Spend even a short time with Ron Carter, and you realize his approach to music, and to life, is based on conscious decision-making. It’s about making choices that best represent who he is as musician and person. It’s why he smokes a pipe and not cigarettes. It’s why he doesn’t drink. It’s why he tends to grumble when people want to talk to him only about his time with Miles Davis. It’s why he dresses for every show. It’s why his two sons went to Bank Street, one of New York City’s oldest charter schools. In his Upper West Side apartment, Ron surrounds himself with sleek, modern furniture and carefully selected pieces of art, such as a futuristic iron collage that vaguely resembles a bass or a treble clef. All of the choices he makes are a reminder of the weight of his history, combined with an innovator’s sense of the future’s undefined and unlimited possibilities.
Ron Carter’s career has taken him across the musical spectrum and around the world. Starting out in New York with the Bobby Timmons trio, he achieved early notoriety as the slim, solid bassist in the Miles Davis quintet from 1963 to ’68. But looking at Ron only in terms of this historic contribution ignores his accomplishments before and after. Carter’s roots are deep in classical training. He received a full scholarship to the Eastman School of Music after playing bass for only one full year. His first instrument was the cello, which he began playing in the Detroit public school system at age ten. But despite his training, landing a classical gig as an African-American bass player in ’50s proved more than difficult—so Ron chose a new route, turning to jazz not out of resignation but a determination to become the best player he could be.
After his stint with Miles, Carter doubled on electric bass until the 1970s, performing and recording on both upright and electric. He has written two books, Building Jazz Bass Lines, which details his approach to constructing a line, and The Music of Ron Carter, a collection of 130 of his published and recorded compositions. He was Artistic Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Studies while it was located in Boston, and after 18 years on the City College of New York faculty, he recently retired as Distinguished Professor Emeritus. He has won two Grammys and two honorary doctorate degrees in music, and he was awarded the distinguished Hutchinson Medal from his alma mater, the Eastman. Now 66, Ron maintains an active touring and recording schedule, even beyond jazz. He has recorded with chamber-music radicals the Kronos Quartet and hip-hop’s A Tribe Called Quest, among many others. Always seeking out new ways to approach even the most familiar music, he recently toured with a Miles Davis tribute band made up of sax man George Coleman, guitarist Mike Stern, and drummer Jimmy Cobb. Dubbed the Four Generations of Miles (each band member played during a different Davis era), the group has been playing to sold-out crowds at New York’s Blue Note.
Ron has an opinion on just about everything. His advice to musicians is simple and practical: “Play as much as you can with as many different types of groups as you can find.” His No. 1 goal as an artist? To make the music better. “The music is the most important thing,” he says. “I always want to leave a job feeling I played the best I could.”
Where do you see yourself among other jazz bass players?
I never look at that. That’s not my job. My job is to make other people sound better than if I wasn’t standing there, and to do that with respect to them and their music, while trying to maintain as much of me as the job will allow. So I don’t sit around and think, Where am I in the scope of things? I just don’t do that.
Do have any thoughts on other great bassists—Charles Mingus, Ray Brown, Milt Hinton?
Well, I told those guys how I felt about them, and that’s enough for me. When you list three players out of the hundreds possible, that takes the stance that either the others are unimportant or unknown to me or are unimportant to the magazine. I kind of object to that stance—placing me in the spot to take their heat. I knew and loved those three players for a very long time, and now that they are no longer here, they know that at least one bass player on earth told them what he thought of them.
What has had the greatest influence on your stylistic evolution?
One of the things that helps a bass player develop a style is the amount of work he can do with a variety of groups. The more you freelance, the more you are involved with the big “M” of music, not just a jazz band. Broadway shows, concerts with orchestras, chamber groups, folk music—when I first came to New York, I was down there playing with the folk singers. It might be a duo where it’s just a bass and drums, or a quartet where there’s no piano. All of these environments help you make musical decisions.
One of the things I decided early was to try to get a sound that was different from anyone else’s, like Cecil Payne did on the baritone sax. He came around when Leo Parker and Harry Carney were major players with their own sounds, so Cecil had to make a sound that was totally different—and he found it. My view was I needed to make my sound as different from other bassists as Cecil did from the other saxophone players. Finding that sound involved a lot of different kinds of strings and soundpost adjustments. I’ve had the same bass for a very long time; I didn’t need to change basses. Once I identified a sound, my job became making that sound on the bass whenever I played it.
Do you play differently in different venues?
