching a performance by tenor saxman Arnett Cobb with Lionel Hampton’s big band at the Earle Theater in Philadelphia.
As a teenager, Golson played with local young musicians on their way to jazz luminary status such as John Coltrane, drummer Philly Joe Jones, and the Heath Brothers. This eruption of talent heightened Philadelphia’s image as a recognized hotbed for jazz.
In a DownBeat interview from the archives, Golson reflected on his teen years with his buddy Coltrane. “Coltrane and I were doing the same thing. There were no school jazz programs. Then right in the middle of all this, along comes Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Coltrane and I are trying to learn the traditional stuff, and not very good at it. Then this new stuff comes out,” Golson said. “So, we’re trying to pick up on this new music before we’ve learned the old stuff. We had a kind of oath of determination to try to imbibe this music and make it part of our psyche. But Coltrane was always a little ahead of the rest of us. When we got to where he was, he was always somewhere else. He had a penchant for that — to always reach. But his reach never exceeded his grasp. He always got to it.”
Golson continued touring and recording into his late 80s, splitting time between New York, Los Angeles, and Friedrichshafen in Germany. He released his final album, “Horizon Ahead,” in 2016 for the High Note label. It was full of wistful, aching melodies, and although he was 87 at the time, his saxophone playing was just as vigorous as it had always been.
“Melody is so important to me,” Golson told jazz writer Anthony Brown in 2009. “I always felt like (a song) should have some melodic content, something that’s memorable, something that has the possibility of living past my time.”
Golson is survived by his wife Bobbie Hurd, along with their daughter, Brielle Golson, and several grandchildren. Three sons with his first wife — Odis, Reggie, and Robert — predeceased him.