You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Ron Carter on Bass Lines, Miles, and More (A Conversation)

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

It's all about that bass today as Peter and Adam talk to one of the most prolific jazz bassists of all time, Maestro Ron Carter.Links from this episode:Check out Ron Carter's book Chartography - Reinvented TranscriptionsStop by Ron Carter's official YouTube channel herePrefer your podcasts in video form? Watch the YouTube version of this episode hereHave a question? Leave us a SpeakPipeWatch Live: YHI LIVE Mondays at 4pm ET on YouTubeWant more of Adam and Peter? Check out Open Studio Pro hereSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Interested 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 Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. You know what today is. Oh, I know what today is. Do you know what today is? It's a very special day. I know. I know, too, because we were both just there together.

But the folks don't know yet, so roll it. I know. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at Podcast. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Peter. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast.

Peter Martin. Oh, I'm sorry. I was music advice coming at you. I'm sorry. I was up in the clouds still. What are you doing up in the clouds? It's up on cloud nine with my new friend. Oh, that's right.

My new BFF. Do you want to tell the people who our new friend is here on the podcast? Well, it's probably listed all the title and plastered all over this, but we just had the pleasure and the honor of a conversation in erstwhile interview, if you will, with none other than the fantabulous Mr. Ron Carter. The great Ron Carter, perhaps the greatest. You know what? We talk about lionizing and using the word great too much in jazz. No, we just use it too often. This is a time when it is applicable.

Totally is. Due to notes played and work done. That's right. Yeah, it was really incredible. I'll set up here how this happened because it's really, it's kind of interesting. So we did a podcast episode a few weeks back where. Award-winning podcast. No one gives us awards, Peter.

Self-awarded. Yeah, exactly. No, so it was called Seven Iconic Baselines and Why You Should Know Them. It was really a podcast. These are by far, you know, seven of the most classic. iconic baselines. You could think of two of them, of those of seven, were played by Ron Carter. Totally coincidental.

This was not a Ron Carter episode. Well, today is, but that was... Not coincidental. There's two because he's that good, and he's part of these iconic recordings. Exactly. And he's been at the forefront and just integral to so many different parts of the jazz world and recorded legacy that it would make sense. But it was, like, if we had been doing this politically correct, it would have been like one per basis.

But that's not what happened. No, no, no, no. And so, you know, we don't really think much about this stuff when we do it. Oh, we are deep thinkers. No, but we're not really thinking many people are paying attention. But lo and behold, the very next day, we get a message from Ron Carter himself saying that he wants to talk to us about the episode and about the baselines. And so we had a really nice Zoom call with Mr. Carter really long, too. He was so generous with his time. Like, you're talking about baselines.

And we eventually got to his thoughts on base transcription. Yes. And he pointed us to this book that he just released called Chartography, which is his take on base transcriptions. He had some... Look at the size of this thing, first of all. It's beautiful, actually. Like, you're coming strong when you're coming with, like, score size here. There better be some good information.

And there is. So, yeah, so we talk about his book. His book is five transcriptions of him playing Autumn Lees from 1963 to 1967 with the Miles Davis Quintet. Ever heard of them? Yeah, and they're beautifully transcribed, and it's not just the transcriptions. We go into what's so cool about this book. Really, everybody should get this. It's really fascinating.

It's fascinating to hear him talk about it. We'll have a link here for the book chartography you can get in the description. We also talk to him about playing the electric. We talk about his YouTube channel, about being in that rhythm section. Playing with, recording with Roberta Flack and her piano playing, Shirley Horn. Music education and all this great stuff is a really, really fun and an honor to talk to the great Ron Carter. Absolutely. So now we present you, dear listeners, with an interview, no, a conversation with Adam, Peter, and Sir Ron Carter. Mr. Carter, thank you so much for being here with us today. So we set this up already. We'll have set this up with a nice pre-recorded intro.

But it was pretty amazing for us to hear from you after we did this episode on baselines. And you represented two of the seven iconic baselines that we were talking about. And then to have a discussion with you a couple days later about how you came about them. And then that kind of morphed into what we'd like to talk about today, which is how you think about and teach base transcription, which is I've never heard anybody talk about it in the way that you have it presented here in your book chartography. And so I wonder if we could just kind of get into that. You have this amazing book of five different versions of live recordings of you playing Autumn Leaves. And I've never seen anything quite like it the way that you've transcribed them and then broken them down with the context. Can you describe how this book came about?

