Benny Carter and His Orchestra
Further Definitions

Did you buy yourself Blue And Sentimental by Ike Quebec? Did you download it from the internet? At least did you listen to a few tracks?

No, right?

I was sure of it, because I went through the same thing.

What tricks us and keeps us at a safe distance from jazz, we dirty garage punksters, is in order:

1. I can’t stand those tracks that last longer than eternity, there’s no one singing, and all they play are saxophones, double basses, and drums (some even the xylophone);

2. there's no little tune, it’s impossible to remember the songs and whistle them.

So, here I am again, this time to tell you a few stories about Further Definitions by Benny Carter, a supersonic missile rocketing straight to Mother Russia.

Because, if there ever was a point of contact between the Ramones and jazz, that point is somewhere in here.

Because you try finding another jazz record that contains eight songs and lasts just over half an hour, averaging four minutes per track, which, as is well known, equals the fateful two-minutes-two of the immortal hymns of the Ramone brothers.

Because you try finding another jazz record where every damn track instantly embeds itself in your brain, and in the days that follow you find yourself whistling it in the shower, in the car, queuing at the supermarket checkout, while slipping under the covers.

Because also, you try finding a record that alternates blasting tracks as much as (if not more than) “Cretin Hop” and “Rockaway Beach” with enveloping ballads that would make “Here Today Gone Tomorrow” pale.

There are no ifs, ands, or buts, "Further Definitions” is “Rocket To Russia” in jazz dressing.

Oh God, there's one difference between this album and “Rocket To Russia”, and that is that the Ramones never played together again after their confused phase, while “Further Definitions” is the result of what in rock’n’roll jargon would be called a reunion.

The fact is that, although it is named after Benny Carter and his orchestra, in that orchestra is one Coleman Hawkins.

Now, the two had already crossed saxophones in 1937 in a group that went down in history as Coleman Hawkins And His All Star Jam Band, and it doesn’t seem like a pompously pretentious sign, considering that it included other hopeful lads like Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt. They crossed paths, recorded a few tracks (the best known, “Honeysuckle Rose” and “Crazy Rhythm”) and then warmly said goodbye, each taking their own path.

However, to a young man named Bob Thiele, who was fifteen years old at the time, those recording sessions pierced his heart. And when the young man, after having, in order: worked as a DJ; published a jazz magazine; founded a record label that promptly closed; casually moved to Decca, hiring Buddy Holly and assisting him in recording the classic “That’ll Be The Day”; when the young man, in 1960, became a renowned producer and landed at Impulse (the new wave of jazz, shouted the logo imprinted on the licensed records), he was seized with the frenzy to recreate the partnership between Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins.

In 1961, Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins were two established saxophone titans, two dinosaurs they would have been disrespectfully called fifteen years later. Suffice it to say that Carter, over the years, had played with artists like Sidney Bechet and Earl Hines, Fats Waller and Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Glenn Miller. Coleman Hawkins is Coleman Hawkins, the father of jazz saxophone; just as Johnny Ramone taught the world to play punk guitar, Coleman taught the world to play saxophone, Lester Young dixit. Period.

At Impulse, they could afford to hire two dinosaurs because within those walls, the revolutionary John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, and Charles Mingus coexist peacefully with the reactionary Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

So said, so done, Bob Thiele phones them both; and both, at the end of 1961, are in New York to relive the glory days of old. Alongside them, other saxophonists Phil Woods and Charlie Rouse, pianist Dick Katz, guitarist John Collins, and the rhythm section of Jimmy Garrison and the inevitable Joe Jones join in: from theory to practice, the jazz tradition of the twenties and thirties hand in hand with the contemporary avant-garde.

Only two days, December 13 and 15, to record eight thrilling pieces, six famous standards, and two compositions by Benny Carter. It’s not punk, it’s unstoppable and wild swing; there are four horns, but the firepower is that of the best big bands in which Benny has spent himself.

From the ‘37 sessions, “Honeysuckle Rose” and “Crazy Rhythm” resurface, to fan the ashes. “Honeysuckle Rose” is one of the great jazz classics, practically everyone has redone it, starting with Louis Armstrong. “Crazy Rhythm” is overflowing, pure energy, and it’s a delight to catch the excited shouts in the background: like Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy”, same excitement, same shouts, same animalistic, overwhelming passion.

To pour gasoline on the fire comes “Cotton Tail”: here too, it speeds away at a thousand miles per hour, between swing and rhythm’n’blues; here too, the melody, like in “Honeysuckle Rose”, is one of those that knock you out from the opening.

Simply devastating. Too devastating.

So between one outburst and another, Benny and Coleman place the ballads “The Midnight Sun Will Never Set”, “Blue Star”, and the well-known “Body And Soul”: here the swing is even more intense, but now the rhythms are slowed down, a seductive blues takes over halfway between romanticism and melancholy, and the only sensible thing is to embrace someone you might love and dance cheek to cheek, without saying a word, maybe even staying still like Fonzie and the girl of the moment in Alfred's place. “For the lonely hearts out there,” Joey would have announced, had he been in the game.

Then, since every climax must be followed by an anticlimax, they close the program with the beautiful “Cherry” and “Doozy”, two medium tempos that allow you to catch your breath amiably, smoke a cigarette or drink something, put the vinyl back in the record collection and, at the same time, with a skillful move, pull out “Rocket To Russia”.

Because “Rocket To Russia” always listen to it, because it is simply the greatest rock’n’roll album ever conceived; but always keep in mind that certain jazz records are worth “Rocket To Russia”.

And whatever Stinky says, who understands nothing about jazz and even less about punk, the Russians don’t love children, they eat them, so that missile eventually needs to be fired.

One two three four!