Benny’s Brood (Rickey Woodard / Jesse Davis)

Abstract

Abstract The 29th annual Gibson Jazz Party, held in Denver over the Labor Day weekend, got jump-started at Friday’s preliminary musicians’ jam. The rhythm section, as good as any of those heard during the 56 sets programmed over 60 hours during the following three days, consisted of Roland Hanna, Ray Brown, Herb Ellis, and Frank Capp, and the ancient tune was “How Come You Do Me Like You Do?” The first soloists to take a shot at it were Harry Edison, the seductive master of the cup mute; Al Grey, the swashbuckling trombonist; Spike Robinson, a Lestorian tenor saxophonist known in Denver and London but not in New York; and Glenn Zottola, a big band trumpeter with an increasingly Armstrongian bite. Then Benny Carter stepped in, pacing himself at first with curvy elliptical phrases, and soon connecting them in pungent exclamations that slashed at the rhythm, poked open the all too familiar chords, and brought the room to a sudden respectful silence. Carter, at 84, defies expectations about the vigor of jazz elders, not because he can still do it jazz musician because he’s always full of surprises. You’d never think a man who walks so slowly to the stage could get up there and kick ass on the horn like that. But his playing is so beautiful, it really inspires you.” As we walked out of the musicians’ room, Jimmy Knepper walked in shaking his head: “Those old cats are playing their asses off—John Frigo and, of course, Benny!”