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Portrait of Betty Carter, Music, 20th Century, 1929 — 1998📷 Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0 — Bugge6 — 1981

Betty Carter(1929 — 1998)

Betty Carter

États-Unis

7 min read

Music20th CenturySecond half of the 20th century, at the height of and then in the wake of bebop, in an America shaped by the struggle for civil rights and the assertion of African American culture.

Betty Carter was an American jazz singer, famous for her art of vocal improvisation and scat. A major figure of bebop, she left her mark on vocal jazz in the second half of the 20th century with her rhythmic and melodic freedom.

Frequently asked questions

Betty Carter, née Lillie Mae Jones en 1929 à Flint (Michigan), est une chanteuse de jazz américaine. Ce qui la rend décisive, c'est sa maîtrise du bebop et du scat, qu'elle a portés à un niveau d'improvisation rare. Elle a marqué la seconde moitié du XXe siècle par sa liberté rythmique et mélodique, renouvelant chaque standard comme si elle le réinventait en direct. Moins une interprète qu'une créatrice, elle a imposé un style unique qui a influencé des générations de chanteuses.

Key Facts

  • Born on May 16, 1929, in Flint, Michigan, under the name Lillie Mae Jones.
  • Got her start in the late 1940s singing with Lionel Hampton's orchestra, who nicknamed her “Betty Bebop.”
  • Recorded a celebrated album of duets with Ray Charles in 1961.
  • Founded her own independent label, Bet-Car Records, in 1969 — a rarity for an artist of the time.
  • Won a Grammy Award in 1988 for the album “Look What I Got!”; died on September 26, 1998, in Brooklyn.

Works & Achievements

Ray Charles and Betty Carter (1961)

Duet album with Ray Charles; her song “Baby It's Cold Outside” became a classic and brought her national recognition.

Bet-Car Records (founding of the label) (1969)

Record company she created and ran in order to produce her own music freely, a rare move for a jazz artist of the era.

The Audience with Betty Carter (1979)

Live double album often regarded as her masterpiece, showcasing her rhythmic freedom and her rapport with the audience.

Look What I Got! (1988)

Album awarded the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, a recognition from the profession.

Jazz Ahead (mentorship program) (1993)

Program she founded to identify and train young jazz musicians, extending her role as a discoverer of talent.

Feed the Fire (1994)

Live album recorded in London with young musicians, reflecting her vitality and high standards right up to her final years.

Anecdotes

As a teenager in Detroit, Betty Carter (then still known as Lillie Mae Jones) would step onto the stage in jazz clubs and had the good fortune to sing alongside bebop giants like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie when they came through town on tour. These early encounters with the inventors of bebop shaped her ear and her love of improvisation.

Hired by vibraphonist Lionel Hampton in the late 1940s, she earned from him the teasing nickname “Betty Bebop,” because she adored this bold new style that Hampton himself barely cared for. Legend has it that he fired her and rehired her several times: it was from this period that her stage name, Betty Carter, came.

In 1961, her duet album with the famous Ray Charles, and especially the song “Baby It's Cold Outside,” brought her national fame. Yet, refusing to become a pop singer, she chose to stay true to demanding jazz, even if it meant going through tougher, more obscure years afterward.

Frustrated by record labels that wanted to control her music, in 1969 she founded her own label, Bet-Car Records: a rare and courageous move for an African American artist of the time, one that allowed her to own and release her own recordings in complete freedom.

Her trio was nicknamed a true “university of jazz”: there Betty Carter trained dozens of young pianists and musicians destined for great careers. In 1993, she formalized this mission with the Jazz Ahead program, dedicated to passing the music on to new generations.

Primary Sources

Album “Ray Charles and Betty Carter” (ABC-Paramount) — duet “Baby It's Cold Outside” (1961)
A studio recording in which the voices of Ray Charles and Betty Carter answer each other in a sung dialogue full of humor and warmth, which became a classic of the Christmas repertoire and the most popular song of her entire career.
Live album “The Audience with Betty Carter” (Bet-Car Records) (1979)
A double album recorded in concert, regarded as her masterpiece: in it you can hear her extreme rhythmic freedom, her stretched or accelerated tempos, and her rapport with an audience she called the “half” of her art.
Album “Look What I Got!” (Verve), awarded the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance (1988)
The record that secured her official recognition by the profession and confirmed her place as a major jazz singer, nearly forty years after her debut with Lionel Hampton.

Key Places

Flint (Michigan, USA)

Industrial city where Lillie Mae Jones was born in 1929. Her family later moved to Detroit during her childhood.

Detroit (Michigan, USA)

City of her youth, where she trained in the jazz clubs and sang as a teenager with the bebop pioneers passing through on tour.

Apollo Theater, Harlem (New York)

Legendary venue of African American culture where the great names of jazz performed and where Betty Carter sang over the course of her career.

Fort Greene, Brooklyn (New York)

Neighborhood where she lived in a brownstone house and set up the offices of her label, Bet-Car. She died there in 1998.

White House, Washington D.C.

Place where she received the National Medal of Arts from the president in 1997, an official recognition of her work.

Liens externes & ressources

Rechercher

Google : "Betty Carter"Google : "Betty Carter histoire"

See also

MusiqueXXe siècle