Photographer and clarinetist William “Bill” Carter died on New Year’s Day; he was 90 years old. His photography books varied in subject from Iraqi Kurds and American ghost towns to Preservation Hall and New Orleans jazz. As a musician he toured the US with Turk Murphy in the 1950s and appeared in Europe. He also performed with the Magnolia Jazz Band, Sunset Music Company, and Hot Club of San Francisco.
Bill Carter’s Jazz Band accompanied bass baritone William Warfield on his final, surprisingly swinging, album, recorded in 2000. Bill Carter was a past chair of the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation and many of his amazing photos of the San Francisco jazz revival period appear in their Charles N. Huggins Project collection hosted by Stanford.
Joe Bebco is the Associate Editor of The Syncopated Times and Webmaster of SyncopatedTimes.com
