The elevator to Ron Carter's
Upper West Side apartment literally opens into his spacious, multiroom
spread. The first thing you see upon entering is the scuffed-white,
hard-plastic carrying case that transports his mainstay bass. It stands
in the foyer with a statuesque physicality—the perfect welcome
into the living space of jazz's most preeminent and active bassist.
Carter has lived in New
York since 1959. Since then, he's been one of jazz's most studied, forward-thinking,
and adventurous bassists throughout a career that began with drummer
Chico Hamilton and included a stellar six-year stint with Miles Davis
in the trumpeter's legendary '60s quintet.
Today, Carter, 67, continues
unabatedly with his brilliant jazz-meets-classical Nonet, his long-standing
quartet, and a new trio project. Inarguably the most recorded bassist
in recording history, Carter has appeared on an estimated 2,000 albums
(including a surprising guest spot on A Tribe Called Quest's 1991 hip-hop
masterpiece The Low End Theory). He has released dozens of his
own recordings, including a batch of recent discs: 2001's When Skies
Are Grey and last year's The Golden Striker, both on Toshiba/Blue
Note; the remarkable Eight Plus Nonet CD on the French label
Dreyfus, with sessions dating back to the early '90s; and Entre Amigos,
a gorgeous Brazilian album with vocalist and guitarist Rosa Passos,
on the Chesky label.
It's my third visit in as
many years to Carter's aesthetically adorned home, part of which used
to be his late wife's private art gallery. The distinctive artwork she
collected is still prominently displayed, including the dramatic brown/beige
five-by-six-foot painting "Slave Ship" by Carol Byard; a bright
orange and cerulean abstract piece that looks like a series of bass
clefs in the shape of a chainsaw, by Detroit artist Al Loving; and a
postmodern gray-painted tapestry of leather strips, punch-out holes,
and tiny knick-knacks by Jack Whitten.
Carter excuses himself to
finish up a private master class he's teaching to Larry Grenadier, a
young, highly esteemed jazz bassist who plays in pianist Brad Mehldau's
group and coleads the trio Fly. After the class, Carter, in a casual
cranberry sweater, reemerges from a practice room with his pipe and
sits at the dining-room table to talk jazz, first weighing in on his
four-day Nonet gig at Birdland in mid-December. On opening night Carter,
who usually performs with stoic visage, smiled throughout as he and
his group—four cellists (Kermit Moore, Zoe Hassman, Carol Buch,
and Dorothy Lawson), a four-man rhythm section (pianist Stephen Scott,
percussionist Steve Kroon, bassist Leon Maleson, and drummer Payton
Crossley), and the leader on piccolo bass—creatively navigated
the compositions and arrangements he had finessed for the date.
Cellists are a rarity in
jazz, but four cellos in one group? It's easily a jazz anomaly. A decade
ago, Carter told me that the Nonet was the perfect workshop to explore
new realms of composition. "I love the sound of the cellos, which
are sympathetic to the jazz language," he said. "Whatever
the arrangement, the cellos can play anything. Give the cellists the
right notes and chords and the results are mind-boggling. Even if I
took out the other instruments' parts, the four cellos could stand on
their own."
Today Carter expounds on
the role of the cello, which was his first instrument as a child in
Michigan, in the jazz realm. "Violins are bright, and violas can't
penetrate other sounds around them," he says. "Cellos have
the range of the violin, the warmth of the viola, and the ability to
make their presence heard in a reasonably sized ensemble without a lot
of miking."
When he initially dreamed
of the group, a classical music friend tried to dissuade him from attempting
to form such a nonet. "This guy told me that you can't write jazz
for strings because they can't play it," Carter says. "I said,
what? In New York? I was confident I could find cellists who knew about
Charlie Parker and Miles Davis and who went to jazz clubs. That convinced
me to find the right combination of notes to write and the right combination
of players to perform them. I knew we could get this done, and we did."
As for the Birdland performance,
Carter says that little was left to happenstance. "With the Nonet,
there's so much going on and I'm
responsible for so much more," he says. "These are all my
arrangements. I write them at home, I copy the score for each member,
and we actually rehearse. By the second or third night of a gig, the
cellists understand that I mean those notes and we start to come together.
Basically, I'm responsible for everything they play. It's great having
eight people on stage with you. There are more voices, more conversations,
more strange things happening."
