1930-1960
Betty Carter was born Lillie Mae Jones in Flint, Michigan, on May 16, 1930.
Though some web sources will list 1929 as her year of birth 1930 is the actual year Betty Carter was born. Her birth name was Lilly Mae Jones and she was born in Flint Michigan on May 16. She grew up in Detroit where her father James Jones worked as the musical director at the local church there. Lily-Mae sang at the Hartford Avenue Church: Its pastor was reverend Charles A. Hill a central figure in Detroit's early civil rights struggle.
Her Mother Bessie was a woman who thought, like many religious African- Americans, that Jazz was "the Devil's music". |
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Her mother would remain an active member of the N.A.A.C.P. until her death in 1971.
unfortunately she would never hear her daughter sing. |
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Their relationship would always be a strained one. Lilly Mae would sing informally with other future greats such as pianists Barry Harris and Tommy Flanagan.
As a child she studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory of Music and as a teenager in high school Betty knew that she wanted to become a professional Jazz singer. It was around this time that she got hooked on a new form of musical expression called Bebop.
When asked how she came upon her unique approach Betty says that she came upon her, unusual, style naturally, as a result of trying to attract the interest of musicians who would want to play with her.
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"When we came up, we knew that we had to become a musician or a better singer or a better horn player," she said. "And that's what we worked toward. We wanted musicians to like what we were doing as singers, |
so that they would want to play with us and accompany us and...that made us feel like we were contributing something."
Far more than perhaps any vocalist in jazz history, Betty uses her voice as a musical instrument, period. And in her case, the musician is as innovative and groundbreaking an improviser and performer as a Charlie Parker or a Dizzy Gillespie, to name just two of the bebop legends whom Betty sat in with when she first got her start in Detroit nightclubs in the 1940s.
At age 16 she met Saxophonist Charlie Parker and was allowed to sit in at the legendary saxophonist's Detroit gig.
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She would also win a talent contest and became a regular on the local club circuit where she would not only sing but play piano as well.
Lionel Hampton comes to town.
Now a regular on the Detroit club circuit she would perform with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan and Billy Eckstine when they came to perform but her life would change dramatically in 1948 when Lionel Hampton came to town and hired her as a featured vocalist.
While in the Hampton band Betty shared the stage with the likes of Charlie Mingus and Wes Montgomery as well as Little Jimmy Scott another young vocalist who was destined for longevity and stardom.
Back then, she was still Lilly Mae Jones.
Unhappy with her maiden name Betty was initially billed as Lorraine Carter. Her flights of improvisation at times put her at odds with Lionel Hampton's more traditional repertoire and for this he nick named her "Betty Bebop" as a criticism.
This was a name betty literally hated at the time because she felt the title was limiting and she wanted to sing more rather then scat but the name stuck and eventually she would become accustomed to it.
Still developing her unique approach she became close friends with Lionel's wife Gladys Hampton. In fact legend has it that over the next two and a half years Betty would be fired seven times by Lionel only to be rehired at the behest of his wife.
" I learned a lot about the business from Gladys. She was the business end in the Hampton camp and you couldn't run anything past her either. She knew the game backwards, forwards and sideways too."
Betty Carter |
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At the age of 21 she would travel to New York with the Lionel Hampton band and set up camp there. In the 50s Betty would perform as a lead singer with a number of different groups.
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She made her first record in 1955 with a young budding piano player by the name of Ray Bryant. The album, Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant received little fan fair, and a second set of recordings featuring the Gigi Gryce band in 1956 sat unpublished for 24 years until 1980.
In 1958, Betty was ready to go back into the recording studio and another little known album called ,I Can't Help It, was the result. Followed closely by a recording on a Texas gospel label by the name of Peacock. Out There, was the result and Betty was now developing a reputation as a fiercely independent woman. Many believe that this attitude was based in part from incite given to her over the years through her interactions with Lionel Hampton's no no-nonsense wife Gladys Hampton. |
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Betty was now being seen as a devoted Jazz singer and her popularity within the Jazz inner circles was high but critical acclaim and public recognition still proved to be elusive.
Her signature style was one that combined syncopated interpretations of classic musical standards combined with a scat singing style that set her apart from her counter parts. She would move to the ABC label in 1960 and record The Modern Sound of Betty Carter which did little to help her popularity in the public's eye.
Critics regard this period (1955-1960) as a time in which Betty fell into obscurity and was seen as being on the "Outskirts" of the Jazz scene but in retrospect she would tour with Miles Davis and Ray Charles in the late 50s. In particular between 1958 to 1959. It was around this time in 1960 that she would meet and begin a courtship with her future husband while performing in a Jazz night club.
James Romeo Redding stood 6 ft 2. He was tall, handsome and came straight from the fields of Oxford North Carolina. |
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Running away at age 16 he'd worked odd jobs for years before he would one day find himself tending bar in a night club in Newark New Jersey where Betty Carter was performing. The two had been passing glances and Betty had had enough. She wanted to meet this man.
"A musician walked over to me and said 'hey man, Betty Carter wants to meet you' I said Betty Carter? and the guy just looked at me and said, 'You don't know Betty? C'mon man.' and then he just brought me over."
James Romeo Redding
The two would become an item and on several occasions he could be seen backstage at the Apollo where Betty would play with such notables as Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie.
"It wasn't always business the way you view things now, son." He would say to me. "We were young back then and had a lot of fun just doing things. We'd go out to Philadelphia just to get some cheese cake then check out some night clubs because we were there."
James Romeo Redding
Eventually Betty Carter and James Redding would acquire a home in Newark NJ where they would settle down and start a family.
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