Saxophonist, composer and arranger Benny Golson died on September 21, 2024 at the age of 95. We extend our sincerest condolences to the Golson family. The jazz world has lost not only an original saxophonist but also a prolific composer, many of whose works have become jazz standards such as “Stablemates,” “Whisper Not” and “I Remember Clifford.” Born in Philadelphia, his career intersected with that of Art Farmer at various times from their emergence on the New York jazz scene in the early 1950s to their final appearance together at JazzBaltica in 1997.
Farmer was only about a year older than Golson but recorded his first album as a leader in 1953 for Prestige Records whereas Golson spent time in the bands of Tiny Grimes, Earl Bostic, Tadd Dameron and Dizzy Gillespie before striking out on his own in 1957. His first album as a leader was Benny Golson’s New York Scene (Contemporary Records C 3552) and Farmer is present on all tracks.
In 1958, Farmer assembled a talented quintet that included Golson and pianist Bill Evans for a recording session on the United Artists label. The resulting LP, Modern Art (UAL 4007/UAS 5007), is considered a classic of the hard bop era, uniquely showcasing several of the most respected artists of the time. Reviewing the album in Down Beat Magazine (January 8, 1959), Dom Cerulli rated it at 5 stars and did not restrain his enthusiasm:
“Here, through eight tracks covering two sides of an LP, is a set that must rank among the finest, most musical, most stimulating. and most satisfying of the year. Three Down Beat new stars—Farmer, Golson, and Evans—literally shine with a creative brilliance that, at times, is just unbelievable. I found, too, that this quintet greets a ballad not as something to be bulled through or played with, but as a vehicle for lyrical expression. In fact, if there is one word which sums up this LP it could well be ‘lyrical.'”
An outgrowth of the Modern Art recording and arguably, the most significant Farmer-Golson collaboration was the co-led sextet they called the Jazztet. The two connected after Farmer had left the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and was looking to assemble his own band. Actually, the name “Jazztet” first appeared on a 1959 album led by trombonist Curtis Fuller, The Curtis Fuller Jazztet with Benny Golson (Savoy MG 12143), with Lee Morgan rather than Farmer playing trumpet.
Featuring Fuller and pianist McCoy Tyner initially, the Jazztet debuted at the Five Spot in New York City in November 1959. In a 1995 interview with Dr. Anthony Brown, Farmer spoke about their opening and the misfortune of sharing the limelight with Ornette Coleman:
“Yeah, that was something down there at the Five Spot. We opened opposite Ornette Coleman, and everybody who was anybody was down there because they had heard about Ornette being the new thing. Monk was down there, Leonard Bernstein, Miles Davis, all kind of guys. Everybody had to come down to check it out, and we got kind of lost in the shuffle because compared to what Ornette was doing, what we were doing was done well, but it was more conventional. It just didn’t seem to be as adventurous, stepping out into the unknown like what Ornette was doing. Ornette got more notice than we did. I don’t think we ever recovered from that. We stayed together for three years or something, but looking back on it now, Anthony, if we had opened there not opposite Ornette, we would’ve made more noise.”
During its initial incarnation (1959-1962), most of the writing for the Jazztet was done by Golson and the unit recorded 4 albums for the Argo label and 2 for Mercury. The first album, Meet the Jazztet (Argo 664), was an attempt to demonstrate the wide variety of material and sonorities the group had to offer, but at 10 tracks, solo space was kept to a minimum, unfortunate given the presence of Fuller and Tyner in addition to the leaders. Ira Gitler noted some deficiencies in his 3.5 star Down Beat Magazine review (July 7, 1960):
“Musically, the first side of the album is uneven. Farmer shines on I Remember Clifford and Ain’t Necessarily [“It Ain’t Necessarily So”] and the whole group digs in on Blues March with Farmer and Fuller blowing some healthily swinging choruses. On the debit side, Serenata suffers from the bad balance mentioned before and a certain patness that the group can fall into. Avalon is the low point of the set. Everyone sounds uncomfortable on this up tempo, as if they were in a hurry to get through with the whole thing. As a result, phrasing is jerky and rushed. Side two is uniformly better. Fuller is featured on All Right [“It’s All Right with Me”], ripping through his solo with fire and finesse in his Johnson-inspired style. Farmer is piquant on Golson’s heretofore unrecorded Petite [“Park Avenue Petite”] and Benny himself is extremely convincing in his Lucky Thompson-out-of-Don Byas groove on Easy Living. Mox Nix, by Farmer, is the high point of the set.”
