A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH RON CARTER


As a member of Miles Davis' formidable quintet with Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter has been part of one of this music's most pivotal bands. So the bassist's place in the history books is firm. I am honored to present one of the music's most influential bassists, unedited and in his own words.


FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.


RON CARTER: I started when I was age ten playing the cello. Switched to string bass at the age of seventeen. I'm from Detroit. I went to the Eastman School of Music, '55-59. I graduated with a Bachelor of music in string bass. I moved to New York in August of '59. I enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music and received a Masters in string bass in '61. Joined Randy Weston in the spring of '60, Bobby Timmons in '61. I played with Herbie Mann, Betty Carter, up through then, Eric Dolphy. Joined Miles Davis in '63-65 with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter or George Coleman, and Tony Williams. I am now teaching at the City College of New York, where I have been Distinguished Professor for the past 18 years. I've made about 3,000 CDs and I now have a new released called Orfeu on the Blue Note label.


FJ: You mentioned that you had started on cello, what prompted you to make the switch to string bass?

RON CARTER: Well, I noticed that this high school orchestra would send out groups of string players to play for various functions, whether it be an educators convention or a little social thing down the street, and they never called a Black cello player. I looked around one day and realized that the bass player was graduating in January and that there would be no bass player in the orchestra for the next six months. So I said that if I am the only one and since I would be the only one, they'll have to hire me because I'm all there is.


FJ: Who were some of your influences at that time?

RON CARTER: My father. I'm from a very large family. If you guess by my age, Fred, I was around during the Depression came up and all the difficult times. It especially decimated the incomes from African-American families. He managed to hold three jobs, build a house, raise eight kids with his wife, my mother, and instilled us with a set of values that we still hold dear to this day.


FJ: Did being in the mist of such adversity sculpt your overall demeanor? You conduct yourself with great dignity and poise.

RON CARTER: I think my parents were more influential than the Depression in it of itself. They set a standard for their kids and it was our responsibility and our respect of them that we insisted on upholding those standards. I don't want to sound like I am leaning toward the single parent thing because that is not where I'm coming from. My respect of people and my regard for my fellow man, whether you play a saxophone or fix the telephones, it comes from their respect of themselves and people who they were respectful of. This has bled through the family.


FJ: You played with Chico Hamilton. The before mentioned Eric Dolphy was a member of that band. What impressed you most about Dolphy?

RON CARTER: He was a constant practicer, I'll make up a word here, Fred. He practiced all the time. He believed in what he was doing. The criticism that seemed to come his way did not effect his belief that he was on the right track for him.


FJ: You were a member of the Miles Davis Quintet with Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, and Wayne Shorter that is arguably the finest quintet in the history of the music. What was it about that quintet and its leader that placed the music on such a higher plateau?

RON CARTER: Well, Miles knew how to program songs. He knew how to make them shorter or longer as he thought the music would tolerate. He accepted experimentation. He was always fair and honest with me. He always came to work to play with whatever physical pain he was feeling. I came away believing that I was a really good player.


FJ: The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel (Miles Davis, Columbia) has a permanent position alongside my CD player as one of my personal favorites, do you recall that date?

RON CARTER: Sure, my son was born around that time, my youngest son. I commuted to New York two or three of those nights because at that time they had many more flights. The gig would finish around one thirty or so and I would take a two thirty flight to New York and get in at about four thirty or so and I'd spend the day with my wife and my new son and my young son until about six and I'd get on a plane and I would fly back to Chicago and do the night from nine o'clock to one again.


FJ: It is not widely known that you are a movie star, appearing in the wonderful 1986 feature, Round Midnight alongside Dexter Gordon.

RON CARTER: Well, you know, Fred, in a film, no one is really important but the film. But having known Dexter for a very long time and having made only a record or so with him, it was a great chance to kind of noodle around between takes and between set changes to get a chance to play with a wonderful saxophone player and a lovely person.


FJ: For the benefit of anyone who is not a musician, aside from the obvious, what is the difference between the bass you play and that which most of us are accustomed to seeing on the bandstand?

RON CARTER: What I play is a half size string bass, which is one size small than what people generally see on the jazz bandstand, a three quarter size and up. What makes this bass different is that it is tuned a fourth higher than normal string bass, so my top string is C and my low string is A, which allows me to play in kind of a tenor cello range. It makes it possible for me to play melodies above the band and still be functioning as a horn player with function with my sound still not being too distinct from what I love to hear in the string bass.


FJ: You have a pronounced interest in classical music, playing with symphony orchestras throughout the world and having made a number of classical recordings, how many have you made thus far?

RON CARTER: Well, I have made four of them already. One is called Ron Carter Meets Bach, where I've transcribed and rearranged fourteen well-known Bach chorals and cantatas for bass of group from anywhere from two to eight and I play all the parts. I've done a solo Bach record where I play the dance suites from the six Bach cello suites. I've done a record where I've played the Bach Brandenburg, Ravel, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, with a string orchestra and me. So I've done a pretty much amount of classical work already. I'm not sure what the next future project holds.


