You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Ron Carter

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Peter and Adam sit down with legendary bassist, maestro Ron Carter for a special extended episode. The status of jazz education today, Mr. Carter's fashion career, his new book, how to practice and more...It's all here.Watch the expanded edition of this interview HEREGet your copy of Mr. Carter's latest book: Blueprint for the Working Jazz BassistHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Learn more about Open Studio Pro: openstudiojazz.com/proInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Yo. You look a little nervous for today's show. I'm nervous excitement is what I would call it. Why? Excited with nervous energy. What could make you nervous? Well, today we are presenting our conversation with maestro Ron Carter.

Well, no, I'm nervous. I'm Adam Ennis. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the you'll hear it podcast. Music advice, inspiration, conversation, and dope tracks. As always, coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJazz.com for all your jazz lesson needs.

Peter, today we have a very special episode because we last week interviewed one of the greatest musicians of all time. Yes. One of our favorite musicians. Yes. Someone who we've talked to before, but in a different context. And we had an amazing long conversation with the great Ron Carter. Yes. Our second.

We're not bragging. It is what it is. And we're not going to jinx it, but there might be more. That's right. And we were a little bit more at ease, which was fun. We were. We were not totally relaxed. Not totally.

Not because of Mr. Carter didn't make us feel relaxed, but it's just, I mean, it's just so much music. Yeah. You know, it's, you can't, you know, when you're in his presence, you can't stop just, for me, just a feeling of gratitude, you know, but it kind of almost like shrouds the whole conversation for the amount of notes and music and so many interesting, cool musical situations that have just, you know, enhanced and edified my life so much. It just a lot of gratitude. It was a very cool conversation. And, you know, we should, a little backstory. So Mr. Carter and actually his representation reached out to us. His people.

Reach out directly to us. To our people. Yeah, directly. We don't have people. No, directly to us and said like, hey, Mr. Carter saw Bob DeBoo, friend of the show and open studio instructor. Saw Bob DeBoo's bass player, our base guide to practice session. On the Open Studio YouTube channel. How to Walk like Ron Carter.

And Ron Carter would like to know if you would like to know exactly. how Ron Carter walks because it's Ron Carter. He's going to tell you. He's going to come on. Yeah. And we're like, yes, that's something that we'd be interested in. Yeah. That would be something you might be interested in.

Very much so, Penny. Thank you. Yes. So we are so thrilled to have that for you today. And we shouldn't, we shouldn't dilly dally too long. No, no. I'll just say this. It was a beautiful conversation insightful.

I'll remember for the rest of my life. You know, we talked about Ron Carter, the fashion icon. We didn't just talk baselines and how to play baseline. We did. but we talked about his fashion career. Yeah. You know, we talked about kind of his feelings on jazz education, the current jazz state. He's so, I mean, beyond just his incredible playing, he's such a thinker about the music, about, you know, how to practice, you know, how to play with others.

Great stuff. Well, with all that said, now we would like to present. We are proud to present the great Ron Carter. We are so pleased to be joined today again. by the amazing Mr. Ron Carter. Mr. Carter, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you. It's nice to be here and nice to talk to you. Both the guys are on one microphone.

That's right. So we're talking here today. We've been emailing back and forth, and you saw one of the videos on our channels that was done by our colleague Bob DeBoo, who's a very fine bass player in his own right. And the name of the video was Walk Like Ron Carter. And before we get into the nuts and bolts of what it must be like to walk like Ron Carter,

I'm just wondering for you, you know, you're one of a handful of musicians that if you, if you're learning the base, at some point, you have to address you, Ron Carter. And so what's it like to see now with YouTube and all of these, you know, instructional videos? They say imitation is the sincerest form of flatter. you must feel flattered all day, every day. Well, I'm pretty embarrassed. During the big pandemic, now that we're edging towards the fringes of it, I got a lot of calls from my students who were not so active.