Well, you know, I've never been a fan of transcriptions on any instrument. I thought that there was kind of a limited point of view of that artist's ability to do whatever the transcriber thought was really hip, you know. Secondly, I thought that while I'm some of the people, one of the person who has been transcribed baselines where kids to learn, I felt that the transcriber didn't understand the significance of that baseline they transcribed. and because they weren't there at the time of their bass line's actual performance, they couldn't tell the kid the bass player male and female what their line was all about

other than this one transcribed chorus. My general view of that kind of transcription has limited value for the following reasons. We don't know whether that was a complete line. We don't know whether it was edited. We don't know whether it was the third track of a long five recording, five day, days. We don't know, was it the best course of the night.

We don't know what led up to these note choices. We don't know whether the base, in this case, was able to use this information that was transcribed anywhere else in his life or the next night or next gig. We don't know whether he would even remember what those choices were to be able to find a value. And I've kind of thought that base teachers

who use transcriptions as a guide for bass players to learn how to play a baseline, take the risk of that baseline being in the wrong key, and the bass player who learns it never plays in D-flat for that whole week because this line he learned is in D-flat. Having said that, they don't know what the drummer responded when they heard this baseline. What's the piano player at Comping? Did it make the trumpet player raise his eyebrows

because he didn't want to know where these notes coming from? All those factors. So I said, look, I said, enough of this kind. Let me just find a way to help these people who think transcriptions are the cat's meow. I want to show them the cat. So my friend David, David Barron and Booth's Mouse, we sit on and figure out this process. So we transcribed the idea of guys was to show Peter and Adam was to show a bass line's development over a whole, over a song, over, five different performances.

So they could see my choice for the first performance of autumn leaves and how it's evolved for the next four performances with the same band or the same song. And I thought that with this kind of environment, the same band, the same musicians, the same handicaps, different bass, different drums, different piano every night, walking in with no sound check or a sound check. These circumstances would be ideal to use this platform

as an example so the bass teachers and bass players can see how a line I played in April, for example, of 1963, whatever it was, could last as I'd remember, as I evolved, how my lines play, how he remembered certain things of this initial performance, how I'd found more useless for these devices spread out of a period of time and how he developed these things

and how the band responded to my developing these ideas. Herbie Handclocked Piano, Tony Williams' drums, and of course Miles. And it was nice to see them waiting for me to make a decision. I think it's so interesting that you've documented and making the connection between playing over the same tune over several different gigs, as opposed to, I think, the way most bass players and really just jazz musicians in general would look at a transcription where it's all about that solo or that chorus or that tune. So was that something that you kind of wanted to correct or did that? to kind of evolve out of your concept on how you could present something like this.

Well, my concept was, me, Herbie, and Tony got to a certain place in our musical group career by being able to develop ideas from night to night. We had a very limited library. We used the same miles, 50 miles first quintet library, basically. And the recordings we made, we seldom played those records, those tunes on the gigs. what we were forced to do as long as we stayed together was to take this material that we've had all blues, all the...

saw by starlight. So what? Take this material and use, do new things with them not just to make the song stay fresh, but what else can this song offer us to do that maintains this envelope that we are in? Envelope being a 32 bar song for it or 1616 or

or gingerbread boy, whatever song form we were dealing with, that's our envelope. Can we make this envelope have so many good things in the set? All we have to do is change in manuscript paper, not the envelope itself. So having felt this way with these four guys, three guys, who were as curious about harmony and rhythm as I was, that we understood that we were looking for something valuable to do and not knowing what until we got to the side of the water and took this little tray and started shifting the sand.

You get these things in there called Nuggets or new court regressions would show up and say, hey, man, we've got something here. Yeah, but tomorrow night's another night. Let's try it tomorrow. No, no, right now. Here we go. And so my initiative to do this was to show transcribers that the one course is not enough information for anyone to get better once you understand how to play this note. The other thing, guys, is that baselines require some skill level.

and I think one of my concerns, and I'm based stepping on some feet gently, I'm not sure a bass line, jazz-based teachers show the kids how important skill level is. They will say transpose this line through the keys. Well, I'm not sure a lot of guys have the skill level, including yours truly, to take a line I play in the key of F and play it in B-flat, then E-flat, then A-flat, then D.

