Morroe Berger (1917–1981)

Berger does a wonderful job of providing well documented scholarship blended with a very readable style. He gives us a picture of the development of jazz, through the life and career of the great alto saxophonist, bandleader, composer, and arranger Benny Carter. Beginning at the start of the twentieth century, he traces the progression of jazz, its venues and practices, and most of its major figures. We learn a lot about the music business, including the difficulties of leading a big band, the financial challenges, and the racial challenges faced by many black musicians, who could not enter as customers many of the establishments where they played.

Berger follows Carter's career through his experience arranging for other leaders' bands, playing in those bands, developing as a soloist, leading his own bands, spending time in Europe, writing for television and movies, changing to small combos as big bands became unfeasible, and further development. He speaks of Carter the person and describes many interactions, but he does not go into detail about Carter's marriages and divorces or other intimate details. The focus is on Carter the musician and public figure, and how his experiences reflected and affected the state of jazz, the music business, and society. Berger ends with a chapter describing Carter's participation in workshops and other formats for teaching jazz, including at Princeton. He provides hundreds of footnotes and a detailed index. I particularly enjoyed a lot of the pictures showing Carter with his bands and other individual musicians.… (more)