FJ: What is it about Bach that has peaked your interest?

RON CARTER: He has written, not improvised, but he has written probably the most creative bass lines of anybody. Bass players want to analyze harmony and how the bass note changes all the notes on top of the chord. He's a great example of that.


FJ: Let's touch on your last album for Blue Note, So What.

RON CARTER: I've always wanted to, I've heard that tune as everyone has since it was recorded. Playing with the Miles band, it got faster every night so it got to be a blur. I thought that this would be a great chance with some great players. I had Kenny Barron on piano and Lewis Nash on drums to kind of return to the tempo at which it was recorded on that Kind of Blue record that no one seems to remember the tempo anymore. It requires great speed and it requires a whole different of manual dexterity and musical imagination to pull it off at that speed. Lewis is a great ballad player and one of the few drummers that knows how to play ballads with brushes. And of course, Kenny is special because he is Kenny Barron. That's one of my most happy records because it didn't take long to make and the music was fantastic.


FJ: And your latest Orfeu with your sextet, Bill Frisell on guitar, Houston Person on tenor saxophone, Stephen Scott on piano, Payton Crossley on drums, and Steve Kroon on percussion.

RON CARTER: One of the things that has peaked just on this record, which kind of surprised me actually is that a lot of Bill Frisell fans have called and want to know why is he on this record. They haven't heard the record yet. If they listened to it, they'd be able to tell why he's on it. This is not Bill's general musical environment. He plays in a lot of strange ensembles and plays in what I call clouds a lot of times. But Bill's a very good player. Bill's a great player and he's a very nice person. I first played with him in the Joey Baron Quartet with Arthur Blythe playing the alto. Brazilian music always has a guitar somewhere in the tune. But I was looking for a guitar player who had a different kind of sound to add to this record and Bill has got the perfect sound for this record. I've played with Houston Person on several other recordings, most notably the duos we did for Muse. And they are now used for listening sessions for drummers and their students. How a bass can sound without drums and what they can learn from this time process. The rest of the guys are part of my band. It's Payton Crossley on drums, Stephan Scott, who works with Sonny Rollins when I am not working, on piano, Steve Kroon, my longtime friend on percussion. What I wanted to do among other things was to give the listener a chance to hear American jazz musicians play Brazilian music like Brazilian musicians play Brazilian music. So having gone down there for the past four Januarys and each time the band goes out to the samba schools and various Brazilian percussion ensembles and all the drummers come by and say hello. They have a chance to hear this stuff live and talk to the people who make the music and find out what makes it do what it does. I'm very happy with the results and I hope that the people who listen to this record will be as happy as I am.


FJ: Tour dates?

RON CARTER: It seems that jazz companies don't have the budget or are unable to find the budget money, at least in my case to allow us to go out and do a summer tour with this record. Rock band companies seem to have a bottomless pit of tour money for the acts that they record. I'd love to go on the road with this band. First of all, it would be a nice chance for people to see what this music sounds like live. Because there are no tricks in the recording, it's not a problem to duplicate that kind of emotion live. I'd love to go out with Steve Kroon and Houston Person and Stephan Scott and Payton Crossley and Bill Frisell. To let people see this music develop. On record you've got six minutes. OK, you've got a hint of what's possible. But to be able to go on tour with this band for a summer, Fred, by the time we got back, we'd be on top of the world. I avoid doing those kinds of tours until I am not in school so I would not even be able to consider a tour until after May. I'd love to able to consider one.


FJ: Having obtained such a distinguished level of higher learning do you find that the pursuit of advancing the educational aspects of this music is maybe not as strong as it should be?

RON CARTER: It depends on what kind of degree they are looking at. I'm not sure jazz music schools in of it themselves are the solution for an educated musician. They have their own biases and slants that I'm not sure are necessarily to the students advantage. But I'll tell you one of the things that music school can do for a musician is give him the discipline to know that he's got a lesson every week on Thursday that he's got to prepare for and that there are assignments that are due everyday in class and that being on time for class and exams is essential for one's survival in any educational institution. I think the study of harmony and theory are essential, not necessarily jazz harmony or jazz theory but the harmony and theory of music as a broad category. You have to learn the camaraderie and playing with two trumpets and an orchestra or four bass players and an orchestra or to know how to play classical percussion. That discipline in it of themselves will make them a better player, which isn't to say that they must go to a classical school to get these kinds of disciplines, but that's just as much as part of school's title as it is to the curriculum. I think jazz schools by in large tend to be so casual with so many important things like punctuality and having the assignments handed in on time and written on proper paper. I have some students now that I am doing an arranging class with and the first three days of class they came in with everything but score paper. That's not acceptable to me. They were writing parts on lined paper. None of that stuff is any good. Classical schools kind of insist on that level of discipline that by in large jazz schools accept as, "Well, we'll get them next time." That's never the case. So while a higher degree in music may not necessarily help a guy play better, I think to go to that kind of school gives them a much more disciplined view of music and I think that that will help his jazz playing.


