Betty Carter Part I: "Betty BeBop"

Betty Carter and the Gigi Gryce Orchestra - Let's Fall in Love
Betty Carter and the Ray Bryant Trio - Thou Swell
From Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant: Columbia CK64936 [Buy Here]

Here's the first of a series of multi-part musical profiles that I'm putting together. I'm planning something similar for Kenny Wheeler, possibly Mingus too, but the 4 parts of Betty Carter material was ready first. Hope people enjoy the next few posts!

Although perhaps not as ingrained in the popular imagination as Fitzgerald-Vaughn-Holiday, Betty Carter (1930-1998) is without doubt one of the great voices and personalities of American jazz, and indeed some have called her the truest "jazz" to emerge singer since the Second World War.

Born in Flint, Michigan in 1930 Lorraine Carter studied piano as a child, but her professional singing career began in earnest at the age of 18, touring with the Lionel Hampton band. She was noted early on as a skilled scat singer. Although she did not particularly appreciate the stage moniker "Betty BeBop" bestowed by Hampton, scat, (in its broadest sense encompassing wordless vocal improvisation over a song's chord changes), would remain a key weapon in Carter's formidable musical arsenal throughout her life as a performer.

Betty Carter, as she chose to be known onstage, began recording as a solo artist with the "joint debut" Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant on the Epic label in 1955. In April 1956, Carter recorded four sides with the Gigi Gryce band for an Epic LP, but plans for a full album were shelved. Luckily this big band material survived, finally to be issued in 1980.

These early recordings (Roger and Hart's Thou Swell and Koehler Arlen's Let's Fall in Love) show off Carter in fairly conventional settings, but the hallmarks of her later mature style are aready there - open play with vowel sounds, phrasing deliberately pushed over barlines and vocal improvisation that remains arguably second to none.

A lot of this Betty Carter story will be based on Tim Cramm's well-written biography on his personal Betty Carter homepage - the best place on the web to find discography, biography and other Bet-Car resources.