Really? You think that's the solution? No, man. The solution is how do you build that line? What's the format? What process? What's the basement, literally, that makes this line work? So the results of those thoughts culminated in this process here, the book that you have on your desk of how I decided to make transcriptions really do what I thought the student who reads it and the teacher who teaches it.

We get the maximum idea of how I and the rhythm section, piano and drums and the trumpet, I allowed themselves to go on my carpet night in and night out with the same changes we started out with and say,

what's he got next? I say, well, tonight's a different theory class. Here we go. It's incredible. And not only do you get to see you

playing the same tune with the same band over the course of, I think it's four years that these five performances take place over, but there's,

and we'll have a link, by the way, to chartography here that you can pick one up for yourself. And I can't recommend, meant enough. It's really an amazing piece of work here. But one of the coolest parts about it is you have all of these, you have all of these symbols that run through every transcription that kind of tie

where you can see where, like, how you are evolving through the band. These like recurring materials of three over four rhythmic ideas where they're pointed out in each transcription, alternate harmony and you can literally see how you're, you're messing with the harmony as the years past is really very cool. It's almost like an anthropological. It is. Examination over the time of how this evolved. Too many letters. I was wondering, like you were saying about, you know, pianists and drummer, and, you know, in this case, you know, Herbie and Tony and Miles, how they responded off of, as you say, the carpet that you were laying.

I think for bass players digging into this, it may be a little bit more obvious, like, what. you can get out of these transcriptions because just learning them, playing them, listening to them in context. And this is so cool how you have the QR code to be able to, which kind of pushes you right from the page directly to the context of the, in several cases, video performances, which is super exciting. Yeah, Peter got jealous when he saw that camera. I was like, what? I was, I was, I always hated QR codes because they usually lead to some stupid coupon, but this is a hip QR code. He was like, why didn't we think of that? Yeah. But I was just wondering, like, what do you recommend, say, for a pianist to be able to, you know, learn from this

and to be able to understand how to interact with bass players, how to take a creative bass player's ideas and lay something on top of that. How would they approach this? I think the first thing I have to do is know what autumn leaves sounds like without our alterations. That's why the first page of the,

where you find the chart, the key, on the second page of the piece, there's a least sheet of the original autumn. leaves changes. They have to understand where we started. And until they can understand what the changes to autumn leaves are, it's hard to find out how

we ended up right, how we ended up there after planning the autumn leaves as bare as the lead sheet leads you to think it is. The second thing they need to do is have some understanding of that my notes, the bass player in this case, my notes are not

always going to be the roots. And don't think that because I don't play the root on the downbeat. I don't know who I am. I personally right now, just me. So they have to understand that my downbeat will tell you where the tune is based on two measures before that.

They'll lead me to play the downbeat that's the correct following note that may not be the root of the chord, but as I'm resolving this baseline, that non-root downbeat is the perfect note. And Herbie, Tony, and Miles are understood that. I used to tell those guys,

if you want some roots, man, there's a farmer's market about four blocks away. You got all the roots you want. You go AAA, man. Got a lot of roots there too. So I'd love to hear. Like, how much were you guys actually actively

talking about these types of things at that time? Were these kinds of discussions? No. Yeah, okay, that's what I figured. Actually, you know, we didn't know what to discuss. We were just, we were in the moments, plural. Mm-hmm. You know?

Then they may talk about a rhythm. They played that was kind of feeling nice, but after the gig, we kind of gone in all ways. seldom hung out after the gig. We live in different, in New York. We've got our own apartments and families and stuff like that. On the road, we have our friends, relatives.

So there was really not the kind of hangout band people would imagine this group who plays like this would have to have to play like this. You know, we had common interest, of course. One of the things I enjoy doing was work with somebody else and bringing that stuff that I learned with Michelle Legrand or Bobby Timman. or whoever's around.

What I learned, those guys, they're playing it to the Miles Davis band and see how much of that worked outside of the environment where I first heard it. Tony was working with all with Rift Bia, the studio, avant-garde studio downtown.

