Open the Door: The Life and Music of Betty Carter (Jazz Perspectives) Book

In 1948, Betty Carter left her home in Detroit to sing in Lionel Hampton's big band. In the fifty years following, while the music business witnessed upheavals, transformations, and revivals, Carter held to the standards set by her bebop mentors. Even during difficult times, Carter continued to sing, nurturing a cult following that has steadily grown.
This book presents Betty Carter's contribution to the music world as a jazz singer, composer, arranger, and teacher. It also looks behind the scenes to show Carter's growth as a businesswoman who took charge of her career. In 1970 when major labels were hardly recording jazz, Carter formed her own record company. By the mid-1970s Carter's persistence began to pay off. After she won a Grammy in 1988 for Look What I Got, Carter emerged as a major force in jazz, as an exponent of the revitalized bebop scene, and as a mentor to the next generation of musicians. Her innovative approach to singing has inspired a whole generation of aspiring singers. In the process she helped spark the bebop revival.
Drawing upon revealing interviews with Carter, the author shows how ever-changing shifts in the music industry affected her life and influenced her music. He shows through his analysis of her musical examples how Carter absorbed various musical influences, from Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis, and made them her own. From her apprenticeship with Gladys Hampton, Carter grew to become a shrewd dealer who learned to do her own contracting, A&R, and marketing and distribution. By chronicling one of jazz's great singers and composers, the book sheds light on how early jazz musicians got their work to the public and how this process has changed during the past fifty years.
William R. Bauer is Assistant Professor of Music, Rutgers University.