Ace of Bass

Ron Carter kicks off the exciting Legends of Jazz Series with a Friday show at OCC

The New Times Interview By Jessica Novak

Ron Carter may have played on more than 2,500 albums throughout his 50-plus-year career as a double bassist, but that doesn’t mean he’s finished. In fact, the 74-years-young musician is still keeping up a grueling pace with teaching, writing and performing.

Carter buzzes into town for a free show at Onondaga Community College’s Storer Auditorium, 4585 W. Seneca Turnpike, on Friday, Sept. 30, 8 p.m. He’s the kickoff act for the Legends of Jazz Series, part of OCC’s Arts Across Campus initiative that will also feature three other classic shows down the road: free concerts for the Randy Brecker Quintet (March 2) and Allen Toussaint (April 13) and a to-be-announced admission charge for the Nov. 4 show featuring Bela Fleck and the Original Flecktones. For more information, visit www.sunyocc.edu and click “Arts and Culture.”

The free ducats for the Carter gig flew out the doors of Armory Square’s Sound Garden music shop on Sept. 17 in a record-setting 17 minutes, impressing producer of the series Frank Malfitano, “It’s great and absolutely phenomenal the general level of awareness and excitement for the show,” he says. “The tickets on campus went so fast as well as with the public.

I’m just excited that people are excited.”

As for living legend Carter, he stands as one of the most-recorded jazz bassists in history. Carter’s collaborations span Gil Evans, Lena Horne, Bill Evans, B.B. King, the Kronos Quartet, Wes Montgomery and Bobby Timmons all the way to A Tribe Called Quest, who he performed with on the track “Verses from the Abstract” on the 1991 album The Low End Theory (Jive).

Armed with a bachelor’s of music degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, a master’s degree in double bass performance from the Manhattan School of Music and two honorary doctorates from the New England Conservatory of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, Carter has earned his way in and outside of the classroom, although he still considers himself a student of an instrument he’s played since high school.

Carter has earned two Grammys, one in 1993 for Best Jazz Instrumental Group with the Miles Davis Tribute Band and another in 1998 for an instrumental composition from the 1986 film ’Round Midnight. He has written several books including Building Jazz Bass Lines and a book of 130 of his published and recorded compositions, The Music of Ron Carter. He’s also active with the Jazz Foundation of America, which helped America’s elderly jazz and blues musicians through the Hurricane Katrina crisis and helped raise funds and awareness for the Red Hot Organization, which is dedicated to combating the AIDS epidemic through popular culture.

When he visits OCC, Carter will bring with him pianist Mulgrew Miller and guitarist Russell Malone, a duo he has performed with since the late 1990s. In a phone interview from his home in Manhattan, Carter gave up a few minutes between the four lessons he was teaching that day to speak about his start in the 1960s, making time for his grandchildren and his quest to find the right notes.

Q: Tell me about how you got started in music.

A: Well, my answer would take up more space than your column probably allows, so I’ll tell it short as best I can. I started playing cello when I was 10 years old in Ferndale, Mich. Switched to bass my senior year of high school, that would be January 1954. Got a full scholarship to go to the Eastman School of Music for the term ’55 to ’59 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree and moved to New York August of 1959.

Q: And then what?

A: I got a job playing with Chico Hamilton and Eric Dolphy and his band for six months. The band broke up because Chico moved back to California and Eric moved to New York and I enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music for my master’s. Along the way I played with Thelonious Monk, Bobby Timmons, Herbie Mann, Betty Carter until I joined Miles {Davis} in 1963.

Q: You played with the Miles Davis Quintet until 1968. How did it change your career?

A: I think the four of us, Wayne {Shorter}, Herbie {Hancock}, Tony {Williams} and myself, wouldn’t have gotten to wherever people think we are now if this hadn’t happened with us in the same band with the same interests.

Q: And directly following that?

A: Well, at the time there was a lot of recording going on in New York. Between the commercial music and jingles and having 10 jazz labels in New York and people coming to New York to make jazz recordings, I was busy in the studio making records and playing in and around the area as a freelancer.

Q: You’ve been on more than 2,500 albums during your career. How did you fit all that in?

A: Well, I was playin’ good, I guess. That’s the best answer I can come up with. I think if producers want you for their project they’re more than happy to work around your availability because I was living in New York and the projects always came through New York, to New York and it was not a problem to schedule my time to be available for as much music as I could play.