Herbie was doing his record with Blue Notes. So we all came to a different space every time the band worked because we had outside of other experiences. I think we look forward to see what kind of stool we learned at this other gig will fit into this Miles Davis quartet quartet pot. Right.

We never, one of the reasons to listen carefully, sometimes the band doesn't always hit together. We never knew when the downbeat was. We'd come off the airport right to the bandstand sometimes. And I was to go through to do, and we know where it was, but I picked up the bass. It was too short. I'm trying to get the endpen on plenty of time.

Da-da-da-da-da. Base comes in now. We were scrambling for our lives, you know. Wow. And Tony is still fixing the drum to the right height, and the syndrome was on the wrong side. We're actually setting up the next course of the first chorus of Autumn Leaf. So some of those performances, when we're not all playing,

it's not that we weren't all there. We're trying to find the stuff to play on, you know. Microphones are in the wrong way. It's just stuff. But I think that set up excitement to see if we're going to get ready to play was all a part of the excitement of playing this music. And I think we didn't know what to expect until the first course went down.

And I said by the time they felt how I, the time they realized how I felt about it, that was kind of a measuring stick for that concert. My hands felt great. The bass was the right height. It wasn't too short. Okay, I can do this on this base tonight. So tonight you guys are going to hear this

because it allows this kind of notes from me. And because we were thinking so quickly, and so in the moment conversation, I'm not sure how much we could talk about because we didn't know what had happened until the record came out to plug nickel, really, you know. My funny Valentine from Lincoln Center, for one more.

I think personally, I wasn't aware of what we were what we were, how we had advanced, and used that word carefully, music, because I never heard the records we had played. I didn't sit down and say, man, we did this, you know? I didn't do that man until 25 years later. I said, wow, we did this. What's wrong with those guys?

Just this guy with the beat and just planned the third and the downbeat, the two and five, and the flat five and the third and the third. What? And everybody said, yeah, man, yeah, man. Yeah. In retrospect, I'm sure I'm laughing out loud, but boy, I'm, I'm, I'm,

I was just so stunned to hear that we had done that stuff, man. You know, and there was all without any kind of conversation. There was no, there was no manuscript paper, no one was taking notes, no one was transcribing what we just played. It was just an amazing event that we were throwing in together and loving this mystery every night. I think as fans, we all appreciate that, you know, that brilliance, that exploratory brilliance that you brought to that band

specifically during that time seemed magical. I wanted to ask one question before he moved on about the change. Now, you're not saying that when you joined the band, Miles handed you, the autumn leaves changes and we're like, here you go, now create something great over that. I'm pretty sure

that didn't happen, right? No, he said, Autumn leaves. Oh, man. He may not say that he may play the first four bars when we recognize the tune, you know? Wow. Yeah. We never had, if we had, then that's five and a half years maybe two things that might go under the description of rehearsal. The first one when we first joined the band went to Miles Davis's basement with

studio set up and me and Herbie and Tony played and Miles went upstairs to do something else we kind of on our own in the basement you know and then the next rehearsal may have been when he went to the George Benson Electric kind of record's concept you know but we never rehearsed the music we never sat down and figured out what had taken place we never said well remember that third chord you did it again. Yeah, man, well, don't do it again. We never had those kind of conversations. It was just, wow, what kind of tie we were in tonight, you know? How's the feeling here? What's the temple here? We never know those things until the downbeat, man. Do you think that that not having

those conversations, do you think it gave the music some sense of adventure some, you know, it gave it that, right? Yeah, we trusted ourselves to remember important events on our own and results we hope to make happen the next night. I was aware of not playing the downbeat on that quarter on that autumn leaves. I was aware of not playing the C on the downbeat for autumn leaves. I was aware of playing E-flat for the first note. Can I make my line for bars, the last two bars of tune, make that E-flat the normal note there?

And the more I understood that and was able to make that logically work, the band understood, well, he's playing these notes, notes, or the notes to be right, it must be the top of the tune E-flat. Yeah, guys. I don't know where you are, man, but this is the top of the tune for me, and it's the second bar, you know.