There were no gigs. There were no in-person classes, and they had a lot of spare time to spend in front of their computers necessarily so. Yeah. And I would get these requests, did I know this record that I'm on, or did I know who was on this record that they found? on YouTube and that happened 15 and 20 times

during the course of a month, you know, and I got over being embarrassed the first 10 times saying, no, I didn't remember that. And I'm the right guy on that record, and of course they were correct, you know. So it led me to have to review some of my recorded history. And once I got over being embarrassed that I didn't remember each of those 2000

and some of my recording specifically, the ones that they picked up on, were ones that were memorable because of the ultimate the musical value on a larger scale than just a studio date I'm going home. So I've been embarrassed more than I'd like to say out loud. And fortunately, those student requests were due to email, not Zoom, so he couldn't see me scratching my head

and say, really? My New York tan turned to a nice maroon now with the blushing I've been doing with these things. It's been a very humiliating and enlightening awareness that sometimes I can't believe I'm the guy who did those things. So was this the first time in your career, your long and illustrious career and ongoing career, we should note? And I want to get a chance to talk about since last we spoke,

all the places you've been in concert, in public already, again. But is this sort of the, was this pandemic period, sort of the first period you've had? since you started to really reflect in that way and maybe see a little bit the way maybe the rest of the world, and especially other bass players and just musicians sees Ron Carter

and how to walk like Ron Carter. Yes, it's overwhelming. I'm blanketed with all these comments. I feel like I'm looking like this now, you know? Right. Yeah, it's quite an illuminating experience for me. And as they say, in old days, just keep on coming.

Yeah. So like Peter was saying, there's all these, you know, videos, how to walk like Ron Carter, baselines like Ron Carter. So in your own words, how do you do it?

I know it's a big question, but where do you begin? If you're a basest, you know. Well, you know, during this, I call it the two and a half year intermission,

we all were forced to endure. I've put together several books from a publishing company, Retract Productions. And one of the books I use in my teaching my students how to understand the, how I do what I do, and I like that kind of general, non-magic, magic terms,

I have a process that I have them go through, which has them to make baselines with a certain process. I think one of my concerns guys is that base players today don't have a plan. They get by on perspiration, they get by on youth, to get by on ink in terms of their reputation already, and they get by on what they think they're doing to make this reputation grow without having to study how it got there

and how to make it get better, despite all the other things that they're hearing about how good they play. Having said that, I explained to my students, that there's a process I call building jazz bass lines, and we go through this process, until we, I feel that they have an understanding of how it's done. That that may take anywhere from four to four to five a lesson to me for they understand what I do is based on a very simple ability

to one, just play quarter notes, to know where the notes are located on the base, to understand the form of the song, and to really know the changes. If you can do those four things with a plan in mind, you have a good chance of not necessarily walking like me, but you'd be able to walk by yourself without the training wheels. And I have a book called Blue Apprents for the Working Jazz B-B-Jasses

that's devoted and dedicated to guys and gals who want to play better than they do, but they don't have a plan. And they understand that they can't keep playing F-7 with four Fs and the B-flat-7, B-flat-7, B-flat-F, B-F-F-F-F. They understand that's no longer acceptable. Yeah. The bass is being recorded a lot better than in the 40s.

They've gotten better instruments. They've got better strings. They have better concepts around them. And those people who are not waiting for the baby pinks to get their solo spotlight, they're starting to understand how much impact their bass lines can have on the band's success musically. Yeah. Well, we have a copy of the book right here, Ron Carter's Blueprint for the Working Jazz Bases. It's fantastic.

And if you don't mind, I'd love to read the letter from you up front because there's so, there's so much in this. You mentioned those sort of four root pillars of your, I love that you said plan, because I love that idea of actually having a plan. It starts with Dear Fellow Working Basis, this book is your manual for how to take your playing to the next level and to increase the demand for your unique sound on stage and on recordings. So straight away, I love that.

this idea that you're using these very simple elements, but there's still a stress on your unique sound that people don't want to hear anybody try to sound like Ron Carter. They want to hear them. They want to hear, I want to hear you. Like, I want to hear what you have to say, you know? And I think that gets lost a little bit. This is a compilation of what I personally learned while playing on thousands of records and during decades of live performances. If you follow the instructions and practice often and with purpose, you'll be able to excel in any musical group, in any key in any tempo and with lyrics. Again, not putting any, you'll be able to sound like me.

You'll be able to have these skills. We often say around here at Open Studio that you can't information your way to being a better player. That's not what it's about, you know. And the last paragraph, I think, is the most critical. More importantly, those choices are what separate the average working bass player from the player with his or her own unique sound.

The sound people want to have on stage and on their recordings. And amen to that. I wonder if you could just talk about that, about the unique sound aspect, even from the plan from the beginning, you know. Well, I think one of the things that was interesting to me back in the day was that my influences were not bass players.

