BENNY GOLSON NEA Jazz Master (1996)

1 Funding for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program NEA Jazz Master interview was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. BENNY GOLSON NEA Jazz Master (1996) Interviewee: Benny Golson (January 25, 1929 - ) Interviewer: Anthony Brown with recording engineer Ken Kimery Date: January 8-9, 2009 Repository: Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution Description: Transcript, 119 pp. Brown: Today is January 8th, 2009. My name is Anthony Brown, and with Ken Kimery we are conducting the Smithsonian National Endowment for the Arts Oral History Program interview with Mr. Benny Golson, arranger, composer, elder statesman, tenor saxophonist. I should say probably the sterling example of integrity. How else can I preface my remarks about one of my heroes in this music, Benny Golson, in his house in Los Angeles? Good afternoon, Mr. Benny Golson. How are you today? Golson: Good afternoon. Brown: We’d like to start – this is the oral history interview that we will attempt to capture your life and music. As an oral history, we’re going to begin from the very beginning. So if you could start by telling us your first – your full name (given at birth), your birthplace, and birthdate. Golson: My full name is Benny Golson, Jr. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The year is 1929. Brown: Did you want to give the exact date? Golson: January 25th. For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] 2 Brown: That date has been – I’ve seen several different references. Even the Grove Dictionary of Jazz had a disclaimer saying, we originally published it as January 26th. Then, when I’m looking at the liner notes for the Mosaic collection, they list it as January 29. Was there a reason why all these discrepancies came into play? Golson: I have no idea. Brown: Not on your doing. Golson: Unless it’s just our usual imperfection. Brown: If you could tell us the names of your parents and if you know where they were from. Golson: My mother was Celadia – C-e- l-a-d-i-a – York. She was from Mobile, Alabama. My father was Benny Golson. He spelled his name B-e-n-n-i-e. However, I changed mine to a “y,” legally. Brown: Why? Golson: I was having trouble with passports, because it was spelled one way, and the passport was another way. They started to say, “Wait. What’s going on here?” So I legally changed a few years ago to a “y.” My father, he was from Orangeburg, South Carolina. Brown: So both from the South. Golson: From the South. But they met in Philadelphia, in a church. She was on the choir, and he was on the choir. I forget the name of that church. I’ve long since . but it was Philadelphia. Brown: Did you have siblings, or do you have any siblings? Golson: No, no brothers or sisters. I was a lone wolf. Being poor, that had its advantages. Didn’t have to share anything. Brown: Do you remember, or is there a record of, what house you lived in and where you were first – where you spent your childhood? Golson: I was born – I don’t remember the address – where they were living when I was born was on 19th Street, just off of Columbia Avenue in north Philadelphia. I’ve long since forgotten the address. But soon after we moved to 1709 Lambert Street, just off of For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] 3 Columbia Avenue. Then later, 1800 North Bouvier Street. Much later, 1617 Page Street. That’s when I got started with the saxophone. Brown: Let’s go back, and let’s talk about the neighborhoods that you grew up in. Can you talk about the demographics, perhaps any economic details? Golson: Yes. I didn’t become aware of anything like that until we were on Lambert Street, because before that, I was just an infant. On Lambert Street, I was just pre-age, five years old. The only thing I had on my mind then was playing. I was always out in the street, playing with the kids, one thing and another. Only when I looked back in retrospect did I realize that we didn’t have very much, but neither did anybody else. It seemed normal to me. What did I have? I didn’t have anything to retrieve as a way of a memory of what could be. I didn’t have that kind of experience. So the area that I was in, economically, was quite normal to me. Holes in the shoe. Eating day-old bread. That was normal. I was happy. Brown: What was your father’s occupation? Also, did your mother work? Golson: My mother worked as a seamstress, off and on. My father worked for the National Biscuit Company – Nabisco. In the beginning he worked there. I remember, because he used to bring cookies and things home that were day old, or old. Then after that he went to work for the Philadelphia Gas Company. Much later, they divorced. So it was just me and my mother in those years when I was a budding musician. I didn’t start as a saxophone player, though. I started as a piano player. I fancied that I was going to be a concert pianist. I was about nine then. That got quite a few chuckles in the ghetto. A concert pianist. Everybody’s playing the blues. Brown: Let’s go back. You gave two very important things: how you got started on the piano, and you referenced your neighborhood as the ghetto. Was it a predominantly black neighborhood? Was it exclusively a black neighborhood? Golson: It was 99½% black, because I remember I had a white friend that lived down the other end of the block. He was the only one in the neighborhood. Brown: What about the schools that you went to? Golson: The schools were just about half and half, believe it or not, the elementary schools that I went – wait a minute – yeah, the first school I went to – the very – Caine. Yeah, that was a mixed school. I didn’t go there very – that was pre-school. Caine School. For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] 4 Then the school that I remember where I really began to learn things was the Allison School. [North] 15th and [West] Norris Streets. How do I remember that? It was a mixed school. Then that school – there was a fellow named Steve Davis. We started together from kindergarten. He wound up being a musician too, playing bass, and he wound up playing with John Coltrane. Later, we moved – I was about eight years old – we moved to – I don’t remember these addresses – 2303 Van Pelt Street, just off of [West] Dauphin Street. I went to a school [North] 22nd [Street] and [West] Dauphin called the Arnold School. The whole school was black. All the teachers were black, and the principal was black. That was the only time I ever ran into anything like that. It wasn’t particularly a ghetto. It just happened to be demographics. I learned so much in that school. In third grade, I remember – the things that I learned in third grade, when I went back to the other schools that were mixed, I didn’t get until I was in the sixth grade. I went back years later and took a picture of that school. It’s indelibly printed on my mind, what happened there. Mr. Broad was the principal. Brown: You started piano at nine. What was your inspiration to do so? Golson: My uncles – my mother’s brother and her brother-in-law – the fellow who married my mother’s sister – they played piano, and I thought they were geniuses. Only did I realize later, they were terrible. I used to hear them play the piano. One uncle, my mother’s brother, he’d play popular tunes of the day, after a fashion. My other uncle was trying to play operatic things and things like that. I marveled at what they could do at this instrument, with these keys, how they could touch these keys and make the music come out. So when nobody was around, I was trying to pick out little melodies. I got pretty good with one finger. My mother saw that. She said to me, “Would you like to take piano lessons?” I never thought of it, piano lessons. “Yes.” So she – there was a fellow down the street that was taking piano lessons. So she went down and talked to his mother. “Who’s the piano teacher?” “Jay Walker Freeman,” who wore pinch-nose glasses. The whole time I was studying with him, I was waiting for those glasses to fall off. They never fell off. He was very proper. He was like Ichibod Crane in – what was that . Brown: Sleepy Hollow. Golson: Sleepy Hollow. He reminded me later of Ichibod Crane. What did it say? His arms dangled a mile out of his sleeves. He talked very proper. And yet he was black. That was an aberration. 75 cents a lesson. He would come every week. We’d have an hour. I didn’t realize what was going on. I knew he came one week. I remember my mother taking him out of the living room into the dining room. Then they came back, and we resumed the lesson.

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