Walter Benton was born September 9, 1930 in Los Angeles, California and first began playing saxophone as in high school. After three years of service in the Army in the early 1950s, he played in 1954 with Kenny Clarke,  Max Roach and Clifford Brown.

From 1954 to 1957 he played Afro-Latin jazz with Pérez Prado, touring Asia with the band. Returning to the States, he went on to work…