J.J. Johnson, I was fascinated by how much he played the trombone and went by the bell twice a week. I mean, he was all up all here, you know. I mean, he knew the instruments, overtone, series so well. It didn't matter where he was, he knew what the choices were, and that really appealed to me. There I spent some time working with Randy Weston's quartet in the early 60s that with Cecil Payne was being the baritone player. And his Cecil Payne came along at the time when they were searched Charlottoff in Boston. Jerry Malcolm was just getting hot again.

He had Harry Carney with Duke's band. We had all these wonderful baritone players that Seeslopin, Pepper Adams, was able to sound completely different. using the same instrument, baritone saxophone. And he couldn't explain to me how he did that. He just said that he's hearing something different from him. And with those two influences on the scene at my earlier days in New York, it gave me a good foothold,

and if I want to play this bass and get some work, what's you're going to do to set me apart from the guys who are already working. And the two things that struck my mind is I have to have a certain kind of skill, not skill level, a certain kind of skill level, which allows me to paint the notes that I think I hear that are pretty different than whatever everyone else is hearing

and what rhythms these notes work with. And too, can I have the sound I get on Monday the same as the sound I get on Saturday, whether they're a day apart or a year apart? Consistency, yeah. You know, I tell my students that when the base comes out of that case on Tuesday, you got to have the same sound you have and you put it back in there Monday night.

And they don't have a, they understand that, but they have the discipline to remember what that sounded like, it's a whole other entity to them. Now, do you see this as from when you first were coming up and on the scene in New York and working and even before then to today, have these kind of core principles, do you, are they different now for a bass player coming up that's 18, 19 years old coming to New York or anywhere in terms of getting your sound, knowing. how to interact with the drummer, these kind of things. Has he changed? None at all. Okay, good. That's what I wanted to hear. If anything that's changed, it's more important

because they have better ways to make the bass player sound than the club. He's no longer hiding behind a huge music stand like the old pictures of the Duke Gallington band, those picking up the stand. I call it hiding behind the palm tree. The guy's on the stage now, man, and the girls on the stage. People can see what it takes to make them to do what they do. And they can hear better because you've got better sound systems. The jazz clubs, the sound guy works for the whole week,

not just open the night and goes home for six nights. The venues have better keyboard, pianos, they have better microphones. So now the bass player is more called upon to be responsible and respectful to the audience that now they hear what he or she does, and they can no longer hide behind the music standers up around their nose. Right. When you're working with students one-on-one, and I know this would change, of course,

with every student individually, but say you're working with someone for the first time, what are you keying in on in that very first interaction? What are you listening for? One, do they know how to spell a chord? And two, where can they play these notes? I explain to them, if you have a first-finger F on the D-string,

what notes are around that note that require you not to move. If you have second finger A on the G string, what notes are there that allow you to stay where you are until you get tired of hearing it? You're the ultimate judge of that kind of stuff. You know, so we, for the first, these baselines, we never leave half position,

and it takes a while for them to get to be allowed to use non-core tones and rhythm based on the chord notes that they already decided. My broad concern is that once they know that there are some these beautiful notes as they call it in Cuba for the bass players to play, they're going to do all that and the chord tones will disappear. And secondly, their rhythms become so complicated that the groove is gone because their ego makes it possible

at skill level to just kind of play as vertical as possible and be very impressive. Well, that is impressive, because I'm impressive, that kind of stuff. But what happened to the changes? Is the F7, B-flat-7, Oh, but that man. Yeah, that's so interesting. You mentioned that staying in the half position,

we were just here a couple weeks ago, did a master class with great pianist Fred Hirsch. Oh, yeah, no, Fred. Great player. And he was talking about how pianists do the same thing, make it too hard on themselves, and talking about staying with your thumb in a relatively same position

and what can you get out of that? And it seems like very similar, similar concepts. So you have this great thing. Again, the book that we're talking about is Ron Carter's blueprint for the working jazz basses. We're gonna put a link here in the description of this video so that you can go pick up your copy. It's fantastic.

Whether you play the bass or not, actually, if you just are a pianist, you know, get your baselines right with these same concepts. But there's this great technique you have in here called Connecting the Dots that I think is so interesting. And you can see it here a little bit. I'll just put it up in front of the camera here, where you have those,

exactly what you're talking about, the chord tones and what they are, and you're literally like a child, you know, at a restaurant with a kid's menu connecting with the dots in a maze. But I, this is so brilliant. I would never thought visually, you can see exactly what you should, what you could be doing here. And there's so many options.

