Benny Golson Curtis Fuller | ms

“I don’t want to imitate anyone; I just want to do me. That’s why my key aim in my career is to be as successful as I can be.” – Benny Banks Growing up in Islington (North London) Benny Banks, was your typical teenager; in that he didn’t enjoy school and would much rather do other things with his time. One of these things was listening to music. It wasn’t until age twenty however, that his love of music really began to develop. It was after a night out with his friends that Benny Banks began to rap and his...

Curtis DuBois Fuller (born in Detroit, December 15, 1934) is a United States jazz trombonist. Fuller's parents were Jamaican and died when he was young, so as a result he was raised in an orphanage. While in Detroit he was a schoolfriend of Paul Chambers and Donald Byrd, and also knew Tommy Flanagan, Thad Jones and Milt Jackson. After army service between 1953 and 1955 (when he played in a band with Chambers and brothers Cannonball and Nat Adderley), Fuller joined the quintet of Yusef Lateef, another Detroit musician. In 1957 the quintet moved to New York, and Fuller recorded...

Benny Goodman, born Benjamin David Goodman, (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American jazz musician, known as King of Swing, Patriarch of the Clarinet, The Professor, and Swing's Senior Statesman. Goodman was regarded by some as a demanding taskmaster, by others an arrogant and eccentric martinet. Many musicians spoke of The Ray, Goodman's trademark glare that he bestowed on a musician who failed to perform to his demanding standards. Anita O'Day and Helen Forrest spoke bitterly of their experiences singing with Goodman. "The twenty or so months I spent with Benny felt like twenty years," said Forrest....

Bennett Lester Carter (August 8, 1907 – July 12, 2003) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognised as such by other jazz musicians who called him King. As a youth, Carter lived in Harlem around the corner from Bubber Miley who was Duke Ellington's star trumpeter. Carter was inspired by Miley and bought a trumpet, but when he found he couldn't play like Miley he traded the trumpet in for a saxophone. Carter began playing professionally at 15. He first...

Alfred Hawthorn Hill (21 January 1924 – 20 April 1992), better known as Benny Hill, was a prolific English comic, actor & singer, best known for his television programme, The Benny Hill Show. Since its debut in 1969 his television show has been sold to over 140 countries worldwide, with viewership in the millions. The song "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In the West)" is a bit autobiographical. Benny Hill had been a milkman in Eastleigh, Hampshire, working for Hanns Dairy whose premises was yards way from Market Street. There was a bakery near the dairy that did indeed have a...