I try not to do that, but sometimes it’s necessary. I think it’s all in the hands once you establish a sound in your ear. Depending on the venue size and the acoustics, it may require you not to play so hard, or to dig in more, and to think about how long and how short the notes are. These are all in the coordination between the right and left hand. The more heightened this coordination, the more control you have over how long the note is, or how much connection there is between this note and the next series of notes. It’s all done in the hands.
It is also the determination to sound good every night. With some guys, if the gig isn’t interesting they just fluff it off and kind of get through the night. My view has always been that every job has something to offer in terms of growth—if you don’t shut it down. You have to find what it can offer you, even if it’s nothing more than the chance to play in tune every chord, or maintaining your focus on a piece from beginning to end, no matter how boring you find it. It’s that kind of discipline that makes me so consistent in what I try to do.
How much attention do you pay to maintaining your instrument?
My bass is in great shape. If there’s a crack in it or any other problem, I don’t go more than a few days without having it looked at. I always make sure I have a set of strings, make sure the bass is in traveling condition, and when I come back from the road, I take it down to David Gage’s shop and I say, “David, take a look at this and if anything is wrong, let’s go ahead and fix it before I go to the next job.” It’s part of what I do. Many guys don’t seem to take maintenance very seriously. Some people have a bass that’s in tatters. If you find a repairman who you trust, they’ll take a look and find what’s wrong with it, and then the bass won’t be so hard to play anymore. Otherwise you have to avoid certain notes because there’s a rattle, or you’re not playing in this range because there’s a buzz and you’re not sure where it’s coming from.
What are some your most recent projects?
My most recent one is called The Golden Striker with guitarist Russell Malone and Mulgrew Miller on piano. We do some wonderful tunes and some great arrangements by Bob Freedman. My most current Stateside recording is Entre Amigos with a Brazilian singer named Rosa Passos, a wonderful singer who is also a good composer and guitarist.
One particularly interesting project was a reissue of a Ron Carter Nonet record from 1989, Eight Plus. I realized I had the rights to issue it in the States and Europe, so I signed with Dreyfus Records. Eight Plus is a very special record. People always say you can’t write for strings because string players don’t know how to swing—but I’ve never believed that. If you write what they play with some musicality, and the bandleader knows the language of the strings, the players will do the rest. All they have to do is play with some conviction and we’ll get it done.
The great thing about Eight Plus is producer Rudy Van Gelder’s recording. He got a great sound that day, as he does most days, so the record sounds as fresh sonically as it does musically. Fortunately there seems to be a space in the jazz world right now for something that’s special and different, and this record may help fill that space. The Nonet works twice a year at Birdland; I’d like to play more, but the cost of travel is high for nine players, plus a separate airline seat for each cello.
Were there any particular challenges associated with Eight Plus?
The most difficult piece was “A Song for You” because it’s just me playing alone. To be able to nail all those notes with no harmonic help or tone center was quite unusual. Overall, Rudy thought he could get a clearer and more accurate sound if the group didn’t record together, so we recorded the rhythm section and me on the first day, and then the cellos came in the next day and recorded their parts. It came out great.
What are your recording preferences?
They depend on a lot of factors—the room, the equipment, the engineer being familiar with my sound, the engineer having recorded upright before, how my hands feel, how the bass sounds. I consider all of those things when I go into the studio.
I always go direct. I use either the David Gage Realist or the Kurmann that’s built into my soundpost. The Kurmann is very expensive, but it’s got a great sound in the studio. If it’s a large room, I prefer to be in some sort of booth so the bass doesn’t try to fill that space around it. In a huge room, like the ones for orchestras and film scores, the bass sound will go until it bounces off the nearest wall—and if that’s 40 feet away, by the time it gets back, there’s no sound. It’s dissipated by then. So I prefer to have a baffle in front of me to keep the sound from going so far before I hear it. Occasionally I use a microphone to take some of the edge off the pickup, depending on how my hands feel that day.
From what I have heard, I’ve been a little dismayed at how many bass players haven’t matched a pickup with their instruments. You don’t just go out and buy a pickup that works; every bass responds differently to different pickups. I’d like to see bassists invest the money to get the best sound. Same thing with amplifiers—what’s the best amp for the sound you’re looking for, or for the pickup you’re using, or for the strings you have on? It should be a real laboratory mentality, but many players just buy an amp or a pickup that somebody else uses, and they plug it in and they’re comfortable with that.
