# Benny Golson returns to Minnesota: I feel maybe 45 or 50: Photos, Videos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2019/04/28/benny-golson-returns-to-minnesota-i-feel-maybe-45-or-50-photos-videos/
- Published: 2019-04-28T13:00:40+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**One of the last greats of his generation, jazz master Benny Golson talks about
Coltrane, Spielberg and “A Great Day in Harlem” as he heads to Minnesota. Benny 
Golson continues to keep a busy schedule: “The rent man likes for me to work.”**

Benny Golson jazz’s Renaissance man, had been courted by big-name film directors
before. They’d say they wanted him for a part, then it turned out to be a cattle-
call audition.

So when Steven Spielberg reached out to Golson for his 2004 movie “The Terminal,”
the instant response was no. A second phone call, however, convinced the acclaimed
saxophonist/composer that this film would be different.

“I asked him: ‘Why did you pick me?’ He said, ‘When I was at college [Long Beach
State], I used to come and hear you play.’ Wow.”

![](https://i0.wp.com/stmedia.stimg.co/Benny_Golson_Live.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

Also, Golson was being asked to portray himself.

In The Terminal. Tom Hanks plays an immigrant stuck at JFK Airport who is trying
to score the final autograph — Golson’s — of 57 jazz stars who gathered for a legendary
photo now known as A Great Dav in Harlem.

Only two of those musicians are still alive.

Golson’s 1½-minute cameo in the 2004 Spielberg film “didn’t change anything,” said
the saxman, who performs this week at Crooners in Fridley. “The money didn’t increase.
I didn’t become a superstar or anything like that. It did introduce me to some younger
audiences.”

While “The Terminal” may not have changed his life, that photograph remains a cornerstone
in his career, as well as the subject of a 1994 Oscar-nominated documentary.

“I remember everything about it,” said Golson, who at 90 is sharper than any tool
in your shed.

Esquire magazine gathered the jazz stars one morning in August 1958 for a portrait
outside a Manhattan brownstone. Golson stands at the top of the steps, behind drummer
Art Blakey, with dozens of his heroes at his feet: Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie,
Charles Mingus, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk.

The only other one left is saxophone giant Sonny Rollins, who no longer performs
because of pulmonary fibrosis.

“I was the least known of anybody,” Golson said. “I’d just come to town.”

Golson had been invited by noted critic Nat Hentoff. Photo call was at 10 a.m. in,
of course, suit and tie.

“We didn’t [usually] get up that early,” he remembered. “In those days, when we 
played Birdland [a Manhattan jazz spot] it was from 10 at night till 4 in the morning.

“We were late dwellers. We were the night roamers.”

**Best buds with Coltrane**

Recognized as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, Golson is modest
about his inclusion in the famous portrait. But by 1958 he’d already made his mark
as a performer — with Gillespie and Lionel Hampton, among others — and as a bandleader
and composer, too.

Miles Davis recorded his song “Stablemates” in 1955, the first in a string of jazz
standards penned by Golson, including “Whisper Not,” “Along Came Betty” and “Killer
Joe.”

As a youth in Philadelphia, Golson palled around with another soon-to-be-famous 
saxophonist, John Coltrane.

“We grew up as teenagers together. We practiced in my living room together,” said
Golson, who started piano at 9 and took up the sax at 14.

“We were in the same band. We got hired together, we got fired together. When we
went on the road with somebody, we slept in the same beds trying to save money. 
We were like brothers.”

He remembers the power­house innovator as “quiet, reserved and full of talent.

“We didn’t have any idea about the future. We didn’t have any idea of where it was
that we wanted to go. But we wanted to get there as soon as possible.

“We weren’t concerned about being famous. We wanted to learn how to play the instruments,
and we weren’t concerned about making a lot of money. We wanted to engage ourselves
in the music.”

After graduating from Howard University, Golson gigged with various jazz luminaries,
then launched a band called the Jazztet, featuring Coltrane’s future pianist McCoy
Tyner. But his career soon took a different direction.

In the early ’60s, the saxophonist/composer headed to Hollywood to write music for
TV and films. His credits included such popular series as “Mannix,” “Mission: Impossible,”“
Mod Squad” and “M*A*S*H.”

It was hardly glamorous work, he said. “My wife and my daughter would go off to 
Santa Monica Beach and I’m like a hunchback in the studio, writing, writing till
midnight, getting up at 6 o’clock in the morning.

“Oh, man, the pressure was always on. There were no holidays. And there was nothing
like telling the studio ‘I’m not ready.’ Because then you’re finished.”

**‘I feel maybe 45 or 50’**

That grind is far behind him now, but Golson remains active. He has 10 gigs this
month and will perform in 12 countries this summer, including two trips to Japan.

“The rent man likes for me to work,” he said from his hotel room in Seattle, where
he played earlier this month. “I’m a musician. I can still play, and I want to play.”

Moreover, he has the spirit of a younger man.

“I feel about maybe 45 or 50,” he said. “Let’s be glad I didn’t pick soccer or football.
There are no 90-year-old quarterbacks.”

No outlier, he proudly rattled off the names of other jazz figures still active 
in their 90s, including composer/arranger Johnny Mandel, saxophonist Jimmy Heath
and singer Tony Bennett.

Quipped Golson: “Last time I saw Tony, I said, ‘What are you doing — taking youth
pills?’ ”

In concert, he is known for sharing back stories about his songs. One of his best-
known ballads, [“I Remember Clifford,”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyiykhPUtxA)
came to him after his friend, trumpeter Clifford Brown, was killed in an auto accident
at age 25.

“Some people tell me they like the stories as much as they do the music,” he said.

The titles of his songs come “from things in my life or things I dream of,” he explained.“
Titles are very important to me. I don’t just come up with the name. Except [‘Whisper Not.’](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN-23qB8GvM)
Which doesn’t really mean anything. I just liked the sound of those two words.”

Golson has taught master classes for years, and has been working on a textbook for
jazz musicians.

“It’s somewhere in my computer,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it. 
It’s hard for me to set time aside. There’s so much pulling on me. Every day I get
requests for interviews and for teaching from all over the world.”

The desire to learn still motivates him.

“Even now at 90, I don’t know everything there is to know. So when I teach master
classes, sometimes the teacher learns from the kids. That’s the way it is. That’s
the way it should be. Like Sonny Rollins said to me once: ‘There’s no end to this
music.’ ”

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