And it shows you the kind of line you make. Are you making a lot of jumps around? Are you doing a whole course without playing an octave? You know, how often are you forcing to play the same notes because you don't know what else is there without having to shift for another set of notes. It makes them think that for each bead in this measure, there are five choices, for example. You have FAC, FAC, FAC, F, F, A, for the first beat, multiply times four beats, five times, that's there 20 choices for the first measure alone, just chord tones. When we had rhythm,

you're never going to run out of stuff to play. So don't tell me you can't think anything, but you can't think anything to play because you don't know what else to play as the FAC on an A string. No, man, come on. So how does that work then, you know, going back to what we're talking about, how to walk like Ron Carter, everybody's been chasing that around. And now you see the last half year and a half. You're like, wow, everyone's talking about it. People have been talking about this for 50 years.

But now you get to see a little bit of it. But the idea of like even if somebody gets close to walking through studying your transcription, studying your concepts, but then this idea that what you're talking about connecting the dots, there's still so many different options. So maybe walking like Rod Carter is knowing that you have those different options and then being able to do the math like you just did as you go and start to see how exponential it actually is, baselines. Yeah, there are choices that we're never going to hear.

You know, my students come in with this exercise, and I'm kind of stunned that they've got this combination going to say, Jesus, what? Where was that last week when I had this day, and I couldn't think anything else to play except what I already knew how I had done? That's a great level of stuff available for the students. who are disciplined enough to not get frustrated because now they no longer will play FFC, see.

No, that's no more good. There's a movement that you see in those kind of lines. Right. And when they see what it looks like that they just drew. Yeah. Oh, gee, I thought my line had more interesting. No, it had no more interesting than the frog.

Come on. Make a better. Don't hop around like that. Right. And then how much do you find this visualization of it? How much do you find that that corresponds to an actual like killing sounding baseline. Like are there exceptions to this rule

or is it pretty much like dialed in with that? No, that's the rule. Okay. You can always know how to bend them, how you make the seventh resolve, you know, or how many octaves you use. You gotta find a sequence of a baseline. Yeah.

But these rules, man, these are rules that make the house stand. Mm. That's great. I love, so just one more thing on the connecting the dots here. There's a page in the book here. The results of,

connecting the dots are and you list three things. One, to control which drum the drummer plays, which I would never think of that. But of course that's true, that the connecting the dots exercise, what chord tones you're playing, where the base sits is naturally going to affect the drummer and they're going to make different decisions and choices. Yes. And then two, to assist the pianist in voicing their chords based on the range. And that's something that now, I don't know about you, Peter, but now I feel like tugged along at the string by the bass. Exactly. As it would be. Yeah, of course. It's something I didn't even consider.

And the number three, to affect the range of the soloists that the soloist plays based on the dynamic preference of the direction and location of the bassist non-cord, no choices. And once the bass player understands his responsibilities and the impact he has on groups, man, the harpist kind of holding back like this. Guys, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't play all you know for the first two choruses because this guy's got 45 courses left on this same tune, you know?

Right. And this footprint allows them to have these multiple choices. Yeah. Well, let's talk about groove a little bit since you just brought it up because there's so much, you know, on YouTube and all over, you know, online education, music education, about, you know, what notes do I play? That's what everybody talks about. But we like to talk about around here that that doesn't matter as much as how you play them, how they're felt, what the groove is, maintaining that, having a strong sense of rhythm and a rhythmic vocabulary. How do you address your students with rhythm and groove and things like that? Well, I try to have to understand that the first good thing

are four good quarter notes. Without that basic cloth that is hard to make a design and a pattern with the basic cloth is not stable enough. And so they ask me, how do you play rhythms against that kind of cloth? Or what's the result? So what I'll do? I'll show you what I do.

I'll put my metronome at cordonote as 92, and it's not too fast, you know, it's the kind of thing. And I'll play with this. I'll play one course for just playing quarter notes. And I'll play at the same, another course with just a little more rhythm, but still not moving around so much. Give me one minute to get out of my chair

and lose my physical comfort here. All right, please. Take your time. All right, let's take it, let's cut it and come back to it. You might have to power down. I think we're cool. I've been switching thinking we're going to use the... Can you hear that okay?

Yes. Can you hear metronome okay? Yep, yep. Okay, I'm going to play a course of just quarter notes. Blues and F. So I want them to hear what the quarter note is still going on in my head. I'm still hearing this. And I make my notes, my rhythms fit inside these four quarter notes

that I've been staying here since the guy gave the count off. One, two, three. I'm laying right in this cut. Yeah, the whole time. Yes. And that's the basis for everything, those four. Yes. You need four good quarter in those or nothing happens.

