Courtesy of Ron Carter







Blue Note

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH RON CARTER

February 13, 2001

This is the second time in two years that I have spoken with Ron Carter. In most cases, I choose not to interview artists in such a close time frame because I rarely leave much left to talk about, but in Carter's case I was not concerned. He has so much on his plate, both past and present, it would take me another fifteen or so conversations to get bored. So an encore from one bassist who needs no introduction, unedited and in his own words.


FRED JUNG: Let's touch on your relationship with Miles Davis.

RON CARTER: I met him at a concert in Rochester, New York, the summer before I moved to New York, the summer of '58. He was coming through New York with a package show that had Maynard Ferguson's band, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, and the Chico Hamilton Quintet, and Miles was on the package. I met him backstage after a concert. Everyone in my age category thought that if you want to play music, you've got to join that band because it was the band of the day. They really sounded great and they had really done some interesting things with group playing. It was quite an impressive array of talented musicians to be involved with and everyone in my age group thought that this was the band you should join if you want to get into a good jazz band, this was the band you should join. I was just a senior in school. Anyone who goes for three years of college can't be intimidated by Miles Davis (laughing). He didn't act any other way other than pleasant. I was going to take Paul Chambers and Red Garland and Philly Jo Jones to the train station and I was meeting them backstage to take them to my car. I was already looking in New York. I wasn't just arriving on the scene. I had worked with Bobby Timmons for eight and a half months, Herbie Mann for several months, Randy Weston for a whole summer, so I was already working in New York. He still had the best band there was and each time he came by the club to see me play, I was at the Half Note with Art Farmer, I already had a job and I wasn't going to leave Art Farmer's job until Art Farmer said it was OK. So I told Miles that I would like to join his band, but I have to commit myself for the next two weeks with Art Farmer's group with Jim Hall and Ben Riley. I said, "If you ask Art and he says it's OK, then I'm happy to go. If he says no, I will be here until the gig is over."


FJ: What was Art's answer?

RON CARTER: He appreciated me taking the time to be concerned about his situation and not just leave him and he was very gracious and understanding and said that I could leave the gig that week. So I finished the week with Art and left the next week with Miles. My excitement was tempered by the fact that I had already worked in New York for a while. I had just gotten a Master's two years before. It was an honor to be in the band. Don't misunderstand my view, but I had already started working in New York, so I guess I was maybe less excited had I been there for the first hour and gotten to join the band. It was a pleasure in any event, but I was not knocked off my feet because I was already working.


FJ: The last time we had a conversation, you spoke about touring with the Orfeu band, were you able to assemble a tour?

RON CARTER: Well, Houston toured with the band. We'd go out whenever we could work our schedules. He's as busy as can be, so it was a little difficult to catch him when he's got a rare moment to do other projects. The band didn't tour. I remember that five of us had gone to Rio for a week and three days before the band recorded. Bill Frisell, who I had not toured with, met us in New York. I worked with Bill with some Joey Baron projects and had always admired his playing and I would like to think at some point we can go on the road for a brief time to play some music together.


FJ: Did critics understand the intent behind Orfeu?

RON CARTER: Well, I have met no one who didn't like it. Again, one of the overall conversation pieces was Bill Frisell. They know him for doing whatever he does and they couldn't figure out why I would hire him to play on a record that clearly was not of his musical interest. I said, "Do you ever listen to Bill Frisell play?" Because if you listen to him play, you would know his interests are pretty broad and he plays enough different types of his own kinds of music. You shouldn't be surprised to hear him in an environment that while not his, he certainly fits the slot that is necessary.


FJ: Let's talk about your latest Blue Note release, When Skies Are Grey.

RON CARTER: Harvey Mason is on drums, Steve Kroon, percussion, and Steven Scott, piano, my general group with a different drummer. I've known Harvey for a very long time and one of the questions asked when this record is talked about is, "What's Harvey doing on a jazz record?" And I kind of look incredulous because I've always known Harvey to be a jazz drummer. He used to be with this band and with this band. I know those records and I've heard him play, but my sense of hiring him was that he's a wonderful jazz drummer. Whatever else he's known for doesn't make him any less of a jazz commodity. He's an experienced studio player. He reads well. He swings. He's got a great drum sound and is someone I've looked forward to playing with for a very long time. We've talked about various projects together, but this is the first one that's really come to fruition. It was my chance to hire him before he got a chance to hire me. They (the record label) wanted me to have a special guest on the record and for me, it is a lot easier to do that with a drummer rather than a piano player, who I would have to spend more time with so that they have a chance to feel comfortable with the addition harmonic turns and the dynamic range of the band. It takes time to do that and with a drummer, you have less problems because you are covering fewer areas of real interest like changes and chord voicings. Harvey is aware of that, but he doesn't play it on the drums, so it is not so much of a complication to have a newer person playing drums than a new one playing piano.


FJ: With Mason on this record and Frisell on the last one, you have been able to take artists who are not normally associated with straight ahead jazz and trust them enough to adapt to the climate you create.

RON CARTER: I bring a concept, Fred. I'm pretty organized. I'm very organized. When I bring the music to a session like that, I've thought it through for four or five months, everyday. I have a good sense of organization. I'm a strong player and a directing player. All they have to do is trust my sense of direction and my sense of feeling that this is going to work. If they just follow my instructions and do what you do in conjunction with this new environment that you're in, it's going to be OK. And because they do have that kind of faith and trust and know my background of all the freelancing that I've done, they are comfortable with my way to play music.


FJ: Steven Scott has been with you for some time now.

