The Ron Carter Quartet - Spanning The Jazz Globe...Elegantly!

Ron Carter
(courtesy: discogs.com)

The Ron Carter Quartet played Yoshi's Jazz Club in Oakland, California on Thursday and Friday 25th and 26th, October 2012 to sold out crowds, two nights after appearing in Shanghai, China. A long way to travel to play jazz, no doubt, but then Ron Carter is that type of musician; having come a long way from his nascent days with Miles Davis. Carter seems comfortable with, and quite prepared for long journeys. His road through jazz is remarkable on another level; it has presented Carter with guide posts for survival, and made him a living jazz legend.

On this occasion the quartet featured: Ron Carter - acoustic bass; Renee Rosnes - piano; Payton Crossley - drums;  Rolando Morales-Matos - percussion.

Seeing bassist Ron Carter up close, and personal quickly makes the 2500 jazz albums he has appeared on, seem immaterial - except those he made during the early 1960s as a member of Miles Davis' Second Great Quintet. Many who still remember his work with the Davis group's "Seven Steps To Heaven (1963)" and "E. S. P." had to be thrilled with Carter's opening selection for the early show, Friday night (8pm); a 45-minute, highly sophisticated, reprise of some of the Davis magic, which included sections of the title track from (Seven Steps To Heaven) - the first Davis album on which Carter appeared in 1963; a lengthy passage from Bill Evans' (Blue In Green)

Ron Carter's 'sound' is his focus: to jazz.com's Andy Karp on why he stayed with the upright acoustic bass, as opposed to the electric bass, "...I thought I could find some different notes to make the music work differently...I still practice to get my sound the same every night."

Carter is a consummate professional to whom image, reputation, control of direction, and independence of thought are of paramount importance. It is important to start the set on time; know the set in advance; not have excess time between tunes; and avoid playing past the length of the set time, so that the club could have a turn over.

Carter started out on the Cello; an instrument he is drawn to because of it's broad range, and ability to play any type of figure with a multiple choice of sounds.

Carter positions himself physically and sonically in front of the band - an arrangement that clearly designates him as the leader.

On the standards (My Funny Valentine) and (All The Things You Are), Carter makes allowances for the fact that every piano player has a certain requirement that makes them not just comfortable, but more aware. I wonder just how different was his playing with pianist Renee Rosnes, in contrast to say Herbie Hancock or Stephen Scott.

When asked: "What impression do you want people to have when they think of Ron Carter," carter replied, "I'd like them to think that, here's a guy who's tried to reach a new height every night, who's honest, and was my friend."

Payton Crossley grew up on Omaha, Nebraska. He got his start in 'big league' jazz with pianist Ahmad Jamal. He has played with Nina Simone, Stan Getz and Hank Jones. He sums up his playing as "...drawing upon my vocabulary from my experiences to help me bring a certain level of authenticity and believability."

Rolando Morales-Matos is a recipient of the 2006 Drum Magazine World Beat Percussionist of the Year Award. He is a professor of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

Canada has produced another exceptional pianist out of the bright light left by Oscar Peterson, in the person of Renee Rosnes. Her keyboard solos sparkle with diamond-like clarity and are executed with mellifluous panache. She adds a convincing keyboard logic to the high level of musical discourse conducted within the rhythm section.

I would describe percussionist Rolando Morales-Matos as able to produce such a coterie of eclectic percussive colors & sounds as to be on par with Brazilian drummer/percussionist Airto Moreira - I might even go further and refer to Morales-Matos as a consummate micro-percussionist because of the plethora of exotic sound colors he manages to paint from an endless assortment of very simple, almost insignificant percussion aids in his trick bag.

(All The Things You Are) had as a highlight a rhythmic/percussive chase between Carter's progressively 

Rolando Morales Matos
(courtesy: tomajazz.com)

accelerating bass figures, and Morales-Matos flying, bongo rippling, fingers; at times it became a matter of who would lose place or tempo first, or succumb to rhythmic extremism. They were like two sugar-high kids who found a way to hijack a wagon load of chocolate candy on Halloween night. In the end it was a Leonard - Hagler epic (Hagler won, okay?); with the same striking ebbs and flows; no contestant taking a step backward; just leaving it in the floor. It is doubtful that such a clash of rhythmic exchanges and ideas could have been rehearsed, or planned. This encounter, with its beautiful, coherent chaos, seemed almost spiritual.

It drained anyone who happened to be a witness to such spontaneous artistic anarchy, most of all the musicians at its center. There was no need for an encore; there was no presence of mind for such.  A need to find the nearest exit was almost palpable.

So, Ron Carter had the good sense and sensitivity to back announce the names of the players; said good night, and brought a dignified end to a wonderful concert.