What do you think of bassists who use only a mic without a pickup?
I think they are making a mistake. They want to sound like we did in the ’50s, but I don’t know any bassist who played back then who would want to go back to that setup. They had no chance to be heard—and 50 years later, bass players who prefer that setup still can’t be heard. Once the drummer picks up some sticks, the bass player’s sound is inaudible. How can that be acceptable to him? Or to the bandleader’s manager, or to anyone who’s concerned with the group’s sound? What’s wrong with that picture?
Have you ever recorded without a pickup, or with an amplifier?
I’ve never recorded with an amplifier, and I’ve made only about four records without using a pickup. While those results were musically pleasing, the bass presence needed to be altered to ensure that it had more impact on the music.
It’s still trial and error for me. I’ve done dates where the bass sounded so boomy I had to borrow masking tape from the engineer so I could tape up one of the ƒ-holes; that way the sound wouldn’t escape so quickly and I’d be better able to control what came out. That doesn’t always work, but it worked for three days during that particular session.
On Eight Plus you play the piccolo bass. Some have said you invented that instrument.
That’s as good a way to put it as any, but I don’t think of myself as an inventor. In 1974–75 I was going to lead a two-bass group: me, another bass, piano, and drums. I was determined that if people walked into a room where we were playing, they would see me as the bandleader—and it’s difficult to get that view as a bass player. The bass player can’t possibly be the leader of this band. I needed to get out front, and to do that I needed something small enough to give me the range I needed, but big enough to still fulfill the rhythm section component if the bass player took a solo. So I met Fred Lyman, a guy who since turned out to be a very good friend, who made me a 1/2-size bass. We tuned it ADGC. It was a little bright for me, but it worked well for a while. Then about five years later I found a real 1/2-size bass, and that’s what I’ve been playing since then. I called it the piccolo bass just to distinguish it from what I’ve been playing. Subsequently, guys have played electric bass that they call piccolo bass, which is tuned differently, and they’ve taken credit for inventing it. That’s okay; I can live with that.
Do you have any electric basses?
I did, but I sold them all when they were no longer necessary—when I no longer had time to practice or work as a doubler. As the electric bass became popular and more visible in things other than rock and funk—they were using it a lot in Broadway shows, and more jazz bands were adding it to their group—frankly I wasn’t competitive, given the instrument’s new demands. I just wasn’t good enough on it, and I didn’t have the time to practice enough to become competitive. That’s kind of a harsh word, but when nine guys are vying for the same job, it’s all about who’s the best. And as those electric bass players became more prominent, it became less necessary for an upright player to double.
Why did you start playing electric in the first place?
I used to play it in Buffalo when I was playing after-hours sessions with organ players and horns. I would play electric bass from 2 in the morning to 5, and then I’d drop back in Rochester for an 8 am theory class. I made some records playing it—with McCoy Tyner, George Coleman, Freddie Hubbard, and some of my own. They were okay. But eventually I needed to gracefully step out of the scene and put in the time where I really needed it: enjoying upright.
Do you have any thoughts on contemporary electric jazz bassists?
Well, an electric bassist playing jazz parts doesn’t really work for me. The sound is not broadly percussive enough; the notes are so long it seems difficult for those guys to articulate the real pulse that an upright gives. And most of those guys play a million notes when a solo comes along. It’s like what I call the “snake in the grass”—they’re way in the background doing the bare minimum, and then when the light goes to them, they step out like they just arrived at the gig. That mentality disturbs me a little. But there are some wonderful players: I went down to hear Victor Bailey with Billy Cobham’s band the other night. Man, he sounded great. He had a good jazz concept, good pitch, a good sound, and it was just wonderful. I like Chuck Rainey, Marcus Miller, Anthony Jackson. If I had to sit down and pick records to listen to, those would be the players.
What impact did playing with Miles Davis have on your life, both professionally and personally?
Personally I treasure those relationships with Miles, George Coleman [alto sax], Wayne Shorter [tenor sax], Herbie Hancock [piano] and Tony Williams [drums]. I think each of us would have gotten to where we are now even if we hadn’t been in that band—but because we were thrown together at the same time, in the same place, we were able to get there 20 years sooner. The environment was conducive to those kinds of experiments and choices, and Miles probably could not have found four other guys who were as curious and as willing to bend some of the rules to see if it would work out, like a laboratory.
In his autobiography, Miles said he felt the closest to you personally—that he relied on you as the anchor.