FJ: If this music is going to thrive in the next century it has to do a better job to reach the younger generation because the progress that its made thus far in reaching the MTV crowd is dismal at best.

RON CARTER: I think the first thing a people or group would have to do is insist that it be as part of the curriculum from kindergarten on as sports is. Until the educational system on that level makes music important, it will never be important to those young people. What we are seeing now in New York and I'm sure across the country is when they have financial problems in the school systems, the first thing to go was the arts program. They went out and found extra money for basketball hoops and football uniforms and the equipment. They couldn't find any money for someone to teach clarinet or saxophone. They couldn't find any money for a record player to play some Charlie Parker. It's unfortunate that their views have affected the culture of music for this long a time. And until someone sits down and begins to reverse the trend of making music as accessible in schools starting now, we're looking for a very difficult time, and I might add that if young kids who hear the music in kindergarten and through high school, they might not be great players, they might not play at all, but those kinds of people end of writing for magazines sometimes or are disc jockeys or they get on these corporation boards where they have influence as to the art in the lobby of the building or sponsoring a jazz festival, all these aspects of music. It don't stop at being able to toot a horn. There are a lot of aspects as these kids grow up can get involved in to help this music survive other than playing.


FJ: We reap what we sow. If the current downward spiral continues, what do you see happening to the music?

RON CARTER: Well, one of the things that I had hoped that the raps and hip hop musicians would get kind of tired of stealing music and using loops and would call some musicians of a serious nature to help them make a more musical, these include key changes and changes of melodies under their raps. Get the music from under wraps. If one of those people who are important decided to add an element to the music to make it more musical, and I think if they would begin to do that, people who buy the records would not only be enthralled by the lyrics and the bass drum and the high hat, but they'd hear some changes going by. They'd hear someone playing some chords. They'd hear a real piano. They'd hear a real saxophone. They'd hear some real drums! I think given what we're looking at now, if they'd, since they are right now on top of the music heap, if they would add this to the list of things they do, it wouldn't make them lesser musicians or lesser rappers, it would make them have a larger musical payroll because you have to pay guys to play every night, but I think the rewards as far as their rep is concerned would be great and their influence on music would be much greater.


FJ: As an educator, a bassist, and a composer, if there was only one hat you could wear, which would it be?

RON CARTER: Since I'm still having a great time learning how the bass works and finding notes and combination of notes so that's my primary hat. If I were to pick a secondary hat, it would be just to teach bass. I think bass players who come along, first of all, they are the last guy in the band to take lessons. Everyone takes lessons but a bass player because there is no one in the neighborhood to teach them how to play the bass or the guys in the band don't know how to help him get better and he's on his own by in large. I think if these young bass players were able to get some serious instruction on how the bass works, what notes are located, what playing in tune means, what a skill level really means, what reading music really means, I can't help but think that that bass player's level increasing will affect our music for the next twenty or thirty years. My second hat would be just to be able to sit down and take ten students a week and help them carry the flag.


FJ: Have you heard anyone lately who has knocked your socks off?

RON CARTER: It's a tough question, Fred, because I don't get a chance to get out to listen to the music much anymore. I should say, I don't take the time. I take off my shoes at night, they are kind of off until the next morning. So I don't get a chance to hear many of them live. And records are, as you know, Fred, they are imperfect as they are perfect. They are as good as they are flawed, so I haven't had a lot of listening experience live and my record collection doesn't include many of the young player's groups. Based on that very long preface to your question, Fred, I haven't heard anyone for the moment, who has been turning the music upside down and doing anything that is different from something that has come before or that's made a real concept to develop what's already there. Ouch (laughing). There are guys playing but I haven't heard anyone who has developed what's before or got anything new. They're working but I'm not sure that in it of itself is developing the music.


FJ: So what in your record collection stands out above the others?

RON CARTER: I'd say maybe four. One is Miles Davis's Kind of Blue because of its indelible impact on music. I wish they hadn't made that. A Johnny "Guitar" Watson record, who was a great guitar player that past away in Tokyo of a heart attack on stage maybe two, three years ago. Any record that I have during the later years of his life. Any of the Bach Brandenburgs, just because of the purity of the bass lines and the use of harmony without a lot of funny sounding chords and notes in it. A Bob Marley record, Rastaman Vibration (Tuff Gong), that's a good record for me because the record is so clear that you hear all the lines going on. That's not to disregard the quality of music, but just the recording of the music is so fabulous that it just astounds me each time I hear it because I hear something new each time because it's been there, I was just distracted by some other music.


FJ: At the conclusion of your illustrious career, what would you like your legacy to be?

RON CARTER: That people I've played with, and there have been a whole bunch of them, say about me, "He played the best he could every night and he was my friend."


FJ: Well, I don't think you have much to loose sleep over.

RON CARTER: I'm grateful that you do what you do, Fred. I'm as grateful and thankful for you to carve out some time to do this with me, not for me, but to do it with me. Thank you so much.


Fred Jung is Editor-In-Chief and wears a headband. Comments? Email him.