Benny Green
Benny Green
Hard-bop jazz artist who gained recognition as a member of Betty Carter's band and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPianist
Date of Birth4 April 1963
CityNew York City, NY
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The tour was just Ray Brown. We were booked, in the course of this tour, at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland to play as a duo.
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You know, there're no rules between Russell and I. We don't want to have to have to talk too much, because it's really precious, really special to play music.
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Just to have that sense of family, it gives you something that you know you need to take care of for the rest of your life. People gave it to him, and he passed it on to us.
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I'm naturally going to react to that and he'll bring out elements in my musical character that were lying dormant, because I'm relating what he's playing.
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I didn't know when I was growing up that this was a very special program, that this wasn't going on in other parts of the country. Now I realize that I was lucky.
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Art was carrying me a lot of the time. When you're accustomed to playing with Art, and you play with other drummers, it's as if the bottom dropped out.
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Prior to that, I had associated this music with older people, like my father.
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No, that's not it. The first time we met was at Fat Tuesday's. Benny was playing, this was, I think in 1989?
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Actually, I've had very little classical training, although I love listening to classical music very much.
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We have fun, we listen to one another, we challenge one another, we trust one another. We're doing what we enjoy, and we're not just playing for each other, we're playing for the people.
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The first jazz pianist I heard was Thelonious Monk. My father was listening to an album of his called 'Monk's Dream' almost every day from the time I was born.
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Ray had so much love of life and the music. He had so much integrity. He treated the music with so much dignity and respect. I spent four and a half years as a sideman with Ray Brown's trio. Music was his life, more so than anyone I could mention.
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Like Russell, I enjoy the fact that when I'm playing solo, if I want to do something completely spontaneous, I don't have to worry about how I'm going to cue the other musicians, or if it's something that's rehearsed.
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He would catapult you forward, and that was his intention with the Jazz Messengers. He would take young people with a potential and help them develop a voice as a player and as a writer.