I was the most responsible, I guess, of the guys. Herbie had just gotten married. Tony was not married yet and was still a single teenager. George was a little older, but he wasn’t interested in doing the business part of it. I always was. I was like, “Man, where’s the money? When are we getting paid? When does the train leave? Give me some details.” I guess Miles saw me not as just interested, but as determined as he was to see how this part of the music worked, and he trusted me to be responsible. My interests were a little more honed than the other guys’, too. I was interested in black politics, C.O.R.E, the SNCC, and all those groups that had a different view of politics than was in the newspapers.
Musically, what things did you learn while you were in the quintet?
First, that a note I play can affect everything—from the rhythm Tony would play, to the voicing Herbie would find, to whether Wayne would play a trill or jump an octave, or if Miles would lay out. All these factors depended on what I did at that point. The next thing was to convince those guys, yeah—I really meant that note. The third thing I learned was if you want to have an experimental group, you need players who know their instruments. You need musicians who understand music, from the large picture—music with a big “M.” And you need musicians who are verbal, who can explain to you what they’re trying to do. It’s one thing to hit a chord and say, “Well, man, that’s the sound I hear”—but that doesn’t tell me as a bass player what that sound represents on paper. I have to know what notes are in that sound, because I have to pick one of these notes to add to the sound or to change the sound, or maybe to completely ignore that sound. You’ve got to trust each other that you have enough music verbal skills to explain some of the problems that are taking place.
How often did you rely on these skills playing with the group?
Most nights. Wayne would play a phrase that Herbie would play in a different part of the tune, and Tony would play that phrase’s rhythm in a different part of the tune, and I would find a note to match this rhythm. And Miles would just be kind of stunned by this development taking place around him. He’d just step back and raise his eyebrows, because he couldn’t believe that this just took place. And it happened most nights, just like that.
What is the origin of the Four Generations Of Miles gigs?
A while back, Chesky Records wanted to create an audiophile-type record, but they wanted the music to be more commercial. Someone got the idea that since four of us are still around—Jimmy Cobb on drums, George Coleman on tenor sax, Max Stern on guitar, and me—we as a group could make a record. So they got a place down on 69th Street called Makur, a nice little basement room. The band sounded good for the recording session. Now we’re playing at the Blue Note, and we’re exploring our differences and seeing how soon we can find a comfortable meeting ground for everybody.
Are you listening to any other bassists these days?
Not really. I’m trying to keep my composition skills up to a level that keeps me happy, and if you focus on trying to listen to other things, that kind of gets in the way of your own thoughts.
What compositions are you working on?
The Nonet is getting some interest. Because we don’t work often, I hadn’t felt a need to upgrade the library—but I decided that’s not a productive mentality for me. And since I have a group that will rehearse for a minimum cost for me, in spite of me sometimes, I’ve been encouraged to write additional music for the Nonet. That way we will have a much broader palette of what we can do, and I get a chance to get back to writing for them, as I always hoped I would be able to do.
How important are composing skills for bass players?
The bass player tends to be the guy with the fewest lessons, whether they are on the instrument, or in composition, theory, harmony, piano. He’s kind of the guy who got pulled along on the gig because he had a car and an amp. Some players are writing interesting things, but they don’t show a real compositional knack, or a knowledge of the history. Bass players tend to write tunes rather than complete compositions; when I hear one of those, I think, Is that the kind of composition that can withstand someone else playing it, without that composer needing to be there to explain how it’s supposed to go? Unfortunately most of the songs bassists write fit only their band library, so I’m not sure if the compositions will stand much wear and tear outside their original environment.
Do your composition skills impact how you practice?
No, I still practice the same way. I had a student this morning I was telling this to: I take a scale, and it doesn’t matter which one—right now Db major is kind of winning the battle with me—and I spend an hour playing it, in one octave. I play the scale for an hour until I get it perfect, so it’s perfectly in tune, all the shifts are comfortable and smooth and even, and the sound of each note matches the sound of the notes before and after it. I’m good to go with that. Composition skills have not impacted my practicing mentality at all.
Do you practice playing tunes?
I may go through a jazz melody I heard to try to figure out what makes it work, like parsing a sentence. But when you are a jazz player, there are so many factors that go into making your personal jazz chorus complete. It’s difficult for me to understand how bassists can be productive practicing jazz by themselves. A lot of guys who do it tell me they have great results, and I trust their sense, but I can’t see it as being a replacement for playing every night at a club.