Nothing happens. That's terrific. Let me turn off my assistant. So you still practice quite a bit. You're still a daily practiser, is that right? Well, I'm good for an hour or a day. You know, when I was, before the intermission, I was playing X number of hours every day.

day, so I was on the base experimenting. Yeah. On the basis, where we do this on the job training. Well, we see how much is we working on in our conversations and our lessons. Can we apply that to the real life? Yeah. Let those opinions that are around us, the piano players voicings, the horn players playing the ninth chorus, can you maintain his interest? He just played eight courses that were not very good for you, but can you make him

want to still stay there? Yeah. The drum is getting louder. He's getting strong as a gig wears on, and he's just kind of overpowering everybody. These real-life situations give you a chance to see if you can really command their attention using the devices we have talked about during our lessons.

So let me ask you about that, just to press a little further, because it's something we talk, again, we hear from so many students about, so I'm practicing all of this material, you know, and I'm working on my sound, and then I get on the gig, and it's not happening. You know, it's not when I'm practicing.

I can't be, I get nervous or I'm not playing how I play in the practice room. I'm not as present. I'm not as communicative as I'd like to be. I'm in my head. Is there anything that you can give advice for young musicians or even seasoned musicians who might be dealing with this? Because I'm pretty sure this is a universal thing that it, no one's immune to big moments and being on the stage. And it's something that in my experience, everyone I've talked to at some point has had to deal with or or work. on their focus or concentration. Is there anything that you can give, any advice you can give to young musicians about that?

Okay, well, they have to remember when they're at home, there's no one in their way. If they can think about that, at home by themselves, they're in charge of the whole program. And their ego accepts that. But the reality is that on the bandstand, whatever number of pieces of people that are in their band, they're calling the shots.

Yeah, no, it's perfect at home. Yeah, because it's just you. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's no one playing too loud. There's no one playing sharp or flat. There's no one hitting a rim shot always on two and four. I mean, this shuffle of rhythm. You know, these factors are part of how you have to determine

how can you work within this new confine. A fellow in five people, four people, whatever they're quartet, quintet, whatever they're giving you as the input that they want to be responsible for. Can you make what you want to do equally important that they want to be responsible to what you're doing? Yeah. That means that you got to do three things.

You have to hear what they're doing. You'll be aware what's going on. Two, you have to hope that they're as advanced them rhythmically as you are. And three, you have to hope that they aren't making you play a root every downbeat for the beginning of the chorus. Yeah, yeah. If you can get those things in place, whatever you do, it may not be great, but it'll give you confidence to try it again

for the next chorus and the next course, until you find out this works for this band. Yeah. I tell my students that the first two courses of any gig other than my band, I'm gonna give him the band lead of what he wants. A lot of roots, you know, a lot of quarter notes. And if I play a B natural on the F chord for the downbeat,

if his eyebrows go like this, this. I got him. The third chorus, then, is mine. Oh, that's awesome. So you really are using those first two choruses a bit of the how do you do, get to know you, kind of a pressure test of the situation. You can tell what drum is, what bass drum is too loud,

or how bright the snare drum is, or the symbol has a lot of ring to it, or how much the piano players are using the pedal for a metronome beat with his foot, or you're using the sustain too long? staying too long or the horn player is really sharp in pitch and he keeps holding these long notes that almost a quarter tone sharp and no one is afraid to tell him he's sharp you know i mean that that's what you do probably what you do is because this guy here's an a man done on f chord

you know yeah so that everyone feels that there's something going on here other than the volume of the band that the intonation level is kind of gone sideways yeah you can help that by making sure your pitch is pretty good and that things we talk about in the My lessons after, I'll call it play a check notes available, so you can check out your pitch for every note, because that's critical. So this kind of like super advanced ear turn, I guess it would be, where you can take all that in, as you say, in the first chorus, first two choruses, possibly even the first note on a gig.

How do young players, or any players, develop this? I know, you know, in terms of what notes to play the chords, like this is going back to even talking about all the information and the tutorials on YouTube, you know, How do you use the scale or whatever? But I think that you're talking about something on a much higher level of being present and being able to hear and assimilate all this information so that you can program what you're going to play then, not based upon, oh, I want to walk this baseline that I learned.