And they are just still where I was, and I think maybe I was wrong, maybe once out of five years. I didn't see any of these. I can tell you that. That must not have made it into a book. I can tell you where it is. Now, do you-

No one's fired me, so I figured I was okay. Right. Well, I mean, I can tell you for somebody that that feels like so intimately connected to these records, I can tell you my funny Valentine, you know, certainly live at Berlin, plug nickel. The one we were talking about live in Europe, which is at the Antib Jazz Festival on the beach there in France. Like there was because I was at such a formative yet ignorant age when I was listening to those records, you know, but I connected so much and hearing you now like with that excitement. Like that came through the recordings. Forget about it. I didn't have video. or YouTube or anything. I just had the LP of you guys playing and listening to it over and over again because I didn't have a lot of records. But I can tell you like that, the My Funny Valentine recording,

like knowing, you know, hearing you breathe before you come in for a certain note and waiting and all those kind of things, that edge comes through totally. I didn't realize it at the time, but hearing you describe it now, that excitement. And I'm just wondering because sometimes this is revisionist history,

but a lot of folks have kind of applied a level of genius to Miles Davis that he somehow magically set you guys up to be off kilter and maybe putting you in the basement or whatever. You hear all these stories. And then after somebody passes away, of course, they really become legendary. But would you attribute, like, did he plan out a situation

for things to not be kind of settled and to trust you guys to come up with something? Or is that just incidental? I think my story, part of that is people ask me that when I was talk to me about playing. And I say, well, One night we were doing a concert somewhere, and the song was Autumn Leaves, you know. And I'm playing what I think I hear is going to work.

And Miles plays the first solo, of course. And after he's solo, he generally walks back, station, listen to the band, you know. Well, this particular night, the last chord of the tune as the G minor going back to the top. We agree with that? Mm-hmm. Okay, well, I built my line, so I'm playing that B natural. For the G-minor, G-cord, make the G-minor, and the next chord is a B-flat, which is the seventh of C-Mine,

which is seven in the base. And I'm going to the second bar, and somebody tugs on my coat. Miles is about 5-11, and I'm 6'4, and this guy's stuck on my jacket, literally pulling my coat. I'm trying to keep playing, and I'm trying to bend down, and he's saying,

what's that note? I'm saying, that's to be a natural. It's a G7 with being the bass, the 7th, it's going to the B-flat the C-minor. I can't talk to you anymore, so don't talk while I'm time to play. And I couldn't talk to the time about this happened.

And all this stuff would go fast and he just wants me to give him a theory lesson verbally. I'd fall over bringing down to talk to him, you know? So having given that example, he never told us anything about how to play the music. He would present the song,

and we were kind of on our own. And we didn't think in them, we didn't think it was unusual. I mean, we had been with band leaders who gave you advice and gave you the downbeat and you got on you unless you got a specific part that they lay out for you, You know, even though the rehearsals, when they were rehearsals with bands,

they all had a lead sheet or a concept they would talk to before. You know, well, this band, the concept was me, Herbie, Wayne, and Tony. George. Miles was the band. He would say, two, three, four, da-da-da, da-da, down. We're off to the races. Awesome. And we won every race.

We won every race. So we, as we were setting up here, we were listening to, some Gil Scott Haran, some Freddie Hubbard. And I wanted to ask you about the electric. I think I know what the answer would be, but what is it that, is there anything that changes? You're as accomplished on the electric base as you are on the acoustic.

What changes in your mind when you switch that instrument, if anything? The sound doesn't have the force of an upright note. You know, that's the kind of a question I'm asked often, and I don't hate to beat this answer. But when I finish playing with a guy, I want him to feel the tire marks on his back. And with Upright, I can really do that. I missed that, that impactfulness of what I think the jazz baseline needs to have.

And this, Bob Kenshaw played it great. Monk Montgomery, there are guys who really played electric bass upright, electric bass lines. I just missed the power of unable to have a guy walk after bands. And see those tire tracks up a B-flat 7 of his back. I mean, I'm thinking about like... That's not the answer I was expecting, by the way, but it's way better. Yeah, that's great.

I mean, I'm just thinking now, like, trying times with Roberta Flack, if that had been on electric. I mean, I'm not saying that you left anything on her back or anything of the tire track, but I'm saying it would have been very different, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, compared to what?

That's a stripped and upright kind of sound. Mm-hmm. You know? I play with shrug your horns. that requires a certain kind of sound so that kind of voice, that kind of voice harmony for me. Right.

