George Benson (saxophonist)

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George Franklin Benson Jr. ( February 1929 - March 9, 2019 ) was an American jazz and studio musician ( alto and tenor saxophone ).

Live and act

Benson began his career in the Detroit music scene in the early 1950s; In 1951 he recorded several titles under his own name such as "Begin the Beguine", "The Nearness of You" and "When Day Is Done" for the Regent label. During the Korean War he served as a corporal in the US Army and was stationed in Oahu , Hawaii, where he played in an army band; during this time he also wrote a march that received an award.

After his discharge from the army, he worked full-time at the post office; in addition, he continued to perform as a musician. I.a. In the course of his musician career he worked with Marvin Gaye , Stevie Wonder , The Temptations , Aretha Franklin , Ella Fitzgerald , Lionel Hampton , Nancy Wilson , Louis Armstrong and Sammy Davis Jr. 1972 he played with the New McKinney's Cotton Pickers . He also worked as a music educator and taught at Wayne State University , Schoolcraft College, Cranbrook, and gave private lessons.

After retiring from the US Postal Service in 1994, he continued to work as a musician; u. a. with Sammy Price , the Wendell Harrison 18 Piece Big Band & Sextet (1992), Bess Bonnier ( Suite William ), most recently in 2015 with the Motor City Jazz Octet ( Sanctuary ). In the field of jazz he was involved in twelve recording sessions between 1951 and 2015. Benson, who had also performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival and the Old Time Jazz Festival in Breda , received the Detroit Music Award for Outstanding Jazz in the Traditional, Instrumentalist and Recording category for his album Sax Master 2000 .

Discographic notes

  • JC Heard / George Benson: Alive and Well - The Detroit Jazz Tradition (1983), with Claude Black (p), Dave Young (kb)
  • Detroit's George Benson Swings & Swings & Swings (1986), with Reg Schwager (git), Dave Young (kb), Archie Alleyne (dr)
  • Sammy Price: Paradise Valley Duets (1988), with Marcus Belgrave
  • SaxMaster (1999), with Gary Schunk, Don Mayberry, Tom Brown

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c George Franklin Benson Jr. obituary. Legacy.com, March 11, 2019, accessed March 13, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed March 13, 2019)
personal data
SURNAME Benson, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Benson, George Franklin Jr.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz and studio musician (saxophone)
DATE OF BIRTH February 1929
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 2019