Ron Carter Esperanza Spalding - Downbeat

77th Annual readers Poll
Hall of fame
Ron Carter
Pure Elegance
By Ted Panken // Photo by Bill Douthart
Near twilight on the first Sunday of September at the corner of 27th Street and Park
Avenue in Manhattan, a tall African-American gentleman with perfect posture, a saltand-pepper
beard, a pressed white dress shirt, black tie, black pants and mirror-shined
black shoes stood at the curb by a late-model black Audi, tapping his right index finger
on the bowl of his pipe as he spoke quietly into a cell phone. A passerby’s first instinct was to look
for a photographer and klieg lights, but both the location and the hour seemed odd for a fashion
shoot. Then it clicked that this elegant figure was Ron Carter, the 2012 inductee into the Down-
Beat Hall of Fame, taking care of business before descending into the Jazz Standard, halfway
down the block, for the fourth and final night of the inaugural engagement by his big band.
About an hour later, after a crisp reading of “Caravan,” highlighted
by Jerry Dodgion’s soaring soprano saxophone solo, Carter
introduced his own “Loose Change” as “my personal commentary
on the Republican Medicare plan.” He made his point with
a long rubato meditation, teasing “You Are The Sunshine Of My
Life” out of the harmonies, interpolating the motif of “All Blues,”
transitioning to an orotund passage from Bach, then introducing
the melody and stating an insistent 6/4 vamp that propelled the
funky theme. On “Con Alma,” in lock-step with drummer Kenny
Washington, he smoothly propelled his breathe-as-one ensemble
through stop-on-a-dime shifts of meter and tempo; soloing
on “St. Louis Blues,” which moved from march to swing to stride
sections, he signified with various Charlie Parker quotes; in duet
with pianist Donald Vega on “My Funny Valentine,” he played
the verse unembellished, caressed the melody, then complemented
Vega’s inventions—which included a lengthy interpolation of
Ellington’s “Single Petal Of A Rose”—with the customized attention
of a Savile Row tailor.
On each tune save the latter, Carter fleshed out the versions
that appear on the Robert Freedman-arranged 2011 CD Ron
Carter’s Great Big Band (Sunnyside) with extra choruses and
backgrounds, changing the bass part at will. This is one reason
why, after just six sets over three nights, the new ensemble
embodied the leader’s tonal personality—no-nonsense and
expansive; informed by the notion that virtuoso execution, spoton
intonation and exacting attention to the minutest details are
merely a starting point; telling stories of his own or complementing
those of his bandmates with vocabulary and syntax drawn
from an encyclopedic database of the jazz and classical canons,
with the blues as a default basis of operations.
A few days later, in the public area of his massive Upper West
Side apartment, which spans almost half a city block, Carter
recalled that he was initially reluctant to embrace the project, due
in part to the logistical complexities involved in maintaining and
adequately paying a large ensemble. Also, he said, “I haven’t been
interested in playing in the rhythm section of a big band—though
I had great times subbing with Thad Jones and Mel Lewis when
Richard Davis got busy. You get ignored all the time, and you’re
at the mercy of the arranger.” In contrast, he said, “The studio is
fun—you’ve got very little time and they don’t fool around; you
just play the best you can.”
Therefore, Carter added, he decided to treat this orchestra “as
a very large trio,” built around Vega and guitarist Russell Malone,
his bandmates in the Golden Striker Trio. Carter does the preponderance
of his touring with this group and in a quartet with pianist
Renee Rosnes, drummer Peyton Crossley and percussionist
Rolando Morales-Matos.
“In a lot of big band arrangements, the bass parts aren’t so
critical to the survival of the piece,” Carter said. “At one rehearsal,
I told them, ‘All that changed when you walked in the door. I’m
going to make sure the bass part sounds interesting every night.
But for you to work from it, I have to have your utter focus.’ That’s
my role with this 16-piece band. By Sunday, I thought I’d found
enough things to hold their interest—16 points of view, 16 dif-
24 DOWNBEAT DECEMBER 2012