1. Harry Howell Carney was a jazz saxophonist and clarinettist who spent over four decades as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
12 Facts About Harry Carney
1. 2.
Harry Carney played a variety of instruments, but primarily used the baritone saxophone, being a critical influence on the instrument in jazz.
3.
Harry Carney began by playing the piano at age seven, moved to the clarinet at 14, and added the alto saxophone a year later.
4.
Early influences on Harry Carney's playing included Buster Bailey, Sidney Bechet, and Don Murray.
5.
Harry Carney reported that, for his baritone saxophone playing, he "tried to make the upper register sound like Coleman Hawkins and the lower register like Adrian Rollini".
6.
Harry Carney was a dominant figure on the baritone in jazz, with no serious rivals on the instrument until the advent of bebop in the mid-1940s.
7.
In January 1938, Harry Carney was invited to play with Benny Goodman's band at Carnegie Hall.
8.
Harry Carney "co-composed "Rockin' in Rhythm" and was usually responsible for executing the bubbling clarinet solo on this tune".
9.
In 1957, Harry Carney was part of a band led by pianist Billy Taylor that recorded the album Taylor Made Jazz.
10.
On occasions when Ellington was absent or wished to make a stage entrance after the band had begun playing the first piece of a performance, Harry Carney would serve as the band's conductor.
11.
Four months after Ellington's death, Harry Carney died, on October 8,1974, in New York.
12.
Harry Carney was Hamiet Bluiett's favorite baritone player because he "never saw anybody else stop time" in reference to a concert Bluiett attended where Carney held a note during which all else went silent.