Q: Out of all those recordings, which stand out most?

A: I think if I answer that question, the other 1,999 people who I’ve made records with will call my house and cut my tires, so I’m gonna answer that question lightly. I’ve spent all of my life going to school free because every project offered a different area of music for me to get involved in.

Q: You’ve performed with so many different artists, each with their own style. How do you transition effectively between them?

A: My job has always been to play well enough so that No. 1, the person who is the bandleader will come to New York again and call me for their project, and No. 2, I was anxious to figure out how other music worked, whether it was with Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, James Brown…they all have a different view of the same set of notes. I’ve always enjoyed being able to be invited into those recording classrooms and to see if I could make my point of music fit with theirs.

Q: How has it affected your own music?

A: I think if you’re like a sponge, and I think I have tried, if you absorb whatever you can from these various projects, then at some point you find a way to fit it into your point of view when you’re finally able to call your band members.

Q: Who’s still on your list to collaborate with?

A: Ahmad Jamal. I haven’t played with him yet, so he’s on my list.

Q: You’ve been active with various organizations {including the Jazz Foundation of America and the Red Hot Organization} to raise awareness and funds for their causes. What inspired you to be a part of these organizations and how has it affected you?

A: I’m a humanist. . . and all those groups who have a concept that I agree with, if I have the time, I try to kind of offer to put my voice into those lives of people who are against or for certain events. The Jazz Musicians Association, I’m for them because they’re the only group that’s really concerned with musicians who are having a difficult time at certain points in their career and need some financial, emotional or physical help to get through the day. I’ve always felt that jazz musicians have been acutely aware of these social ills and have been more than ready and available to lend their name to these various causes.

Q: How do you fit all this in and what keeps you into this busy schedule of teaching, performing and writing?

A: Well, I think if you budget your time you can do a lot of the things you might

not have time for under normal circumstances. And I’m still pretty active. I’m still lookin’ for the right notes. If you have a view of society and stay productive, you will find a way to make yourself available for personal time which means practice time for me or time for seeing my grandkids. You budget your time for things that you feel are necessary to make your life complete and I’m more than willing and happy to do that.

Q: How many children do you have?

A: I have two sons. The youngest one is a very fine painter and the older son plays bass in a funk cover band.

Q: How many grandkids?

A: Four grandsons. And a set of twins among those.

Q: You say you’re still looking for the right notes. Is that what keeps you connected to music and the bass in particular?

A: Well, that’s primarily what I’m looking for. The right notes to make music have another kind of twist and turn and I can say I enjoy being a part of that process. I think learning an instrument, as most people say, is a lifelong job and I haven’t really given up yet.

Q: You’ve inspired so many musicians throughout your career. Who inspired you when you began and who continues to inspire you today?

A: I think anyone who plays upright {bass} has my complete support and total love for them and for their effort to make the bass work. I think people like me don’t have a particular person who they can say inspired them. It’s a bunch of people who were important in the music world that they learned a vital lesson from. The trombone playing of J.J. Johnson, or the individual sound of baritone from Cecil Payne, or knowing that every night is an important night to play some good music with Miles, learning how to be sensitive to a guitar chorus playing with Jim Hall and Wes Montgomery. I mean, they all offer you lessons if you open yourself up to those kinds of schools.

Q: What’s next for Ron Carter?

A: Well, I have a record out called Ron Carter’s Great Big Band (Sunnyside). It’s a 17-piece big band that has a great library and a wonderful recording sound.

Q: How did you come into this current trio performing at OCC?

A: I wanted to play another trio that didn’t have drums like the Ahmad Jamal early trio and Oscar Peterson Trio. And I had played with Mulgrew and his recording and Russell on his recording, and I decided to see if we could make some music as a three piece band.

Q: You’ve been touring with them for a long time now, since the late 1990s.

A: I’ve been trying to get it right for a while, yeah.

Q: Many people are excited for the OCC show. How are you feeling about it?

A: I’m anxious. I haven’t been to Syracuse in a very, very long time and I’m hoping that some of my friends from my days in Rochester will be able to come by and say hello and enjoy my efforts after all these years of not seeing me.

Q: What can people expect if they haven’t seen you before?

A: Some great music and three handsome young men.

Q: I’ll say hello at the show.

A: I’m gonna be the guy with the best tie on, so don’t worry about finding me. t