Her electric bass player, Charles, I mean, he was a wonderful player. Yeah. And I loved hearing them play. I just thought that upright sound for what I'm looking forward to play with groups who trust my judgment,

my no choices, and my presence, that what I can leave with them on an upright bass is something that I can stand back by and say, I did the best that good, and that there you have it. Were there ever situations,

where you were really hearing it on acoustic and the band leader or recording where it's like, nah, this is going to be electric? Or was that generally left into your hands? Left into my hands. They trusted my judgment. And those people who called me for their projects with understanding that I could be of some kind of input,

they kind of trusted my judgment. Now walking with the upright, you know. Because I would bring my sound to the record day, to the studio. And I had talked enough engineers who knew how best to get my sound from the bass on the disc with the consistency that I was happy with. It was difficult for the guys who thought maybe electric is a better instrument. They would change their view because of the presence of the upright sound. Yeah, and I mean, you know, I know a lot of bass players geek out and talk about, you know,

different recordings, different lines that you've done in all the different genres and electric acoustic, but I would just recommend any bass players that are listening. One lens to look at this is the autumn leaves live versions with, of course, Miles Davis Quintet, and then

that Roberta Flack try in times, because I think it's such a great kind of antidote. I mean, they're both just Ron Carter. Undeniable, you can hear that. But to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, because I wasn't at either nor was I playing. I'm like a fan. I'm like the fan in the audience saying, look, that's what's

happened. If I was there, that's what I would have done. But I mean, I think that it's like, you know, beyond laying the bass, but just this very complimentary duet that you did with Roberta Flack with that line. I think that that really needs to be up there as one of the iconic Ron Carter bass lines. Well, she was such a fantastic piano player. Absolutely. I mean, she knew what sounds she needed. And she knew what chord voicing would best fit her range and the lyric. Yes, yes.

And my job was found a space between her clear talents, to have one note to be the glue of tying the less stuff together, the good keyboard voicing and her lyrics. And she trusted my placement of my notes that she would be amazed that I found the right space to make her lyric do something. that the wrong lot in the wrong time would not allow. You know? And my job, guys, is to make, to play what I think the band leader wants to need

to make him or her comfortable, not with me being there, but with my note choices. And with the sound I bring to their voice in her case. She has a great voice, man. Oh, incredible. And she gets a wonderful sound that Blossom Derry, a completely different voice, but her voice, her piano skills are just,

Carmen McCray, man, her piano skills. Yes. Allow a bass player to be a bass player for an ensemble, not necessarily for a singer. Right. You know, they have their own needs. You've got lyrics, they've got dynamics, they got pitch.

Shirley Horn. Piano playing. She's great, man. I love playing with her, man, you know? Yeah. She had arrangements. Yeah. She had a concept.

Mm-hmm. And she knew how long to make the tune last. Despite rumors to the contrary, she had great time. Oh, I, well, absolutely. One beat today and the end is coming tomorrow. She's going to be it on Wednesday. And here's the third beat on Friday. Yeah, she knew it was in the right place, man.

Yeah. All I had to do is hang on to that guy, that guess right. So here comes two, whether you're liking or not. That's right. Mr. Carter, I wonder if you could talk, this is going out on our YouTube channel. I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit and tell the people about your YouTube channel. You're doing some really interesting things over there. You've been doing these interviews with folks like Pat Mathini and Herbie Hancock,

where you're asking them questions. Yeah. You know, I've been curious about people who are really, I said, really my dear friends who will answer a question that I asked them because of our friendships. you know and so I have posed four questions to Pat and and herbie about two out of five the first thing I asked him is what is the first thing you do when you can go back to your gig I've been off for in my case almost 15 months I don't know what I want to do

but what about you you're active you got a long left long live live to career. You're a fantastic player. You got family. You have to play in the end almost 15 weeks, sucker. What are you going to do when you can have to work?

Right. And they told me, you know. I love how Herbie kind of started like, I think he thought you meant like, what are you going to do on that day? He's like, well, I'm going to chant first. I think you were asking about, like, on the gig, actually, right?