While there are ample spaces
within the music for improvisation, Carter notes that he has built in
a sense of routine that he doesn't apply with his smaller groups. The
Nonet, he says, requires a different mind-set. For example, he learned
by experience to keep the set lists the same each night. "When
I first started working with the Nonet, I'd notice that we'd have off
nights," he explains. "It took me awhile to understand you
can't change the program and have the cellists feel all right about
that. They're used to playing chamber music. They performed much better
when they knew the routine. They jumped right in to the music then."
Still, Carter throws curves.
"Everyone in the group has to look to me for the cues," he
says. "I may cut choruses in half or extend parts. I keep the players
flexible so they can adapt to sudden changes within the score. They
get used to the surprises. The more they do this the more the music
takes on a different kind of bounce."
At Birdland, Carter was
on the far left of the stage with his piccolo bass, positioned in front
of the rhythm section and flanking the cellists who were seated behind
their scores in the front row. He conducted the show, signaling on the
first piece for the swing part to kick in after a string prelude. The
cellists provided color and rhythm; the rhythm section drove the beat,
especially on the funk-tinged, upbeat "El Rompe." Throughout
the evening, with Maleson holding down the bottom beat, Carter was free
to explore the sonic potential of his piccolo bass, taking lush pizzicato
excursions, dialoguing with the bass and bowing up a gritty storm with
a rock sensibility. The beauty of the evening was a lush rendering of
Leon Russell's pop ballad "Song for You."
At the close of the set,
Carter beamed.
After it, Lawson, also a
member of the hip, eclectic New York string quartet Ethel, was equally
pleased with the performance. "It's such a great musical experience
working with Ron," says Lawson, who has been a member of the Nonet
for five years. "This is an opportunity to sit in with one of the
best. He has so much integrity. I love the fact that this band is so
bass heavy. I love the introspection and the frenzy in the pieces. Musically,
this is as satisfying as anything I do."
Lawson also jokingly adds
that it was great being prominently placed at the front of the stage.
"As cellists, we're usually just the girls in the back."
That's most often the case
with the bass, too, a situation Carter is all too familiar with. In
fact, his desire to be visible inspired him to play the piccolo bass,
an instrument that's half the size of a full bass and tuned one fourth
higher (C G D A). "My three-quarter bass is too big to be in front
of the stage," he says. "I was looking for an instrument that
would physically place me in front of the band so that if someone walked
in the club they'd know immediately who the leader was."
When told that he's considered
the elder statesman of jazz bass, Carter smiles and says, "Well,
I guess that's true. I actually just signed up to get a permanent AARP
card. I'm a member forever now."
But it's not just age that
gives him renown. He's a complete bass player, equally adept at playing
rhythm and melody lines. He's also a pioneer of exploring the different
roles of the bass beyond its beat-keeping duty.
In 1994, he played five
evenings at the Montreal Jazz Festival at the intimate 400-seat Salle
du Gesu. Each night he was showcased in a different instrumental context,
including solo, duo, trio, and nonet. His solo set was like a bass clinic.
Carter opened the show with a bluesy melody, plucking his upright's
strings as a way of demonstrating how to cruise into a fat, bouncy groove.
After noting that one of
a jazz bass player's jobs is to play the meter behind the groove, he
experimented with different time structures, moving from blues riffs
to walking bass lines. He introduced different techniques, from pizzicato
runs bubbling up a syncopated rhythm to fingernail scratches conjuring
up eerie voicings. Then he showed how beautifully a bass can play a
melody by sketching a stunning rendition of the Johnny Green classic
"Body and Soul."
Today he's adamant that
jazz bassists need to pay more attention to the potential of their instrument.
"Most bass players have missed the boat," insists Carter.
"They've got to set aside the idea that playing time is the focal
role of the bass. Bassists play like snakes in the grass during the
time sections. But when it's a solo opportunity, it's as if a light
goes on over their heads. They get enthusiastic all of a sudden. But
after the solo is over, the light goes out and they go back to hiding.
Now why is that? I tell students that they're missing out on a lot of
fun discovering new melodies to assist the band to play differently.
"I tell them that one
of the greatest pleasures I have on bass is playing a line that will
make the saxophonist play a line he wouldn't have thought of if I hadn't
set him into that direction."
Carter says that just waiting
for a bass-solo spot is a dead end. "I'd rather watch CNN than
do that," he says. "If I don't solo for a week, I'm cool.
There's plenty of other creative things to do. You can play a countermelody
in quarter notes, you can make a tune get tense or show new flavors,
you can go from swing to bossa nova to Latin. You can do whatever you
want instead of being dormant."