Like how do you, how do you, and that's not even how do you walk like Ron Carter? How do you walk the first two courses like Ron Carter so you're ready to play what everybody needs to hear? How do you hear like Ron Carter? If we can get that on this video, that's going to be the big secret. So the first thing you got to do is turn the page, 8, turn the page 13 in my book. Okay. 13, okay.

Yeah, yeah. Right after connecting the dots. We're there. The first thing you've got to do is see that all those notes I'm playing in this, I have not moved at all. I'm not worried about shifting position. I'm not worried about looking fancy. I'm not worried about the TV camera catching my left hand.

I want to know these notes I'm hearing, where the fuck are they? Yeah, yeah. And if I'm going to do it two choruses to introduce myself to the band, I must play a good corner to attract their attention that I know what the beat is. I know what the forum is.

And I can clearly play these changes without having to join the Ringling Brothers High-Ly Circus to show you that I can play the bass. Yeah. So the line that you see on page 13 are the results of my connecting the dots. Wow.

And that's the half-position work, right? That's that... I haven't... That's what the big money is, man. Amen. I could tell you, I've played with quite a few bass players who shall remain nameless that have used an opposite strategy

to this, especially at the beginning of the tune, where it's like everything but this range and this kind of like logic and simplicity. Yeah, they need a medic or the nurse or a parachute to get back down from where they are, man. Right. And it's like, where do you go if you start there? Yeah, I admire that skill level because it's taken a lot of work to figure out to do that.

I think that they have a better range of the base in mind as a full range of the base rather than just the upper level of it. You'll find that more useless to make the upper level even sound higher if you have a good enough ground working for you. Now, if you hear a bass player at the beginning, you know, of a tune or something, do the opposite of this and get no high and, you know, different rhythms and stuff, is that, are you kind of immediately like, oh, yeah, this thing could be happening? or does it ever, is there ever a way to, it's done, it's over? If he does that, he doesn't really know the changes. Yeah. And doesn't really know the form. So he's kind of hoping that someone plays enough downbeats for him

or enough melody for the second chorus. Yeah. To kind of save his ass, or her, so to speak, you know? Yeah. Kind of say of them not knowing how to get down from up here. Yeah. Because no one's, me, the piano player is going to stop coughing every now and then. And the drummer, he's just playing time with no real form necessarily in mind.

The horn player is going to play what he's going to play. He may be based on fourths or ultimate changes. He's going to play some notes that go over the bar line. Or he may play three against four. There's no one going to be responsible for what to tune except you, young person. Your job is you want to really start to be an integral part of the van and been able to command their attention. You've got to show them what you really know to do for their sake.

It seems to the third course and you're still higher, then you're on, you got them. You're on the right track. Well, it seems too that with this half position, you know, you have the F blues in the half position, and it's sort of what you're saying is it goes hand in hand with those first two choruses of listening and, and again, pressure testing, what is going on here, who's doing what,

where am I fitting into this? And you can't do that if you're doing acrobatics right out of the gate. It's a little complicated, but again, to the point is, what that leads to, Peter, is that the band leaders, they start thinking, whose band is this? And that can't be productive for the rest of the night.

I hear the band leaders say to me, a maestro, I did this gig with this young man and he stayed above G for the first eight and nine cordial every tune. Well, he wants the audience to be in seeing, him and hearing him, he's not concerned with his job, just to make you sound good. Right now, his job is he'll get the most attention fastest. And he's playing all the notes, and he's got the, maybe the loudest sounding band with the amp and stuff. He or she, they want their share of attention before they've earned it. Yeah. Okay, I want to, if it's okay,

just jump to a little bit off subject of bass lines, but it's something I've always wanted to ask you. So I feel like, I don't know, this will either be a really interesting place or it'll be like, oops, Zoom is done. Wait at Mr. Carter go. But since you were mentioning about, you know, having this opportunity during the pandemic period to be able to kind of dive in and see a side that, oddly enough, all of us have been seeing and talking about, and especially bass players, but really all musicians for years, there's two other areas that I always thought were interesting for you besides obviously baselines.

one is you are one of the most photographed jazz musicians of all time and by that I mean one of the most really well photographed and photogenic musicians of all time I mean I remember the first some examples going right up oh yeah we have a few examples going back here that we just do together but I mean is that did you realize that or is that kind of like this everyone's talking about Ron Carter's bass lines and you didn't know that that was happening well I'm I well let me let me Let me go back. Is this a black and white movie? We're in color here.