Yeah. When we get a downbeat, we expect to hear. You know? And when you don't hear, what's going to be your response? You can get mad at you from giving the wrong tempo or not the right. Stuff that band leaders are responsible for, you know. I asked them, when people who know you ask you,

what's it like not playing gigs that long? And, man, Pat gave me an answer that was worth about four days of questions, you know? But I want to know, man. People ask me, hey, Ron, you've been enough for 15 months. where's your head? I said, well, I haven't had a haircut, but I got a brand new hat. I mean, where's my head? It's right here, man. I'm doing these projects to kind of keep my head in the game. I have 10 students. I'm active. What are you doing? And the third question is, when you meet friends, now that you haven't played music for 15 months, do you have discussed

music with them? Because they want to know now. Now you're home all the time. You go in the same supermarket every other week, whatever, you're not walking with a suitcase, you're not going to the airport. Do they stop and say, hey, Harvey, why's that record you made or Pat, you're still making a record with the album guitar, whatever? Would they ask you, would you tell them? They want to ask because now you're available. You are visually right here. You're not running into the airport in theory. You're not running into the studio in theory. You're standing here in line at the post office. They want an answer, man. And the last question I asked all four of those people was that,

being away from the band stand for so long, if you have to get back, other than playing what you play, what instrument would you want to play? And they all had a serious of questions and answers that no one would ask them because then no one, I guess people we know they don't think of herbie or being a piano player. Right.

Or Pat Benickett, well, okay guys, we're past that stage now. me and you. What instrument do you want to play or would you want to play with your first gig back on the first getting back on the bandstand? What's your preference, you know? And as you know, the answers were quite good. And I think

one of the reasons they answered these questions is that they were asking a person who understood the question. I knew what I was asking them. And because they knew, I knew what I was asking, I got a pretty straightforward answer and a complete answer.

Not, gee, man, I don't know. Next. Right. I think what's so compelling about this, too, is it's actually, it's universal for all musicians right now. Like, we're all going through it, whether you're Pat Mathini or you're playing in the cocktail lounge down at the hotel. You've been out of work for 15 months.

You haven't been performing in the way that you're used to, a lot of us since we're children, you know? So it's, while we're getting these great and interesting answers, It's a very like universal feeling about, we talk about it all the time, Peter, between us. One of the things that was difficult for me was not making decisions for 15 months. As a band leader, you decide everything.

You decide everything from the size of the marquee to the size of the band, to the lengths of the solos, to who takes the solo, to what key we're playing in, to the order, to go on the tithev, all that stuff, because it's all on you. And for 15 months or more, I haven't had to worry about anything, but taking the garbage out on time.

And the laundry. And that's pretty simple. Given the responsibility that leaders, in my minds, I have to be on the constant base. When you go to Europe, man, you got to worry about the plane, the hotel reservation, you know, the pickup,

the tech guy, man, the hall sound, the advertisement, all those things on your shoulders. Right, and I just worry about the new paper. Is the paper here yet? What's on the menu? restaurant. That's all I work. Yeah, yeah. It's really unusual to have that freedom of mind and not know what to do with it. So I found things to do with this

project and you guys on your desk. You know, I've written a couple of books. I'm teaching 10 students and I'm learning how to practice. Although I'm practicing more every day. I practice like 10 minutes more yesterday than the day before. So I'm working it out. But those questions I ask those people who I'm able to read so far are the kind of questions that no one has put to them that they respond to an answer to a guy who knows what the question is.

Well, I got to cross out. I was going to ask you you were talking about good questions. I was going to ask you what was apparently a dumb question that you just answered, which is how do you stay a virtuoso like you for so long? But you just said you kept practicing and you're practicing 10 minutes more per day. So I guess that's probably the answer, right?

Yeah. Well, I got some little luck in long that. I toss a coin. And they said, okay, heads. 10 minutes more to you tomorrow. Okay, so right now, be willing. Oh, that's great. Well, I can speak for everybody

when we're very appreciative of the work you've put in, especially for chartography. Yes. Again, we'll link to this. We'll also link to Ron Carter's YouTube channel so you can see these interviews for yourself, folks.

Yeah, because I just want to say, like, if you, you know, you folks that find Adam and I mildly amusing talking about great baselines, that's how this really came out because you remember. Peter, don't frame it like that. That's ridiculous.