He speaks highly of Grenadier,
who has sought out his wisdom in the last several months. "Larry
is a fine young bassist, but he's developed some bad habits that take
a while to shed. I've given him pointers on how to hold the bass better
so that he doesn't get so tired by the end of an evening. He was playing
the bass straight up. I told him to tilt it back 25 degrees so that
it can rest on his body."
Both Grenadier and Carter
have busy schedules, but they finally hooked up. "Larry was determined,"
Carter says. "But I told him we'd have to do more than just one
session. The bass is more complicated than that. Before he first came
over, I asked him to write down 15 things that he wanted to work on.
Then I told him to subtract five. The ten remaining areas are what we're
focusing on."
They've worked on harmony
and theory, leading tones, harmonic resolution of notes, and hand coordination.
In an email note sent before
he tromped off to Europe on tour, Grenadier wrote, "Ron is a master.
He's an excellent teacher who is able to verbalize the most abstract
concepts. His sound, time feel, bass-line construction, and overall
knowledge of the bass' function in an ensemble have been an inspiration
to me since I began playing the instrument." Grenadier was such
a fan for so long that he was initially too intimidated to ask Carter
for lessons. But, he noted, "I decided to take the plunge a couple
of months ago. I wish now that I had when I first moved to New York.
There were so many things I wanted to learn from him, but mostly I was
intrigued by his overall ease of playing and his ability to put the
music first, giving the music exactly what it needed."
Bassists aren't the only
jazz musicians who speak highly of Carter. Drummer Lewis Nash, who has
played with him since 1984, calls him the Beacon. "That's my nickname
for Ron because he stands so high physically (he's easy to spot in a
crowded room, airport, or train station when on tour) as well as artistically
above the field," says Nash. "Ron has been a mentor, a brother,
a father, a teacher, a friend. I've learned a lot about playing drums
from him. We've talked about drum tuning related to the sound of his
bass. I became more conscious of the tone of my tom toms and how that
could wipe out his bass notes. I learned how to make adjustments to
allow his notes to flow freely."
Playing with Carter in the
rhythm section has also opened Nash's ears to new possibilities. "Ron
is the type of bass player who doesn't force his view. He listens intently.
I'll play a rhythmic figure and he repeats it with a different twist
during the course of a walking bass line. That shows me that he's always
in the moment, playfully manipulating the pulse of the music. Ron likes
to challenge others as well as himself. He's been playing the same tunes
for years, but he still finds something fresh. He's always listening,
always searching for the best notes."
For The Golden Striker,
Carter formed a new trio with pianist Mulgrew Miller and guitarist Russell
Malone. He knew the project would be a challenge. The music was complicated
and the setting was difficult because of the absence of drums and a
conductor. But Carter was confident that Malone and Miller could handle
the demands of the date, especially since he had previously worked with
both on their individual recordings. "Russell and Mulgrew were
the guys I wanted to play with on this album," he says, "but
first I wanted to make sure they were up for what I had in mind."
Miller and Malone proved
to be a fine fit. "I want to keep exploring the music with them,"
says Carter, who recently went to Japan with the trio and has several
dates with it throughout the year. Malone is excited by the possibilities.
"The project was very challenging," he says. "But any
time I play with Ron, I walk away a better musician. He never allows
you to play it safe. He won't allow you to rely on patterns or riffs
or licks. He throws curves. He's never self-indulgent and always interactive."
One of Malone's big lessons
from Carter is how important it is for all band members to listen carefully
to what the bassist is playing. "Some jazz artists think of the
bassist and drummer as session guys," says Malone. "But the
band is only as good as its bass player. After spending time with Ron,
I've had to rethink how the bass functions in a band."
He pauses, then adds, "Now
that Ray Brown is gone, Ron is the most important bassist in jazz."
So what's up the sleeve
of the music's foremost bass player? Carter says no major project is
on the front burner at the moment. No record is in the works, but he'll
be touring with the new trio and his quartet, which features pianist
Stephen Scott, percussionist Steven Kroon, and drummer Payton Crossley.
He says he'd welcome hooking back up with A Tribe Called Quest now that
they've reformed as a band, and he would love to get the opportunity
to tour the Nonet, but that's unlikely because of the prohibitive cost
of taking a big band on the road. But that doesn't bother him. "I'm
doing fine," he says. "I have over 80 records under my own
name. I'm not in a hurry."
