FULLER UP HOME GRIM REAPER PAGE CAUSES OF DEATH SEARCH BY NAME GET IN TOUCH SHAMEFUL DISCLAIMER     Fuller Up, The Dead Musician Directory      Benny Waters Natural CausesAug 11, 1998   Age 96 OBITUARY  BIOGRAPHY  LINKS

OBITUARY 

Benny Waters, 96, Who Played Swanky Jazz for 7 Decades           By BEN RATLIFF            NEW YORK -- Benny Waters, a saxophonist, clarinetist and singer who was the country's            oldest touring jazz musician, died Aug. 11 at a hospital in Columbia, Md. He was 96 and had            recently moved to Columbia from New York City.            Waters, old enough to have taught clarinet to an original member of Duke Ellington's late 1920s            band, was an independent operator to the end, appearing as a solo artist with ad hoc bands at clubs            and festivals around the world. Performing until late June of this year, he never failed to enjoy himself            in public, making jokes in different languages, calling tunes faster than his musicians could remember            them, scatting through vocal breaks.            Though his tone became fragile in the last few years, his phrasing still had the signature of a man who            was a contender in the 1930s; his rounded, swooping alto-saxophone lines and plush vibrato            advertised his authenticity as surely as the stylish American diction heard in James Cagney movies.            Born in Brighton, Md., near Baltimore, Waters started his musical education at age 5 with organ            lessons and soon moved to reed instruments. While in high school, still in the pre-jazz era, he played            syncopated music with Charlie Miller's band; in his late teen-age years he attended the Boston            Conservatory of Music for three years, where he studied theory and arranging and gave private            clarinet lessons. Among his pupils was Harry Carney, who went on to play baritone saxophone with            Duke Ellington.            Waters relocated to Philadelphia and then Atlantic City, N.J., where in 1926 he joined Charlie            Johnson's Paradise Band. Johnson's band, for which Waters was a soloist and arranger, played            dramatic, exotic music, often for theatrical revues, on a level with the highest-ranking jazz outfits in            Harlem.            The band included such other renowned musicians as Jabbo Smith, Benny Carter and Sidney De            Paris. It performed regularly at Small's Paradise in Harlem, and recorded for Victor until the late            1920s. As Waters told it, the Johnson band may have passed up a crucial opportunity to become            more famous than it is now: in 1927, Johnson was offered a long-term residence for his band at the            Cotton Club, with a built-in radio broadcasting setup, but turned down the offer because the club's            wages were too low. Ellington accepted the engagement and soon thereafter became world-famous.            In those days Waters' heavy drinking saddled him with a roguish reputation, which may have            hindered his career; a conversion to Christian Science in 1938 tempered his habits. (He finally quit            drinking in 1969.)            After the dissolution of Johnson's band in 1933, for a time Waters succeeded the premier            saxophonist of the day, Coleman Hawkins, in the reed section of Fletcher Henderson's band, and            then became a freelancer, spending time through the end of the 1940s playing with Jimmie Lunceford            and Hot Lips Page, among others.            In 1952, a tour with a Dixieland band led by trombonist Jimmie Archey took Waters to Europe, and            he stayed, living and working primarily in Paris until 1991, during which time he published a memoir.            When he couldn't get sufficient health insurance coverage for cataract removal, he moved back to the            United States to have the operation, which was not successful.            In blindness he persevered, averaging 100 dates a year until this year, making a second-floor            apartment in Hollis, Queens, his home base. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French            Ministry of Culture in 1996, and subsequently wore the medal in all his performances.            Of the nine recordings he made in the last two decades, his most recent is "Birdland Birthday -- Live            at 95" (Enja), recorded on his 95th birthday at Birdland in Manhattan.                                        Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company

 

 

BIOGRAPHY

Benny Waters  (b. 23 January 1902, Brighton, Maryland )    A talented multi-instrumentalist, by his mid-teenage years  Waters was adept on most of the saxophone family and also  played piano and sang. During the '20s he played in various  bands, studied formally and taught, numbering Harry Carney  among his pupils. In these early years he played with Joe ‘King’  Oliver, Charlie ‘Fess’ Johnson and Clarence Williams, and in the  following decade worked in the bands of Fletcher Henderson,   Johnson again, and Oran ‘Hot Lips’ Page. In the '40s he worked  with artists such as Jimmie Lunceford and Claude Hopkins. He   led his own band for a while and also worked with some R&B   bands. In the early '50s, while touring Europe in Jimmy Archey's  traditional band, he decided to settle in France. He continued to  tour from this base throughout the '60s and '70s and became a  favourite at many UK clubs and festivals, where he appeared   frequently into the '80s and '90s. In the early summer of 1991   he was featured at London's Barbican Centre in concert with   fellow octogenarian Doc Cheatham, the pair making nonsense   of their ages. A spirited soloist, favouring the tenor among the   several saxophones he plays, Waters possesses a dazzling   technique underscored by a fervent feeling for the blues. His   enthusiasm, skill and intensity would be creditable in a jazzman  of any age; coming from a musician entering his '90s they are  little short of miraculous.     MUSIC CENTRAL '96

 

 LINKS

Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors' Salute Benny Waters Reminisces Jazz Central Station Interview with BW Jazz Central Station Obituary German Language BW Page (translator) Jazz Now Water's Obituary