22 Facts About Benny Golson

Benny Golson was an American bebop and hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger.

Benny Golson came to prominence with the big bands of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, more as a writer than a performer, before launching his solo career.

Benny Golson is regarded as "one of the most significant contributors" to the development of hard bop jazz, and was a recipient of a Grammy Trustees Award in 2021.

Benny Golson was born Benny Golson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 25,1929.

Benny Golson witnessed racism first at age eight on a trip to Georgia with an uncle.

Benny Golson began taking piano lessons at age nine; his interest in music was nurtured at Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia giving him ambitions to become a concert pianist; he was fascinated by the music of Brahms and Chopin.

Benny Golson saw Lionel Hampton's band, featuring Arnett Cobb on tenor saxophone, at Philadelphia's Earle Theatre.

From 1953 to 1959, Benny Golson played with Dameron's band and then with the bands of Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Earl Bostic, Dizzy Gillespie, and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, with whom he recorded the classic Moanin' in 1958.

Benny Golson was working with the Lionel Hampton band at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1956 when he learned that Clifford Brown, a noted and well-liked jazz trumpeter who had done a stint with him in Dameron's band, had died in a car accident.

Benny Golson was so moved by the event that he composed the threnody "I Remember Clifford", as a tribute to a fellow musician and friend.

From 1959 to 1962, Benny Golson co-led the Jazztet with Art Farmer, mainly playing his own compositions.

Benny Golson then left jazz to concentrate on studio and orchestral work for 12 years.

Benny Golson formulated and conducted arrangements to various recordings, such as Eric Is Here, a 1967 album by Eric Burdon, which features five of Golson's arrangements, conducted by Golson.

Benny Golson made a successful second career playing in clubs and on festivals internationally.

Benny Golson played a cameo role in the 2004 movie The Terminal, related to his appearance in A Great Day in Harlem, a group photograph of prominent jazz musicians taken in 1958.

Benny Golson was married to Seville Benny Golson; they had three sons, Odis, Reggie and Robert, and the marriage ended in divorce.

Benny Golson married the ballet dancer Bobbie Hurd in 1959; they had a daughter, Brielle.

Benny Golson died, following a short illness, at his home in Manhattan, New York, on September 21,2024, at the age of 95.

In 1996, Benny Golson received the NEA Jazz Masters Award of the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 1999, Benny Golson was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music.

In October 2007, Benny Golson received the Mellon Living Legend Legacy Award, presented by the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation at a ceremony at the Kennedy Center.

In November 2009, Benny Golson was inducted into the International Academy of Jazz Hall of Fame, during a performance at the University of Pittsburgh's annual jazz seminar and concert.