The Music Never Stops

Last updated
The Music Never Stops
Betty Carter The Music Never Stops.jpg
Live album by
Betty Carter
Released2019
RecordedMarch 29, 1992
Venue Jazz at Lincoln Center, Aaron Davis Hall, New York City
Genre Jazz
Length1:23:28
Label Blue Engine Records
BE0014-1
Betty Carter chronology
I'm Yours, You're Mine
(1997)		The Music Never Stops
(2019)		Live at De Werf, Bruges, 1989
(2020)

The Music Never Stops is a live album by the American jazz singer Betty Carter. Featuring a blend of original material and standards, it was recorded on March 29, 1992, at Aaron Davis Hall in New York City, as part of one of Jazz at Lincoln Center's earliest seasons. On the album, which was issued by Blue Engine Records in 2019, Carter is accompanied by a variety of ensembles, ranging from small groups to a big band and a string section. The recording marked the first posthumous release of previously unheard music by Carter, and arrived 22 years after her previous release. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Contents

Carter had received an NEA Jazz Master fellowship in 1992, [6] and used part of the honorarium to fund the concert. [4] She designed the program and stage layout in such a way that all the musicians were on stage during the entire concert, allowing her to segue between ensembles without pausing. [7] Wynton Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, recalled: "She assembled three trios and a big band on a single stage and darted among the different ensembles, transitioning seamlessly and effortlessly between burning bebop, deeply felt ballads and original material for which there is no description. She wore these musicians out with her stamina." [4]

Reception

In an article for NPR , Nate Chinen described Carter as "adroit and unsurpassable" and called the performance "a concert of grand, unabashed ambition, celebrating Carter's magnificent prowess." [4]

Steve Elman of The Arts Fuse wrote: "the sum of the parts here is much greater than the realization of any individual tune. The concert gains emotional momentum as it goes along, with unforgettable results... hearing those 76 minutes brought Betty Carter back to life for me, if only for a tiny slice of time." [7]

The Columbia Daily Tribune's Jon W. Poses called the album "pure gold" and "exhilarating," and stated that it "reminds us just how special Carter was, a standard-bearer and caretaker of jazz." He commented: "The material here carries the listener, creating a dynamic, fluid, energetic, soulful groove from start to finish... The Music Never Stops serves as a delicious sampler of both Carter's organizational skills as well as her total musicianship." [8]

Writing for All About Jazz , Marc Myers noted that "Carter isn't to everyone's taste," but remarked: "once your ear adjusts to her voice-as-an-instrument approach, you come to realize that she had a beautiful tone and that each song was remarkably re-invented." [9]

Writer Raul Da Gama stated: "Throughout Miss Carter is dazzling and always gives notice that she needs no accompaniment because she could – on a dime – supplant every instrument in the string section, the big band or the small ensembles... she sculpts each phrase and teases out the long inventions of lines... giving new meaning and deep emotion to each song like no one but Betty Carter can and ever did and like no one has done since." [10]

In a New York Times review of the previous evening's presentation of the same material, Stephen Holden wrote: "The idea of musical continuity gave the evening a natural sense of thematic ebb and flow... No matter how far Ms. Carter strays from a familiar melody, she maintains a firm hold on the emotional sense of a lyric... she projects a mournful acceptance of life's changes -- grief that is offset by an even stronger assertion of resilience." [11]

Track listing

Track timings not provided.

  1. "Ms. B.C." (Pamela Watson)
  2. "Make It Last" (Dick Haymes)
  3. "30 Years" (Betty Carter)
  4. "Why Him?" (Burton Lane, Alan Jay Lerner / "Where or When" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) / "What's New?" (Bob Haggart, Johnny Burke)
  5. "Tight!" (Betty Carter) / "Mr. Gentleman" (Betty Carter)
  6. "Social Call" (Gigi Gryce, Jon Hendricks)
  7. "Moonlight in Vermont" (John Blackburn, Karl Suessdorf)
  8. "The Good Life" (John Blackburn / Karl Suessdorf)
  9. "Bridges" (Betty Carter)
  10. "If I Should Lose You" (Leo Robin, Ralph Rainger)
  11. "Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love" (Cole Porter)
  12. "Make Him Believe" (Betty Carter)
  13. "Frenesi" (Alberto Dominguez, Leonard Whitcap)

Personnel

Strings (tracks 2, 12)
Big band (tracks 1, 2, 6, 7, 13)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musical ensemble</span> Instrumental and/or vocal music group

A musical ensemble, also known as a music group or musical group, is a group of people who perform instrumental and/or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instrumentalists, such as the jazz quartet or the orchestra. Other music ensembles consist solely of singers, such as choirs and doo wop groups. In both popular music and classical music, there are ensembles in which both instrumentalists and singers perform, such as the rock band or the Baroque chamber group for basso continuo and one or more singers. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles. Some ensembles blend the sounds of a variety of instrument families, such as the orchestra, which uses a string section, brass instruments, woodwinds and percussion instruments, or the concert band, which uses brass, woodwinds and percussion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big band</span> Music ensemble associated with jazz music

A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art Ensemble of Chicago</span> American avant-garde jazz group

The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz group that grew out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the late 1960s. The ensemble integrates many jazz styles and plays many instruments, including "little instruments": bells, bicycle horns, birthday party noisemakers, wind chimes, and various forms of percussion. The musicians would wear costumes and face paint while performing. These characteristics combined to make the ensemble's performances both aural and visual. While playing in Europe in 1969, five hundred instruments were used.

