"No singer on earth is more woman than Betty Carter."

[jazzbo]

"No singer on earth is more woman than Betty Carter" Ray Charles is reported to have said. Bold words that could be interpreted many ways. In fact you might even invert the phrase somewhat and some I'm sure will agree "There is no woman on earth more a singer than Betty Carter". . . Alas there is no more "is" but "was."

In my opinion she left us at the top of her game. She kept getting better and better in all the ways I can see. She became more herself as an artist. She became so secure and deep.

Also, she became an excellent producer. If I were a horn player in the field today I would vehemently wish she could produce an album for me. Arrange and work with my r-section too. It would challenge and bring out the best in me.

I miss Betty Carter! I'm lucky in that I came to become a big fan late in the game and I have more to explore. But there will be no more great Bet-Car productions to anticipate. . . .

Recently the one I'm stuck on, that I play a lot is "I'm Yours, You're Mine". . . .

Pop in a post if you're a fan.

[Harold_Z]

Betty used to live in New Jersey and I used to see her in local spots like Gulliver's back in the 70s. Always excellent and enjoyable and always a good rhythm section behind her.

[ghost of miles]

I was just talking about her to my cubicle-mate last week... I'm taking over a new show here, and told my colleague that I'd be playing a lot of Betty Carter. In fact, the very first program includes "Theme From Dr. Kildare (Three Stars Will Shine)" from ROUND MIDNIGHT. One thing I enjoy about Carter's records is the choice of repertoire--always interesting and somewhat eclectic.

[jazzbo]

Just finished listening to "Sleepy Time Down South" on "It's Not about the Melody." Wow. So nice. . . a great sendoff for my yucky day (just about to accompany my wife to the clinic).

[JSngry]

Probably my two favorite Betty Carter performances come from the relative beginning and the relative end - "Social Call" from the Epic date, and the duet w/Geri Allen on the "Stardust/Memories Of You" medley from Droppin' Things. Totally different approaches on each performance, but the end result is the same - a deep intimacy that has you crawling up inside the song so far that you feel as if you ought to call and send it flowers the next day.

Or something like that.

[Christiern]

I betr he said that before she entered her grotesque period. When she recorded with Charles, she was a good Vaughan emulator--I think she should have stayed there until a natural development moved her into her own style. That forced I'll-be-different style she created was, in my opinion, an abomination.

But, of course, Ray Charles seems to have been talking about the woman, not the singer.

[randyhersom]

Betty Carter was never grotesque. She was great and original and sensual and passionate.

Too many highlights to choose from. The outrageous "Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love" from Now It's My Turn, and most of Inside Betty Carter and The Audience with Betty Carter are particular favorites. Proper appreciation is now impossible for a newcomer, because she was even greater live than on record.

[Hardbopjazz]

Betty Carter rules. I love her warm tone of her voice. She can hit that real low note that not many other woman singers can.

[Dan Gould]

I'm with Chris ... wanted to expand on the Ella in the collection so I picked up a Betty Carter disc. I don't think I made it through the whole thing before I sold it. Couldn't tell you what it was, but it didn't exactly leave me wondering if I was jumping to conclusions.

[Jim R]

I can't claim to be well-exposed to her overall career, but I just want to say that her performance on the "Carnegie Hall Salutes The Jazz Masters" show (unless I'm having a near-senior moment here and thinking of another show) really struck me as amazing. Intense and yet relaxed, and the kind of thing that makes me laugh out loud with pure joy. In such a "commercial" setting, and with an "allstar jam" at the end, I would have expected a lot less, but she rose up and really produced on that, IMO.

[Christiern]

"...you of all people, Chris, ought not, by intention or inane (thus far) flippancy underestimate the difficulty of being of black woman ARTIST, not "just" an entertainer... i can see (but scoff at) disregarding BC like people do Braxton, Roscoe, Leo Smith, Joe Maneri etc but to misapprehend & misstate what it is they did (which you've not even bothered to do: saying it was an "abomination" reallz sez... whuh?), as opposed to what you want(ed) 'em to do... "

Huh? Who is underestimating the difficulty of being a black woman? Now that, IMO, is nonsense. Carter's painful distortions of songs had nothing to do with her being a black woman. It has, as I see it, everything to do with wanting to get away from being labeled a Sarah Vaughan imitator, and making that escape in too much of a hurry. Styles and approaches have a wonderful way of evolving naturally, they cannot successfully be forced. I think Betty Carter is a prime example of someone who came up with a contrived approach for the sake of expediency. I may, of course, be wrong, she may really not have had much taste, but then, how does one explain her early work? It didn't show much inventiveness, but it was tasteful.

Who knows? Having songwriters spin in their graves may be good for the soil.

