Someone to Watch Over Me: The Life and Music of Ben Webster

One of the ‘big three’ of swing tenors - along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young - Ben Webster was one of the best known and most popular saxophonists from the 1930s through the 1970s. Early in his career, Webster worked with many of the greatest orchestras of the time, including those led by Willie Bryant, Cab Calloway, Benny Carter, Fletcher Henderson, Andy Kirk, Bennie Moten, and Teddy Wilson. In 1940 Ben Webster became Duke Ellington’s first major tenor soloist, and during the next three years he played on many famous recordings, including
Cotton Tail.

Someone to Watch Over Me
tells, for the first time, the complete story of Ben Webster’s brilliant and troubled career. For this comprehensive study of Webster, author Buchmann-Moller interviewed more than fifty people in the U.S. and Europe, and he includes numerous translated excerpts from European periodicals and newspapers, none previously available in English. In addition, the author studies every known Webster recording and film, including many private recordings from Webster’s home collection not available to the public. Exhaustively researched, this is a much-needed and long-overdue study of the life and music of one of jazz’s most important artists.