Benny Carter’s ‘Further Definitions’ Gets Verve Rerelease
The exploratory 1962 album from the alto saxophonist, composer, and arranger is coming to vinyl via the Acoustic Sounds Series.
Benny Carter’s Further Definitions is getting a new release as part of Verve’s acclaimed Acoustic Sounds Series. The 1962 album was the alto saxophonist, composer, and arranger’s only session as a bandleader for Impulse!.
On Further Definitions, Carter leads an octet anchored by a four-saxophone front line consisting of fellow altoist Phil Woods, tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Rouse, and Carter himself. The session is rounded out by John Collins on guitar, Dick Katz on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Jo Jones on drums. The album offers swings and standards including “Body and Soul,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” and “Crazy Rhythm,” as well as the Carter originals “Blue Star” and “Doozy.” “The Midnight Sun Will Never Set” is a Quincy Jones co-write, while “Cotton Tail” is a Duke Ellington number.
The line-up evoked a similar exploratory energy Carter and Hawkins embarked on during a 1937 session in France with André Ekyan, Alix Combelle, Django Reinhardt, and Stephane Grappelli.
In a piece about Further Definitions for The New Yorker, the critic Whitney Balliett wrote that the recordings “offer indisputable evidence that Carter’s sustained combination of skill, versatility, and imaginativeness is very nearly unmatched in jazz. Few of his contemporaries continue to play or arrange or compose as well as he does, and none of them plays as many instruments and arranges and composes with such aplomb.”
Carter helped define the sound of big band swing jazz, writing arrangements for the orchestras of Fletcher Henderson, Chick Webb, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Count Basie. Around the time that he released Further Definitions, Carter was also composing and performing for film and television, including for the hit crime drama M Squad.
Verve Acoustic Sounds Series titles are mastered from the original analog tapes by Matthew Lutthans, pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings (QRP) and packaged in high-quality tip-on gatefold jackets.
