An Interview with Jazz Legend Benny Golson

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Event Dates
Zero Gravity Room
1260 Boylston Street
Boston
MA
02215
United States

Jazz legend Benny Golson '99H will be interviewed by Danilo Pérez B.M. '88, the Grammy-winning founding artistic director of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, and Bill Pierce B.M. '75, the chair of Berklee's Woodwinds Department who is, like Golson, a former member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

As a composer, arranger, lyricist, producer, and tenor saxophonist, Golson's broad international appeal has been on display in bands led not only by Blakey but by Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie '89H, Lionel Hampton, and Earl Bostic. Since 1957, he has released dozens of his own albums, and, as a prolific composer, his work has graced several hundred albums. Golson has composed and arranged music for Count Basie '74H, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Mingus, Stan Getz, Diana Ross, and Quincy Jones ’51 ‘83H, just to name a few.

Golson's autobiography, Whisper Not, is available from most booksellers. The book's title comes from a tune that Golson describes writing in Boston in 1956 while at George Wein's ‘76H Storyville nightclub. The late Nat Hentoff, the leading New York Times jazz critic up until his passing earlier this year, described Golson as "consistently resourceful in terms of creativity, as well as being a thorough professional. His conscientiousness, the high standards he always sets for himself, and his total reliability are qualities that account for the prominence he has attained—along with, of course, his prodigious musicianship as a composer, arranger and performer."

This interview will provide students with a rare opportunity to hear and learn directly from one of the most talented and respected jazz musicians of all time.