I mean, to actually hear the person who's a master talking about the Bay Sides, this is way better. And that's how I was able to get Mr. Carter, as you remember, when we talk to come on. I said, look, we're talking about the base size. Let's have the, that's just the, that's not even the appetizer, you know. Let's talk about the real thing. That's the Moose Bouch. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it's good to meet you guys live and that that site that you had is really an impressive one. And I just thought of one of the two things. I help you from one of the examples you used, how it got there, and that you know that some people, other than bass players, understand how important the baseline is and what it does. You know, I play with Lenny White as often as I can. Oh, yeah.

And I'll do a solo piece with him. And doing this solo, I'll play four or five notes of a certain bass line that he cracks up because he knows what song that belongs to, you know. and that's kind of our internal game we play. And it's interesting how many bass lines that the jazz community don't realize mean that here comes the ability

because the bass player played this order of notes. And it's nice that you guys would understand that and make a whole program, whole program and make an issue of these lines that are so important to the melody that's up and coming based on this specific baseline. Right. Oh, no.

But it is so cool, too. That's why we were a little, like, you know that episode was for, it wasn't really for bass players because we were afraid to go that you know far over. So when we heard from you, it was like, oh my God, now we, like we thought we were going to hear from some of these

punk bass players out here. They're like, why didn't you choose this? Why didn't you choose this? And I was like, Mr. Rockhart? Okay, well, let's think about this. One thing I just wanted to throw out there too that I thought was super cool about and again, I mean, it's both because I'm so connected with the music that you've played forever, but

especially during that period that this autumn leaves transcription actually coincidentally covers. I mean, just so much impact on me. And I would just say that our generation coming up fully understands this is probably some of the most influential rhythm section playing of all time. But now with the younger musicians, they know about it, but they don't really know about it. And I feel like that's partly our fault and our generation. We got to keep talking about and exposing because I think there's an assumption sometimes like, oh, all this stuff's on the internet. But a lot of young folks are lost. there's so much stuff.

Like I had the advantage. My dad had my funny valent. That was one of like five Miles Davis records he had. So I was like when I got into jazz, I'm like, oh, I'll check this out. And I'm like, whoa. And there wasn't a lot of other places to get lost online. But, you know, some of the things like with the color coding about alternative harmony and stuff, I'll just say alternate harmony, that this stuff is such a game shape.

The rhythms, like reoccurring rhythms. Yeah. I mean, this is stuff that we would think about and feel. But to see that laid out, especially for like visual learners can really be a game changer. And then you can scan the key. QR code and it takes you to a YouTube video of the recording with the transcription so you could see it all right there. Again, we'll link to the book itself here and everybody should pick it up. Whether you're a bass player or not.

I mean, this is for pianists, drummers, horn players, whatever. And look at the size of this bad boy. This is like an orchestra. This is like the score, man. This is making a statement. You're going to need a pro Weber music stand for that thing, conductor's stage. That's the score, man. Yeah, that's right.

What's the score? That's the score. That's the score. That's the score. Yeah, yeah. Well, Mr. Carter, thank you so much for taking the time. And I just, you know, it's a pleasure and an honor. And truly, you know, thank you for everything.

And, you know, so inspired by the work that you're doing, the teaching, the playing. And can't wait to see you live again, which we hope is around the corner. Okay. Well, if you've got another topic at some point, you want some conversation to and you think I might be around, I might know some of those guys you talk about, come in an email. Okay. And to see what's possible that we can kind of, I can say something that they

record has offered that may have gotten by you or make a different connection to that issue. And we'll see how far we can get this bad boy to dance. That sounds great. I am actually emailing you now. Is this too soon to me? It's following up. I'm sorry. I'm sitting down, so I'm fine.

Play it cool, man. Play it cool, Peter. I got to play it cool. I got to play it cool. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you guys all for tuning in. Links to everything we discussed are below, as always.

And until next time, you'll hear it. Thank you, guys. I just realized this is the first time we've ever actually recorded. recorded not streaming live. Exactly. We lost. Peter, we've lost Ron Carter. We had him.

We had him for a second on the show, and now he's gone for him. Okay, I think we're ready. If you're ready, if you're ready. There is. I think he's more than ready. We could tell the people, we could say the exciting part was, before we even start, we put Ron to sleep. Before we even started.