Keter Betts

Keter Betts, actually William Thomas Betts ( born July 22, 1928 in Port Chester, New York, † August 6, 2005 in Silver Spring, Maryland ) was an American jazz bassist.

Life and work

Betts was at first drummer, but moved in 1946 to the bass. He played at the beginning of his career as a 19 -year-old with Carmen Leggio, from 1949 to 1951 with Earl Bostic, accompanied from 1951 to 1956, the singer Dinah Washington and played with Julian Cannonball Adderley 1956-1957. Starting from 1957, he worked with Charlie Byrd in Washington, DC and went with the band by Woody Herman on tour.

In 1962 he played on the Stan Getz / Charlie Byrd Jazz Samba disk, which popularized the bossa nova instrumental style. In the mid-1960s, a long collaboration with singer Ella Fitzgerald, in which he played, especially in formations of Tommy Flanagan began. In the 1970s he played and toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic, Count Basie, Eddie Lockjaw Davis. Betts played in this time with musicians such as Oscar Peterson, Nat Adderley, Bobby Timmons, Joe Pass.

In the 1990s, still followed by recordings with Buddy DeFranco in 1992, Ron Holloway 1993 Hamiet Bluiett 1995, Hank Jones 1996 and Jay McShann in 1997 and worked as a musician on the transatlantic liner SS Norway. He also worked as a music teacher and advisor to the jazz program of the channel WBET TV. In 1998, he released his first album under his own name Bass, Buddies & Blues at The Orchard.

Keter Betts could be a long time in Washington, DC down; He died in 2005 at his home in Silver Spring (Maryland).