[JSngry]

Betty was a "beast"?

Well, the one time I saw her live, I was sitting at a 45-degree angle beind the bandstand and caught the looks whe was giving her drummer (Marvin Smith, iirc) all night to get him to move with her, so I think I have an inkling of what Cecil means. Hell, she had me scared!

She worked a band like no other singer I've seen, and like none but a few horn players. Whether or not you like the results, there's no question that she was a true improvisor. Her cutting (done lovingly but nevertheless visciously) of Branford Marsalis on a version of "Tight" (great tune, btw) on the old Night Music show shows that she had a fearlessness that very few singers possessed. It was a fearlessness borne of knowing the inside of the music in a way that too many singers don't even think about.

(sidenote - Sarah was another one like that, although she was usually more "proper" in the settngs in which she presented herself. But I saw a Boston Pops show w/her and Wynton from the early/mid 1980s where they were trading phrases on some pease of pleasantry, and Wynton got a little full of himself and rather cockily played a chromatic-ish fourth-y phrase. He was obviously pleased with himself until Sarah sung it right back to him turned inside out and everyway but loose, upon which he gave a little raised-eyebrow shurg and proceeded to meekly finish the piece. Betty's schooling of Branford was entirely rhythmic, she got him caught in a cat-and-mouse game of rhythmic feinting that K.O.-ed Branford before he even had a chance to throw a punch, but I really got off on the both of them taking on these youngsters on their terms and schooling them on the spot, with no consideration to "propriety". These women were tough!)

[jazzbo]

Hmmm. . . just can't agree with Chris and Dan on this one. (And can't imagine anything "grotesque" about a single note on say "It's Not about the Melody").

I feel she was a master. A totally different singer than Ella (who I love madly). But perhaps for me more moving. I don't hear her as a Sarah imitator. (I'm not that much of a Sarah fan).

Edited January 30, 2006 by jazzbo

[Dan Gould]

To clarify, I wouldn't necessarily call BC "grotesque" but coming out of Ella, I was certainly not prepared for her, shall we say, mannerisms. And I certainly respect her positive influence on the many rhythm players who came through her group.

[Stereojack]

I never really "got" Betty Carter until a friend who was a big fan took me to see her. Her body movements correlated with the lines she sang, and I was blown away. That said, I like her early to middle period recordings (1950's - 1970's) best - Epic, Peacock, ABC, United Artists, Atco, the first couple of BetCars, and the Roulettes. I had the opportunity to interview her on the radio back in the early 1980's, and she was a tough cookie. Once she realized I was a fan and actually was familiar with her work, she warmed up and we got along fine. She said that Roulette had ripped her off pretty badly, and urged people not to buy those records, but now that she's gone, I gotta say that "Now It's My Turn" is one of my favorites.

[clifford_thornton]

I won't lay claim to dropping knowledge on the jazz vocal canon other than a few less-canonized artists, but BC has piqued my curiosity without being enough so as to pull the trigger on picking up any of her records. Some across-the-board recommendations might be useful for those neophytes like myself.

She sang at LeRoi's BARTS extravaganza (The New Wave in Jazz, Impulse), am I right? Think it would've been interesting to have somehow stuck in the Carter and Ra tracks on that LP. "New Wave" might have been interpreted a little differently as a result... or not.

[jazzbo]

Dan, I understand where you stand. . . .

Cliff,

I think that say "I'm Yours, You're Mine" or "The Audience with Betty Carter" (though it's a double, but it's doubly good) are good solid starting points.

[Bright Moments]

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...hl=betty+carter

[Hot Ptah]

I saw Betty Carter live about 10 times from 1978-90 or so. She was always phenomenal live. Her studio albums never really caught her magic, in my opinion. If you saw her live, her mannerisms made sense, and she connected in a very emotionally direct way. Her mannerisms to me were the improvisations of a great jazz artist--much like John Coltrane's "mannerisms."

She is the only jazz artist ever that I traveled to different cities to see, in 1980--I was so blown away by her performance at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit that I drove to Chicago to see her at the Jazz Showcase the next night. (I thought, if Grateful Dead fans do it, why not for Betty?) At the Jazz Showcase she sang an intensely moving love song while staring right into my eyes in the front row. It was incredibly powerful--I was shaken to the core. I have never had that kind of experience with any other artist in any genre of music.

[skeith]

My somewhat weird take on her.

I have seen her live and heard a number of her recordings and I find her talented and engrossing, but only for a brief moment.

What strikes me is that because she strays so far from the melody and gets into her thing, that is because she so quickly dispenses with the melody of a particular tune, I find that over the course of a disc or a concert, that it all ends up sounding similar to me.

Edited January 31, 2006 by skeith