RON CARTER: Well, he's got a great piano sound. He's interested in learning music. He trusts my sense of, when I ask him to do something or my recommendations for him to do, when I first worked with him, I said, "What you should do is go around and watch Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan and Roland Hanna and watch how they use the pedals on the piano." A lot of jazz players use the pedals, but they really don't use the pedals for what they can do. And he took me at my word and has become a great pedal piano player, as well as a great hand piano player.


FJ: You seem to have an affinity for Latin music.

RON CARTER: Well, I've been playing it for a very long time. I made those records with Ray Barretto in the early Sixties, the Jobim records. I've been in the community for a while. I've never done a record that I was responsible for with this kind of Latin intent, but I am comfortable with those players as well as the music.


FJ: Did you realize the ambitions for this record?

RON CARTER: What I was trying to do, Fred, was get a Latin sound with only four people. When you think of Latin groups, you always think of a band like Tito Puente's band, that real fiery, and those kinds of large size organizations that have two congas, a bongo player, a timbale player, a rhythm trap set, a bass player, maybe a guitar player, a keyboard player, four or five horns and some singers. And I wanted to get that same kind of impression, but with only a quartet. I'm very happy with the results.


FJ: You are?

RON CARTER: Absolutely.


FJ: Did you leave any stone unturned?

RON CARTER: My view, what I've tried to do is to go in there, we got there at nine o'clock in the morning. We started recording at ten and by four, we had finished the record. All that was left for me to do was go in and do some mixing. We did maybe two takes on one song, but what you hear is basically one take songs. I think if I can keep them focused during the course of the recording, my approach is generally, those who are only playing should be in the recording studio, the engineer, and the assistant and my assistant, but basically, the studio room is not a place where anyone who is not playing belongs when I make a record. So what I try to do is finish the record, complete the record from ten in the morning until it is done. Then I take an hour break and the engineer and I go back and we mix the record an hour after we finish making it. So when I leave the studio, at whatever AM that is, theoretically, the company can take that disc or tape and go right to the mastering plant and make the master. It sounds complete because the process that I use doesn't allow for any wide spans of time for questions to creep in about, "Is this really OK," or "Is this the right song," and "Is this the right personnel?" I made those decisions and I am comfortable with them, comfortable enough to take the project and run until it's complete, which in this case may take a total of twenty hours.


FJ: Having appeared on so many records, what is the key to making a good studio record?

RON CARTER: I think one of the keys in the studio though, when you hear comes equally from the studio, comes with the equipment, comes in the music, and comes in musicians. What you put in is what you hear. It is like a free lesson actually. If you listen carefully to the recording that you just made, you can hear things that you would not hear at a gig or at a concert or practicing, but you hear it back right away with the kind of fidelity and naturalness that you would not normally get a chance to appraise or hear your playing to appraise it by. The second thing is that the level of focus that is necessary for a good musical record. Many recording sessions that I've done, they have it very casual and they act all loose, in terms of they will do a take and then sit down and make phone calls and have lunch and people will come by and hangout. They will do a second take and then the environment is even more social and casual and by the third tune, the intensity for making music is kind of faded out by everybody hanging out and wanting to be on the scene. I think the third thing that is important is to limit the environment to only those that are making the music. If you can control their focus and not let their interests be distracted by non-musical things, I find you get a much better record. On my records, I have tried to do that. I've tried to make sure that we're all on the same page so to speak and that we won't have take fifteen and take twenty. We won't go out to have lunch after the first song is complete and we won't have our friends come by and hang out and make phone calls and order food. I mean, that is not what that is for me. It's a really difficult, difficult job and the best way to get this difficult job done is to control the environment.


FJ: With this music advocating individuality, as a leader, is it difficult to control an environment of egoism?

RON CARTER: That's necessary. I think what a good leader does is have them play as one. One of Miles' greatest traits was his ability to find four other strangers and have them sound like one band after a six month period or however often they worked. In a studio, you find people, whose personalities you feel can be most melded into the mind of one when you are making a record.


FJ: Do you advocate studies for young musicians rather than the traditional experience from the bandstand?

RON CARTER: Well, I think studying is important in any industry. Certainly, music is an industry. I think the days of guys leaving home at eighteen and going on the road with a big band, they are long gone. You can't join Duke Ellington's band when you get out of high school and spend ten years. You can't join Count Basie's band or Woody Herman's band or Maynard Ferguson's band out of high school or one year in college and go on the road and learn how this music operates. The best thing you can do for that is to enroll in a school that has a jazz program that will show you chords and harmony and show you keyboard skills, or arranging skills, or composition skills. The only thing that the schools can't teach you is how to be a leader. That you learn on your own. I think the education system is great. I felt schools have a pretty serious academic component, in addition to the music program, which is also very good.


FJ: As an educator, will there ever come a time when you will put down the bass and focus solely on teaching?

RON CARTER: No, I don't think so. I've still got some notes to find. My theory is if you aren't playing, you will never find them.


FJ: Have you found any so far?

RON CARTER: I've found some good ones, but I think there are more available out there and the more people you can play with and the longer a period of time that you can play with them, the chances of finding a great set of notes are even better. I'm looking forward to working with Roland Hanna within the next month and he's a person whose talent I have always admired and whose ability to help me find these notes is quite a challenge. To put the bass down now and to play with him is a chance that I would not want to miss.


FJ: Are you the most recorded bassist in history?

RON CARTER: That is correct. Yeah, well, I've got about fifteen hundred (recordings) or so here and a friend of mine in Japan, who is doing a project for his own personal library and he came up with close to three thousand. I've made more recordings Rudy Van Gelder's as a bass player too. I've made about six hundred recording sessions at Rudy's alone.


Fred Jung is Jazz Weekly's Editor-In-Chief and needs a Saturday night card game. Email him.