Stories of Standards | “Whisper Not”

Tune in to First Take with Lando and Chavis – weekdays from 6 to 9am – for Stories of Standards to hear our favorite versions of this song all week long!

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In 1956 while performing in Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band, Benny Golson wrote “Whisper Not”. The band recorded it in November 1956 and Golson recorded it with his own group in 1957. The song was an immediate hit with jazz musicians and when Leonard Feather added lyrics, it was picked up by vocalists including Anita O’Day in 1958, Mel Torme in 1962, Peggy Lee in 1963 and it was the title cut of a 1967 album by Ella Fitzgerald.

Benny Golson (1929-present) grew up in Philadelphia, a friend of John Coltrane. He studied at Howard University for a while before leaving to play in Tiny Grimes’ group. He went on to Bull Moose Jackson’s R&B band, playing with one of his idols Tadd Dameron. He played with Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey before forming his own group (“The Jazztet”) with Art Farmer from 1959 to 1962. After studying composition and orchestration he went to Hollywood in 1967 where he wrote commercials, scored tv shows and composed for musicians ranging from Mama Cass to Itzhak Perlman.

Leonard Feather (1914 – 1994) first encountered jazz in the form of a newly-released Parlophone Records issue of “West End Blues” by Louis Armstrong. Feather spent the rest of his life devoted to the developing story of jazz, becoming a jazz pianist, composer and producer. In the early 1930s while in Paris Feather heard that Armstrong was going to be playing at the London Palladium; he promptly flew home, attended the concert and was astonished to find that Armstrong and his future third wife Alpha were readily approachable after the show. This began a lifetime friendship. Feather moved to America in 1935. Feather lived through and chronicled great changes in jazz, when conservative and progressives were vehemently arguing the merits of all sides. He wrote years later “That I was able to record Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker before any of them had secured a contract with any company was naturally a source of special pleasure to me.”