Benny Golson, Saxophonist and Jazz Composer, Dies at 95

Benny Golson, tenor saxophonist and composer, died on Saturday, September 21, at his home in Manhattan. He was 95 years old.

Jason Franklin, his agent of over 25 years, confirmed the death The New York Times.

Golson was best known for carving out two distinct careers in the music industry, first as a highly successful jazz musician and later as a jazz composer for TV shows such as MASH, Mission: Impossible and The Partridge Family, as well as for movies, incl Where is it located and Ed’s next move.

In addition, several of Golson’s compositions are recognized as jazz standards, including “I Remember Clifford,” “Whisper Not,” “Blues March,” “Killer Joe” and “Stablemates.”

Benny Golson during Day 3 of the Atlanta Jazz Festival at Piedmont Park in May 2016 in Atlanta.

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The musician was born in a musically inclined family on January 25, 1929 in Philadelphia. He started playing piano at age 9, but switched to saxophone at age 14 after witnessing Arnett Cobb perform with Lionel Hampton’s big band at the Earle Theater in Philadelphia.

In adolescence, he performed with local musicians who would also become jazz icons, such as Mr. Coltrane, Philly drummer Joe Jones and the Heath Brothers. He then played jazz and played in the marching band at Howard University. After graduation, he became a full-time musician performing with the Hampton Ensemble and the bands of Earl Bostic, Tadd Dameron and Dizzy Gillespie.

He eventually joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1958. That year, Art Kane photographed 57 jazz musicians on East 126th Street for Esquire magazine. (The photo became the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary A great day in Harlem. As well as Steven Spielberg’s 2004 film. Terminalstarring Tom Hanks looking for Golson — who appeared in the film.)

In the same year, he married his wife, Bobbie Hurd, who survived him. The couple had one daughter, Brielle, who survived him. With his first wife, he welcomed three sons, Odis, Reggie and Robert, who predeceased him.

Benny Golson at the North Sea Jazz Festival, The Hague, Netherlands, 1995.

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In 1959, he founded the six-piece Jazztet with pianist McCoy Tyner and trombonists Grachan Moncur III and Curtis Fuller. The group broke up in 1962.

By the mid-1960s, as jazz began to develop, Golson joined his friend Quincy Jones in Los Angeles, where he began his second successful career writing and arranging music for television and film.

“I wanted to do more than play the tenor saxophone,” he said, trans NYT. “I wanted to write.”

In the following decade, he composed for several hit shows, including M*A*S*H, The Mod Squad, and much more. But then he decided to return to New York and eventually re-established the Jazztet in 1982, leading the troupe.

“I wanted to establish myself as a player once again,” he said, per NYT. And Golson did just that, and the Jazztet released six more albums and went on international tours.

Bennie Golson at the Chicago Jazz Festival at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in Chicago on September 2, 2016. Cat Glover, Prince’s dancer and choreographer, has died at 62.

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In 1996, he was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, and the same year Howard University established the Benny Golson Jazz Master Award.

He continued to tour and compose music well into his 90s. In 2016, he published his autobiography, Whisper No. He told his co-author Jim Merod that his illustrious career was the result of his constant need for creative pursuits, since “being content is a curse,” he said per NYT. “You tend to slow down or stop. Just like the ego problem. This leads to a halt in creativity. The ego only looks outside itself.”

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