Meet the Jazztet also gave us the debut of Golson’s “Killer Joe” which has become a jazz standard.
Personnel defections began almost immediately after this recording with Fuller leaving to join Art Blakey and Tyner exiting for John Coltrane’s quartet. In the two-plus years the original Jazztet was active, other trombone players included Kiane Zawadi (aka Bernard McKinney), Tom McIntosh and Grachan Moncur III and pianists Duke Pearson, Cedar Walton and Harold Mabern. Despite the turnover, the subsequent Jazztet albums Big City Sounds (Argo 672), Jazztet and John Lewis (Argo 684), Jazztet at Birdhouse (Argo 688), Here and Now (Mercury MG 20698) and Another Git Together (Mercury MG 20737) are all gems and remain worthy of study and appreciation today. The original Jazztet must be considered an important representative of the hard bop genre alongside The Jazz Messengers, The Horace Silver Quintet, The Donald Byrd-Gigi Gryce Jazz Lab, The Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet and others.
But a new era of jazz was beginning and opportunities for an ensemble like the Jazztet were becoming less plentiful. The leaders disbanded and went their separate ways with Farmer forming a memorable quartet with guitarist Jim Hall and Golson heading west to the Hollywood studios. The two recorded only twice together until 1982 when the Jazztet was reassembled with new material, an updated musical orientation and sidemen from a new generation. The “New Jazztet,” as it was called, recorded 5 albums, Voices All (East World (Jpn.) EWJ 90016), Moment to Moment (Soul Note (It.) SN 1066), Nostalgia (Baystate (Jpn.) RJL 8089), Back to the City (Contemporary C 14020), Real Time (Contemporary C 14034) and one last session in 1996 under Golson’s name, OneDay, Forever (Arkadia Jazz 70744). All are highly recommended.
Golson and Farmer collaborated on two experiments wherein baroque and classical music were placed in a jazz setting. From 1966, Baroque Sketches (Columbia CL 2588/CS 9388) has Golson adapting themes by Bach, Chopin and Albeniz as well as those by Sonny Rollins and John Lewis for performance by a small orchestra of studio musicians and Farmer as the main soloist. Twenty three years later in 1989, Farmer was again the main soloist when Golson created jazz interpretations of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos: J.S. Bach Brandenburg Concertos No. 1, 3 and 5: Benny Golson’s New York Orchestra (Alfa Records (Jpn.) ALCR 28).
The partnership of Art Farmer and Benny Golson spanned over 40 years. Although these two musical giants shared a love of strong melodies and rich harmonies, their approaches to improvisation were quite different. Farmer was the essence of lyricism and subtle intensity. Golson was much more aggressive, especially in his later years when the Don Byas-Lucky Thompson influence acquired aspects of John Coltrane’s explorations. Yet this combination worked beautifully and provided contrast in their performances and recordings. Also, Farmer usually relied on his bandmates to provide original material and Golson’s extensive catalog of unusual and sometimes challenging compositions fit the bill, as did his arranging skills.
Art Farmer and Benny Golson cut quite a swath through the fabric of modern jazz and now, both are gone. Hopefully, their legacies will continue to inform the music and musicians of today and tomorrow.
