Jazz composer and sax player Benny Golson, 95, died on Sept. 21. The composer of “Killer Joe,” “I Remember Clifford,” and “Along Came Betty” worked with such greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton and John Coltrane (a childhood friend); he played with and arranged for numerous bands in the ’50s and ’60s. Away from jazz, he paid the rent by composing for such TV shows as It Takes a Thief, The Partridge Family, Longstreet, Mannix, and Karen. He also appeared in the famous 1958 photo “Great Day in Harlem” for Esquire, seated with other jazz musicians in front of 17 East 126th Street. Golson told Downbeat in 2009, “I’ve been fortunate. It could have been the other way. But I had such a desire to get into this music, not to become famous, not even to make money, but to have my things played and please the people who would hear it. And it’s happened in great abundance, more than I had anticipated.”
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