Benny Golson: I Remember Clifford

Sunday is jazz day. Continuing my focus on artists who died in 2024, today I present a song by Benny Golson, who died on September 21, 2024 at the age of 95. Golson played tenor sax with several of the most important jazz bands of the 1950s, and composed some of the most famous jazz standards ever written. He started his career as a member of Bullmoose Jackson’s R&B band The Buffalo Bearcats, which is where he met his mentor Tadd Dameron (another iconic composer of many jazz standards). During the ’50s, Golson was a member of several bands, including those led by Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, and was a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the late ’50s (including on the classic Jazz Messengers 1958 album Moanin’, for which he composed all of the original tunes). His most well-known compositions include “Stablemates,” “I Remember Clifford,” and “Whisper Not.” I have presented his 1958 recording of “I Remember Clifford” from the album Benny Golson and the Philadelphians. Golson does not have the name recognition of more famous jazz musicians such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or Charlie Parker, but he was an integral performer and composer during the period that defines what most people think of when they think of jazz.

To learn more about Benny Golson, check out his Wikipedia page.

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