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I
took this photo around 1974 in a club on
West 12th Street in New York City.
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One
of the great singers in jazz, and one of my favorites,
Betty Carter could hold her own with any instrument
on the bandstand. During breakneck tempos, which
she seemed to favor, she invented a language of
frantic vocal phrasing and sometimes bizarre inflections
that seem to owe something to the trumpet and
saxophone. It is not surprising, then, that she
sang with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and
Miles Davis.
Betty
Carter was born on May 16, 1930, in Flint, Michigan,
and died of pancreatic cancer at her home in the
Fort Green section of Brooklyn, New York, on September
26, 1998.
Over
her extensive career she recorded with many of
the greats, including Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton
and Gigi Gryce. She also recorded numerous albums
under her own name on the Verve label. In the
spirit of Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers,
Betty Carter sought out and groomed younger, untried
musicians, including Kenny Washington, Mulgrew
Miller, and Cyrus Chestnut.
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