Recordings with both Benny Golson and Art Farmer (listed chronologically)
| Rec. Date | Leader(s) | Album Title | |
| 1957-08-23, 30 | Oscar Pettiford | Oscar Pettiford Orchestra in Hi-Fi Vol. 2 |  |
| 1957-10-14, 17 | Benny Golson | Benny Golson’s New York Scene |  |
| 1957-12-12, 13 | Jimmy Cleveland | Cleveland Style |  |
| 1958-08-15 | Abbey Lincoln | It’s Magic |  |
| 1958-09-10, 11, 14 | Art Farmer | Modern Art |  |
| 1958-12-28, 29 | Milt Jackson | Bags’ Opus |  |
| 1959-02-12 | Jimmy Cleveland | Rhythm Crazy |  |
| 1959-03-25 | George Russell | New York, N.Y. |  |
| 1959-05-15 | Art Farmer | Brass Shout |  |
| 1960-02-6, 9, 10 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Meet the Jazztet |  |
| 1960-06-30 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Jazztet at Newport |  |
| 1960-09-16, 19 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Big City Sounds |  |
| 1960-12-20, 21; 1961-01-09 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Jazztet and John Lewis |  |
| 1961-04-11 | Benny Golson | Take a Number from 1 to 10 |  |
| 1961-05-15 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Jazztet at Birdhouse |  |
| 1962-02-28, 03-02 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Here and Now |  |
| 1962-05-28, 06-21 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Another Git Together |  |
| 1966-09-13 | Art Farmer | Baroque Sketches |  |
| 1967-04-12 (on or before) | Benny Golson | Tune In, Turn On to the Hippest Commercials of the Sixties |  |
| 1981-09-02, 05, 06 | Hank Jones, Nancy Wilson | Aurex Jazz Festival ‘81 |  |
| 1982-04-24, 25 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Voices All |  |
| 1982-06-19, 20 | Art Farmer, Benny Golson, Nancy Wilson | In Performance at the Playboy Jazz Festival |  |
| 1983-05- 30, 31 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Moment to Moment |  |
| 1983-11-22, 23 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Nostalgia |  |
| 1986-02-21, 22 | Art Farmer – Benny Golson Jazztet | Back to the City, Real Time |   |
| 1989-01-17-22 | Benny Golson | Brandenburg Concertos No. 1,3 and 5 |  |
| 1989-06-19-21 | Benny Golson | Rhythmstick |  |
| 1996-11-06 | Benny Golson | One Day, Forever |  |
Unissued Live Recordings with both Benny Golson and Art Farmer (listed chronologically)
- 1960-10-22 Jazztet, Radio Broadcast, Birdland, New York City
- 1961-07-01 Jazztet, Radio Broadcast, Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, RI
- 1961-07-29 Jazztet, Radio Broadcast, Birdland, New York City
- 1982-06-15 Jazztet, Nice, France
- 1982-07-16 Jazztet, Wiesen, Austria
- 1982-07-18 Jazztet, Radio Broadcast, North Sea Jazz Festival, The Hague, The Netherlands
- 1983-03-23 Jazztet, Bassano del Grappa, Italy
- 1983-11-18 Jazztet, Fat Tuesdays, New York City
- 1986-05-31 Jazztet, Radio Broadcast, Jazzclub Fasching, Stockholm, Sweden
- 1986-06-?? Jazztet, Radio Broadcast, Freiburg, Germany
- 1986-08-29 Jazztet, Radio Broadcast, Chicago Jazz Festival, Chicago, IL
- 1986-08-30 Jazztet, Radio Broadcast, Chicago Jazz Festival, Chicago, IL
- 1987-05-08 Jazztet, Radio Broadcast, Newark Symphony Hall, Newark, NJ
- 1987-06-28 Jazztet, Radio Broadcast, Montreal Jazz Festival, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- 1991-07-13 Jazztet, Television Broadcast, Lugano, Switzerland
- 1994-08-03 Gerry Mulligan, Television Broadcast, Lincoln Center, New York City
- 1994-08-05 Gerry Mulligan Tentet, Lincoln Center, New York City
- 1995-07-06 Jazztet, Vienna, Austria
- 1995-07-14 Jazztet, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 1995-07-15 Jazztet, North Sea Jazz Festival, The Hague, The Netherlands
- 1996-10-?? Jazztet, Television Broadcast, Berlin, Germany
- 1996-11-07 Jazztet and Jon Hendricks, Erdinger Jazztage, Erdinger, Germany
- 1996-11-09 Jazztet and Jon Hendricks, Aalen, Germany
- 1997-06-14 Benny Golson, Milt Jackson All Stars at JazzBaltica, Salzau,Germany
See Also:
- Jazztet Albums
- Jazztet Recordings
- Benny Golson’s Official Website
- Benny Golson Obituary (New York Times)
- The Complete Argo/Mercury Art Farmer/Benny Golson/Jazztet Sessions (Mosaic/Verve compilation)