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Bibliography and Other References
Betty Carter Homepage

Biography

Discography

 The information on these pages has come not only from several different sources, but also from several types of sources.  Thanks to new media (such as the World Wide Web), the assimilation of information on a given subject is easier than ever before.  Below is a bibiolographical list of the references used in compiling the unofficial Betty Carter homepage:

 

 

Print references

While there is no definitive book on the life of Betty Carter (at least not yet), several books have devoted extensive sections to discussion of her life and music.  I had the pleasure of reading several of those, and while this is by no means a comprehensive list, I do recommend the following titles:

Articles

I've just started looking for articles; while I'll hit the Readers Guides and see what I can find, if you know of any - from any source (local magazines, educational journal, jazz trades, etc.) - please mail me with the title, author, publication, publication date and page numbers. I'll add it to the list.

  • Everytime We Say Goodbye: A Portrait of Betty Carter. William Bauer. Jazz Educators Journal. Jan 1999: 108-11.

Audio Guides

  • Jazz - The Rough Guide. Ian Carr, Digby Fairweather and Brian Priestly. Rough Guides Inc. 1995.
  • MusicHound Jazz - The Essential Album Guide. Edited by Steve Holtje and Nancy Ann Lee. Visible Ink Press. 1998.
  • Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP and Cassette. Edited by Richard Cook and Brian Morton. Penguin. 1994.
  • Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP and Cassette. Edited by Richard Cook and Brian Morton. Penguin. 1996.
  • The Jazz CD Listener's Guide. Howard J. Blumenthal. Logical Extension Ltd. 1998.
  • Playboy Guide to Jazz. Neil Tesser. Playboy Enterprises Inc. 1998.
  • Jazz for Dummies. Dick Sutro. IDG Books Worldwide Inc. 1998
  • All-Music Guide to Jazz. Edited by Ron Wynn, Michael Erlewine, and Vladimir Bogdanov. Miller Freeman Books. 1994.

History of Jazz

  • Notes and Tones. Arthur Taylor. Da Capo Press. 1993.
  • Talking Jazz: An Oral History. Ben Sidran. Da Capo Press. 1995.
  • Jazz Portraits. Len Lyons and Don Perlo. Quill. 1989.
  • Thinking In Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. Paul F. Berliner. University of Chicago Press. 1994.

When I say there is no book yet, it is because (supposedly) there is a book about Betty Carter in the works at this moment.  The author is William Bauer, a music professor at Rutgers-Newark University (and author of the Jazz Educators Journal article listed above).  He wrote a nice article about Ms. Carter's passing and what it means to jazz in the December 1998 issue of DownBeat magazine.  As I find out more about the book, I'll put it here.

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Internet references

Several WWW sites contained some information about Betty Carter, and if you are interested in seeing some excellent jazz-related Web sites, consider following the following links:

In addition, Ms. Carter's CDs are widely available for sale on the internet.  If you wish to purchase a CD, I might recommend one of the following places. Though I've had definitely the best service with CDNow, occasionally they do go out of stock on albums, espcially those that were Bet-Car/Verve rereleases. I'd try there first, but if they don't have what you need, then consider one of the other places listed here:

One other thought - Usenet is always a good place to go, especially if you like to discuss jazz in general.  The group rec.arts.music.bluenote is an excellent discussion forum and relatively spam-free.  There are also several quality jazz mailing lists that have surprisingly high traffic and generate (for the most part) intelligent jazz discussion.  Jazz Lovers (Jazz-L) is probably the best - to subscribe, send an E-mail here with the message "subscribe jazz-l" (without the quotes).

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Thanks to Bill Hixon for providing information on this page.

Have an internet site with CDs for sale?  Read a book or article that discusses Ms. Carter that is not listed here?  Have a web site with information on Betty Carter that you'd like linked to this page?  Write me and I'll look into including it.  Thanks.