Portrait of Ben Webster

Birthday profile

Ben Webster

Ben Webster, American saxophonist (died 1973)

Born
March 27, 1909
Died
September 20, 1973
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1909

About Ben Webster

Benjamin Francis Webster was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He performed in the United States and Europe and made many recordings with Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Johnny Hodges, and others. The score of the 2017 feature film Phantom Thread was also inspired by this album. Webster became close to Jimmy Blanton and Billy Strayhorn, the other two newcomers to Ellington's orbit. Webster worked on 52nd Street in New York City, where he recorded frequently as a leader and sideman.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Ben Webster was born

Ben Webster was born in 1909. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1909

  • Best-selling book"The Inner Shrine" – Basil King

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentHonus Wagner leads Pittsburgh Pirates to World Series victory
  • Top headlineRobert Peary claims to reach the North Pole
  • Technology milestoneBakelite (first fully synthetic plastic) invented
  • Notable inventionBakelite plastic
  • World population~1.69B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWilliam Howard Taft
  • U.S. population88.8M

1909 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Ben Webster's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19092026
Population88.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.