Still, Carter says he has
plenty of ideas brewing. "Maybe it's time to work on a live project
with the trio. Or maybe it's time to write some new quartet material,"
he muses. "And recently I got a call from a DJ who's interested
in taking some hip-hop music to another level. If he's interested in
elevating the music to a new level, I'm more than willing to talk about
how to make it happen.
"I'm ready to paint
new canvases."
Tackling Improvisation
"Our concern as jazz
improvisers is much more complicated than just playing a note,"
says Ron Carter. "You need to know what chords are attached to
this note and what other chords can be used to give harmonic validity.
Classical players tend to saw away at notes or scrape the bow or pluck
at random. They don't think about chords. They don't think to analyze.
That's not the job of a second violinist in an orchestra—knowing
what the chords are is not their concern. So, the first thing I'd suggest
is learn harmony and theory to understand what chords do to certain
melodies. Second, stay away from trying to play a lot of notes. Half
notes are fabulous. Half notes and rests are some of the greatest things
invented.
"Improvising doesn't
mean you have to have a different technique or skill. Jazz requires
the same skill level, but it's more complicated because you play notes
that you don't know are coming in advance. It's hard to prepare your
left and right hands so as to make those notes easily attainable.
"I'd recommend listening
to as many jazz musicians as possible who play an instrument different
from your own. A violin player could listen to Charlie Parker on saxophone
or Miles Davis on trumpet. A cellist could listen to bassist Oscar Pettiford
or me. By listening to others, you can get some ideas about how you
could sound on your own instrument. For example, if you're a violinist
and you listen to Jean-Luc Ponty, you may not learn what your own violin
playing could be. That's what Ponty has done. Why not listen to a saxophone
player to hear what other choices are available?
"Lastly, don't worry
about trying. You can't learn to improvise in three weeks. You can just
keep working at it, and it'll come."
What Ron Carter Plays
Ron Carter's primary bass
is a three-quarter—size Juzek upright acoustic, circa 1910. "According
to someone who researched it, the parts were made in Czechoslovakia,"
says Carter. "They were then shipped to Germany for assembly."
He uses LaBella strings (7700 series) that are black nylon wound with
steel cores. He notes, "Since 1971, I've been using an extension
that goes down to low C. I was one of the first guys to do this."
The front line instrument
of his Nonet band, Carter's piccolo bass is a French Tyrolean that was
made in 1890. It is half the size of a full bass and is tuned one fourth
higher than a rhythm section upright. He bought it in a shop in Cincinnati
after using a piccolo bass that Fred Lyman, a New Jersey instrument
maker, had built for him. The Tyrolean bass was originally a three-string
instrument that had been modified to a four-string some time before
Carter purchased it. "This one is older and has a more mature sound
because of its age," he says. "Because of the higher tuning,
it didn't settle for two years, but now it has a nice warm tone."
To amplify it, Carter uses
a David Gage Realist pickup, and a control box designed by electric
bass maker Roger Sadowsky. "I didn't want to have to keep turning
around to fiddle with the amp during a performance," Carter says,
"so Roger made me this control box that fits between the body and
fingerboard by harmonic G. It has treble and bass controls and allows
me to vary the volume." He uses a Flite bass cabinet with Gallien-Krueger
RB III amplifier head.
While he owns French-bass—style
wooden bows, Carter is hooked on a Carbow he tried out four years ago.
"A couple guys from France wanted to know if I'd be interested
in trying a carbon-fiber bow," Carter says. "It's fantastic.
First off, it's indestructible. But it also has a fabulous balance.
Since I have nylon wound strings, I have nylon hair on the bow. The
sound is great. It's what I had been looking for."
For the Record
As a session player, Ron
Carter has appeared on more jazz recordings than any other bass player.
His contributions range from several of Miles Davis' mid-'50s classics
to Wes Montgomery's 1967 breakthrough release A Day in the Life
to such recent jazz masterworks as the soundtracks to Round Midnight,
Bird, and Kansas City.
As a bandleader, the All
Music Guide points out, Carter has recorded for Embryo/Atlantic,
CTI, Milestone, Timeless, EmArcy, Dreyfus, Galaxy, Elektra, Concord,
and, most recently, the Blue Note label.
As a composer, his songs
have been covered by such legends as Davis, Eric Dolphy, Bill Evans,
Joe Henderson, Billie Holiday, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Sarah Vaughan.