A quintet is a group containing five members. It is commonly associated with musical groups, such as a string quintet, or a group of five singers, but can be applied to any situation where five similar or related objects are considered a single unit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preservation Hall Jazz Band</span> American jazz band

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band is a New Orleans jazz band founded in New Orleans by tuba player Allan Jaffe in the early 1960s. The band derives its name from Preservation Hall in the French Quarter. In 2005, the Hall's doors were closed for a period of time due to Hurricane Katrina, but the band continued to tour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Morrison (jazz musician)</span> Australian jazz musician (born 1962)

James Lloyd Morrison AM is an Australian jazz musician. Although his main instrument is trumpet, he has also performed on trombone, tuba, euphonium, flugelhorn, saxophone, clarinet, double bass, guitar, and piano. He is a composer, writing jazz charts for ensembles of various sizes and proficiency levels.

<i>Social Call</i> 1980 studio album by Betty Carter

Social Call is an album by Betty Carter featuring Ray Bryant and a big band arranged by Gigi Gryce. Of its eleven tracks, the first six were recorded in 1955 and originally released as part of the album Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant. The other five tracks were recorded in 1956 but remained unissued until this compilation, which Columbia Records released in 1980.

<i>Round Midnight</i> (1963 Betty Carter album) 1963 studio album by Betty Carter

'Round Midnight is a 1963 studio album by the American jazz singer Betty Carter that was arranged by Claus Ogerman and Oliver Nelson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trumpet repertoire</span> Set of available musical works for trumpet

The trumpet repertoire consists of solo literature and orchestral or, more commonly, band parts written for the trumpet. Tracings its origins to 1500 BC, the trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family.

<i>City of Glass</i> (Stan Kenton album) 1951 studio album by Stan Kenton

City of Glass, an album originally issued as a 10" LP by Stan Kenton, consists entirely of the music of Bob Graettinger. The original album has been reconstituted in different LP re-issues, and the entire set of Kenton/Graettinger Capitol Records sessions is on the digital CD City of Glass.

The West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) is an Australian youth jazz orchestra based in Perth, Western Australia. WAYJO has 54 jazz musicians between 14 and 25 years of age and currently presents over 55 performances a year across Australia.

<i>Live at Jazz Standard</i> (Mingus Big Band album) 2010 live album by Mingus Big Band

Live at Jazz Standard is an album by the Mingus Big Band that won the Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 2011. The album documents a concert at the Jazz Standard club in New York City on New Year's Eve, 2009. The concert and the album commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of songs recorded by Charles Mingus. The band was conducted by Gunther Schuller and included trumpeter Randy Brecker, who played with Mingus during the 1970s.

The Christian McBride Big Band is a 17-piece big band whose debut album The Good Feeling received the Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 2012.

<i>The Thompson Fields</i> 2015 studio album by Maria Schneider Orchestra

The Thompson Fields is an album by the Maria Schneider Orchestra that won the Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 2017. Schneider was the composer, conductor, and co-producer of the autobiographical work. The title comes from the Minnesota farm where she was raised.

<i>Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band at the Village Vanguard</i> 1961 live album by Gerry Mulligan

Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band at the Village Vanguard is a live album by jazz saxophonist and bandleader Gerry Mulligan featuring performances recorded at the Village Vanguard in late 1960 which were released on the Verve label.

<i>The Total J.J. Johnson</i> 1967 studio album by J. J. Johnson

The Total J.J. Johnson is an album by jazz trombonist and arranger J. J. Johnson and Big Band recorded in 1966 for the RCA Victor label.

<i>Otherside</i> (Oliver Lake album) 1988 studio album / Live album by Oliver Lake

Otherside is an album by American jazz saxophonist Oliver Lake featuring a quintet and a big band, which was recorded in 1988 and released on the Gramavision label. The big band pieces were commissioned by the Jazz Coalition with funding from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities New Works Program.

<i>Monk on Monk</i> 1997 studio album by T. S. Monk

Monk on Monk is an album by the drummer T. S. Monk, recorded in 1997 and released on the N2K label.

<i>The New Wave in Jazz</i> 1965 live album by Various

The New Wave in Jazz is a live album recorded on March 28, 1965 at the Village Gate in New York City. It features groups led by major avant-garde jazz artists performing at a concert for the benefit of The Black Arts Repertory Theater/School founded by Amiri Baraka, then known as LeRoi Jones. The album was released on LP in 1965 on the Impulse! label, and was reissued on CD in 1994 with a different track listing.

<i>Data Lords</i> 2020 studio album by Maria Schneider Orchestra

Data Lords is a large-ensemble jazz album by the Maria Schneider Orchestra that was released in 2020.

References

  1. ↑ "Betty Carter - The Music Never Stops". Jazz Music Archives. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  2. ↑ "The Music Never Stops". Jazz Shop. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  3. ↑ Micucci, Matt (February 1, 2019). "Norah Jones, Thundercat, Betty Carter: The Week in Jazz". JazzIz. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Chinen, Nate (January 29, 2019). "For Betty Carter, 'The Music Never Stops' — Even 27 Years Later". NPR. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  5. ↑ Elizabeth, Jordannah (March 7, 2019). "New Betty Carter album arrives 27 years after original performance". New York Amsterdam News. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Betty Carter: Vocalist, Bandleader, Educator". National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  7. 1 2 Elman, Steve (May 7, 2019). "Jazz Review and Appreciation: The Music Never Stops – Betty Carter Live (Again)". The Arts Fuse. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  8. ↑ Poses, Jon W. (March 29, 2019). "'The Music Never Stops' for Betty Carter fans". Columbia Daily Tribune. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  9. ↑ Myers, Marc (April 16, 2019). "Betty Carter: Music Never Stops". All About Jazz. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  10. ↑ Da Gama, Raul (March 22, 2019). "Betty Carter: The Music Never Stops". JazzdaGama. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  11. ↑ Holden, Stephen (March 30, 1992). "Review/Jazz; Nonstop Improvisation With a Big-Band Backup". New York Times. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.