John Benson Brooks

John Benson Brooks ( born February 23, 1917 in Houlton, Maine, † November 13, 1999 in New York City ) was an American jazz pianist, composer and arranger of swing and modern jazz. He worked for Tommy Dorsey and Gil Evans.

Life and work

Brooks studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and at the Juilliard School of Music in Manhattan. In 1939 he founded his own formation in Boston, worked in the 1930s and 1940s, but mainly for bandleader Randy Brooks, Les Brown, Eddie DeLange, the Dorsey Brothers and Boyd Raeburn as a pianist, arranger and composer. During this time he worked closely with songwriter Bob Russell; they wrote together in 1942 the song " Just as Though You Were Here ," the Frank Sinatra Tommy Dorsey Orchestra made ​​with a hit. In the 1950s, he has also been interpreted by Peggy Lee, Perry Como and Johnny Mercer. For the orchestra of Ray McKinley in 1948 they composed the song " You Came a Long Way From St. Louis ". With Harold Courlander he wrote the song "Where Flamingos Fly", the 1947, the Ink Spots and Martha Tilton recordings. The basic melody had taken in his research on Field Songs in Haiti Courlander; Brooks then extended to a more complex song in which he included a central portion.

Already at this time also began working with his friend, the bandleader and arranger Gil Evans; for Helen Merrill's album Dream of You, the Evans 1956 arranged, this fell back on "Where Flamingos Fly ", which took up Evans is also an instrumental track (about to Out of the Cool ). In the 1970s, Brooks wrote for Gil Evans nor the song " Sirhan 's Blues ".

In the 1950s, Brooks worked with cool jazz musicians in the context of Zoot Sims and arranger Manny Albam. 1958 Brooks formed a septet in which the saxophonist Al Cohn and Zoot Sims participated. In his improvisations and compositions, he proposed a new direction within the cool jazz; he occupied himself with the twelve-tone music and the integration of folk music and older jazz styles. Finally, he created a band with Art Farmer, Cannonball Adderley, Barry Galbraith, and Milt Hinton, to record his Alabama Concerto, with whom he made ​​a musical contribution to the then civil rights movement. The music is based on research on the songs of African-American field workers in Alabama, the operation Brooks with the anthropologist Harold Courlander before.

1967 Brooks stood with his trio (consisting of alto saxophonist Don Heckman and drummer Howard Hart) in the center of the collage Avant Slant, which produced Milt Gabler.

Auswahldiskographie

• Folk Jazz USA ( 1956)
• Alabama Concerto ( 1958)
• Avant Slant ( Decca, 1968)