Yeah, it's color. We can go back to black and white, though. You guys are. Okay. The tent has just changed from a nice medium brown to a nice maroon because I'm seeing these images behind you. And I've seen some of them before. I think one of the things, as I have asked occasionally

when I got the nerve to ask a guy, why are you doing that? He said, you make it look so effortless. I never see you it appears to me exerting yourself past the point of almost of sheer exhaustion

and it's just the first couple of choruses Right and I think that how do you do that look that they think is okay to film, the photograph is one of the reasons why I remember some of those iconic pictures

of a bass player I think guys I think one of the things that attracts people to me is the sound that they heard on records. And I've been able to, despite everything else, and by then I mean,

just check this out. If I play a note in March in the studio, it gets to your house maybe a year later, okay? But in this process, there are five people who think they know what the bass sounds like. That's true. engineer, the producer, the band leader, the mixer,

the guy who mixed the master. They all have these little dials in front of them about the bass presence. And in the old days, when you had LPs, you could see the widest bands on the record were where the bass was the loudest. It took up the most space. So I think now when they come to where I'm working,

They're used to hearing that sound live that they heard on the radio on their neighbor's record or in their car. I think it's that which enhances my... what draws them to gigs I play because I want to see this guy, is he really doing that what I heard on the radio? Is he really playing like that live?

This is already the second set. Right. And I think it's those kind of things that draws them to... to me. Yeah. And my visual image, you know. But as you'll see from some of these, like, okay, like that one right there, you're not

even holding the base and you're looking good. You're looking like a model. So there's that, there is another thing. Like it definitely, I believe it comes, you have a natural talent and ability in modeling, maybe ahead of your time even. You're heard of here first. You're heard of here first, you know, it's not just the baseline. I know you were talent scouts.

Peter. No, but it's true. I mean, the ones with the bass, of course, because I think that, you know, like with all great jazz photography, and I'm super interested in jazz photography, but it's like, I'm like, you see this, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, Ron Carter, like the sound floods into our, into our brains as we're looking at. There's that. But then when it's just you holding it, it's like, yeah, just your notes floods in. But when you have the bass now, it's like, wow, that's just a cool guy there hanging out by bass. I wonder if he plays it or not. I don't know. He's looking good there anyway. Give me two points on looks. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because I remember the very first time I went to Japan in 1994, I was with Roy Hargrove. And I'm like, you know, and you probably remember the first time you went to Japan. It's like, I mean, it's beyond. I'm in a foreign land.

I'm like, I'm on Mars or something. But I remember walking and there was a billboard of you for an advertisement. And I had to do a double take. I'm like, that's Ron Carter. And, but you did have a base. But it was really, I mean, it wasn't just about. like the baby it was like a beautiful black and white was it that uh alcohol or or cigar uh uh i know it was something adult yeah you're uh santori son tori right right yeah you were like a head of bill

murray you're like suntory times before bill murray was you know yes i'm not sure he recognizes that but it's like i mean it was like a just striking photography and like set in japan it was night and i was like jet lag but i felt like i'd gone to like mars but heaven also. I was like, what? In heaven, Ron Carter is on every corner. It's not just on my albums. He's everywhere. I think it should be noted, too, that when you ask him how he photographed so well, he brought it back to the practice room. That's true. That's true. Japan was one of the few countries that sees jazz musicians as viable models for a product. In the States, they find an actor who looks great, but he holds the base or the,

the saxophone upside down or backwards. For them, it's not so critical as it is to product he or she is pushing. In Japan, they wanted people to see not only is this product okay, but the guy looking who's holding the coffee cup. I did a Tullies, which is like the Japanese version of Starbucks.

Yeah, yeah. And the coffee shop, you know, and I'm playing on the background and a small coffee shop I think. For them that I'm playing at this coffee shop. Yeah. Thing, a real base with some real serious intent. Yeah.

The coffee must be as good as I am. Yeah. I mean, I look as good as I do right then, but it must be okay. Absolutely. Well, I mean, they just, yeah, they care about the quality. I think even for, even though they know a lot of the people don't know exactly that you're holding the base exactly correctly in your hand position, but they care about quality so much.

So it doesn't matter because someone is going to know and it's going to resonate with them. And they're right because that's what happened. Yeah. Totally. Who do no responded to that, you know. Yeah. I did a vitamin ad. You know, I did a life insurance ad, you know, because that look that I bring to the product gives their products a little more pernash, a little more legitimacy.

Yeah. They have the records that I'm on. And I'm not fooling around on it. I'm serious. There's a heart attack on the record. I'm trying to find the best note for these guys like I do. they're the last guys. That's right.

