Betty Carter, a Superb Artist, Was Devoted to Cutting Edge

In an appearance at the Cinegrill a few years ago, jazz vocalist Betty Carter was in such an expansive mood that she sang on and on, for several hours. And she tolerated no impatience from audience members who--in characteristic Los Angeles fashion--wanted to hit the freeway early.

“Where’re you going?” she said to one couple, who were poised to leave. “Sit down. I’m not finished yet.”

Carter, who died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at the age of 69, could be just as disciplinary with the young musicians she favored as accompanists. As recently as her last appearance at Catalina Bar & Grill in 1995, she didn’t hesitate to scold a player who failed to deliver the precise accompaniment accents she was expecting to hear.

But underneath the bluster and eccentricity, Carter was a superb artist. And her insistence upon having the musical setting and the performance environment she wanted was a direct reflection of her constant desire to deliver, at all times, the most creatively vital performance she could muster.

“It’s very simple,” she said at the time. “Jazz always reaches for the new stuff. And not wanting to know newness is not understanding what jazz is really, really all about.”

Carter seemed to know what jazz was about from the day she appeared on the scene as a precocious teenager, singing with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker in Detroit in 1947. She went on to work with Lionel Hampton (as “Betty Bebop”), Miles Davis, Ray Charles (recording a notable duet on “Baby It’s Cold Outside”) and others before setting out on a solo career in the late ‘60s.

She never, however, lost the determination to keep her art at the cutting edge. And her groups became virtual jazz learning centers for talented young players such as pianists Cyrus Chestnut, Jacky Terrasson and Benny Green, drummers Gregory Hutchinson and Lewis Nash, and saxophonist Mark Shim.

Jazz will miss her. Speaking of her love for the music, she once said, “We’ve got a product that can’t be beat.” She was right about that, but it’s a “product” that has a little less luster without the presence of her imaginative singing.

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Monk Competition: Two days before Carter’s death, her sister, Teri Thornton, was the winner of the 1998 Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Vocal Competition. The 64-year-old artist had the opportunity to enter the event because of a change in the competition’s rules, which in the past have had an age restriction in an effort to encourage young talent.

Thornton, who is a cancer survivor, has a list of professional credits that include stints with Cannonball Adderley, Johnny Griffin and Clark Terry. And her performance, according to members of a judging panel that included Diana Krall, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Joe Williams, was rewarded because of its solid, well-crafted professionalism.

But the institute is clearly aware that it has opened a Pandora’s box by removing the age restriction for vocalists. With next year’s return to an instrumental category, it’s hard to see how the institute can justify reviving any sort of age cutoff point for participants.

“We haven’t decided what to do yet,” says Shelby Fischer, the institute’s associate director. “But we’re obviously going to have to give it some serious consideration. We felt that singers need a while to mature, in order to deal with the lyrics of some of the material they do. But you could also make a case for the fact that instrumentalists need time to mature as well.”

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Monk in L.A.: In a related development that could have a significant effect on the growing significance of Los Angeles as an international jazz center, the Monk Institute has announced that its Jazz Performance wing will relocate from the New England Conservatory to the University of Southern California in the fall of 1999. Thelonious Monk Jr., chairman of the institute, believes that the alliance will “enhance our substantive programming throughout the Southern California region.”

Applications for participation in the program will be available later this year. Students who are accepted in the program can receive bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees. Given the existence of a strong jazz program at USC, however, it’s not yet clear how the two programs will interact. But Larry Livingston, dean of the USC School of Music, feels it “will afford an opportunity for artistic synergy at the highest level between our collective faculties.”