That's right. I'm telling you, I think we've, Adam, we've hit on it. The next video is not going to be, we can give up on how to walk like Ron. It's going to be how to model like Ron Carter. That's going to be a hit.

Come on. You call me, I get some clothes to wear. There we go. See, that's just how, like, high-end models do. They try to be like,

oh, it's the clothes. Like, they're real self-effect. It's not me. It's the clothes. Well, one more question I had for you, and I'm sure you get asked this all the time. But, you know, you mentioned one in the cent,

when you were younger wanting to sound like, I think he said, JJ Johnson, is that he used? He influenced me, his skill level was so above what Turnbullian players were doing at that time. Yeah. Who do you, when someone asked you for an album recommendation or musicians that you come back to

again and again, who are you still listening to? Who are your influences even to this day? What are some albums that you would recommend to students or potential students? Listen to us on Oscar Pettifred. He was one of the few guys, guys who really wrote perfectly for the instrument. All his melodies, man, swinging through the girls come home,

lues in the closet. All those songs are the tricketism. Of all courses, of all things, D flat for crying out loud. Come on, Oscar. They were perfect for the bass. You need transpose them to see to make it easier. When you did that, they came more difficult. You understood where to find the notes

without jumping around as best he could given the 40s and 50s. Yeah. You know? I recommend that they listen to Amma Jammal's, but not for me with Israel Crosby. Oh, yeah. His baseline and the melodies, the melodies that Ahmed left space for him to play, it proceeded to Gary Peacock and the Scott LeFarrell lack of time necessarily a 404 kind of beat. He played in tune.

He played maybe only three harmonic Gs for a whole record up top there because he closed the notes. Yeah. He was like five foot five, five foot six, a short guy playing an American standard. He bought the bass to be forefront in the trio where he was not the forefront. He had a wonderful sound, had great pitch,

and when you heard the record, you know, oh, that's the same guy from Mamma Jum. the same guy from Mama Jamah's record. And just a wonderful. And I think the last record I would recommend to a beginning bass play would be my record of Brandenburg number three. Where I do the Brandenburg third,

but I've rewritten, I have written a bass part to accompany box number three. And I've written some changes. I've added some bars for some solos, but I'm still come back in my end of the soul. I come back to the part that all the bass players and cellos and the orchestra are playing. I'm doubling the line on the way down,

so I'm not just skips, skating on top and stopping. I feel like, I'm not going to plan. Yeah, that word again. Comes back. My plan must stop here so I can play the last four bars that the bass players are playing, that the cellos and the bass players are playing

in this part of this piece. I would like to hear that so they understand how much control I'm exerting and adding this solo on top of a famous piece that always ends correctly. And it had a great sound that the bass was playing by itself. You know those days when the bass just kind of takes over. I say, well, here it is, guys.

Bam, take that. And it's a great feeling to know that they captured that day. Yeah. Great stuff. Thank you so much for this for another conversation. and I'm already looking forward to the next one, and I figure this will be a great opportunity to get you on video, on tape,

hopefully to agree to talk some more if you're up for it. I know your schedule's gotten a little bit busier with back touring and stuff. And aren't you doing the Vanguard next week or the week after? Week after. Week after, yeah. Yeah. It's coming on to come down and see what I've discovered

in two and a half months, two and a half years off, you know? Right, right. I'm remembering a long sleeve certain about it. I have some ticks up my sleeves. Yeah, yeah. If you hear them come out. If anybody's in the New York City metropolitan area, you do not want to miss that. Yeah, and we'll link below to that too, because I know the Vanguard is back open and doing great,

but there's a little bit limited seating, so you're going to want to jump on that, like, right away, as they say. So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you very much, Mr. Carter. Nice to see you guys again. You know, next time we do this, what we can do is we can, I can give you or we can give me some baselines and half position. And I'll play them for you.

I'll show you how to take those same bass lines, add rhythm to those same notes so they feel completely different when I've added the rhythm to them. Oh, that would be fantastic. Awesome. You've got some homework. Yeah. We've got some homework and folks will have something to look forward to also and to practice.

It's going to be fun to see how I treat the baselines that you guys conceive as being great quarter notes and what would I do with them if I played those order of notes. Yeah. All right. We're going to have Rachel set that up right now. Thank you so much. Only in half position, though. Only half position. Good.

Yeah. Well, we're piano players. That's all we do. Another half-line stuff.