Kyle Kellams: We’re hearing some music. I’m not going to tell you what we’re hearing. Our friend Rob Wells, who is the host of The Jazz Scoop on Saturday nights, will tell you. First of all, Rob Wells, welcome back to the show.
Wells: Thank you, Kyle. Always great to see you, man.
Kellams: And what are we hearing?
Wells: We are hearing Ron Carter. He’s playing this song called “All Blues.” It was recorded as his album in 1974. That’s Joe Henderson on sax, Ron Carter on bass.
Kellams: And who is Ron Carter?
Wells: Well, he’s one of the most recorded jazz artists in history. There’s actually a Guinness Book of World Records entry in 2015: 2,221 recording credits. And we know that is not accurate because he’s been touring and recording over the last decade. I think his first recording might have been in 1960 with Eric Dolphy. He was playing cello on that recording. So he started playing cello at age 10, and then he was performing very quickly after that. And he’s basically been performing at this very elite level for seven decades.
Kellams: How old is he?
Wells: He’s 88.
Kellams: Okay. And still performing.
Wells: Still performing. I saw him at the Newport Jazz Festival this year.
Wells: This man has such a storied career as an artist. He was with the Miles Davis second great quintet. That was with Tony Williams on drums and Wayne Shorter on sax, Herbie Hancock on piano and Miles. What they did during that period in the mid-60s, people are still trying to catch up with. It’s an amazing body of work. He’s won three Grammy Awards. He’s played with everybody from Cannonball Adderley to George Benson, Jim Hall to Thelonious Monk. The government of France gave him its top cultural award in 2010. He’s a major artist in our country and a major artist worldwide. And he still loves what he’s doing. He’s in search of continual improvement.
“I haven’t lost a thirst for playing better every night. My job is to set an example for whoever is in my group. But my responsibility to those three, two, three, four or six musicians is a set, a level of acceptance and performance for these different groups with different libraries by the same composer. And I’ve found that kind of amazing that I’m able to do that and no one tosses a pie at me,” Carter said. “Or no one? No one from my bass when I’m not looking.”
Wells: So I interviewed him in late August. We were supposed to meet at the Newport Jazz Festival. It fell through. So he was very gracious, caught up with him by Zoom in his apartment in New York. My impression of the guy was he was razor sharp. Stand up straight when you talk to Mr. Carter.
Kellams: I got you.
Wells: So it was really interesting to hear him talk about his career, where he is as an artist, and he has a very clear sense of what’s needed to survive in the modern musical landscape.
“You know, I was looking over your list of upcoming gigs and there’s such a variety of things you’re doing. You’re doing duets. You’re doing the quartet, doing the big band. Why? Why all the variety? Can you tell our listeners, you know, what you’re trying to achieve with this, this level of variety?”
"Well, an easy answer is I’m trying to be visible."
"Okay."
“And whatever format that makes my music sound like I hear it, I’m trying to get that organization. Duo or trio? Quartet, big band. To be able to express my view in whatever format I can find, that I can physically afford to pay them.”
"That’s the second time you’ve used this term visibility. You’re very concerned about it. But why is visibility so important?"
“I want to be seen alive. I want to be seen by the people who know my music through records. I want to be seen by those people who think, my name is Ron Carter on bass. You know, I enjoy that humor and I enjoy what that means. But I think if the as a creator allows me to continue to function, the old I’m old to them, a vision of me within reach.”
Wells: Here he is at age 88. You know, he could just kick back, have a piña colada, sit on the beach, but he’s trying to remain relevant and visible, you know. And I found that really inspiring. He’s not letting up. I saw that. It was very evident when I saw him at the Newport Jazz Festival this summer. He was playing with his Foresight Quartet.
And so think about the members of this quartet, you know, think of the legacy that they had to engage with, with this guy, all the people he’s played with in the past. And I came away with, wow, this quartet is—these people are up, really up for the challenge. On saxophonist Jimmy Greene. Payton Crossley is on drums. And then there’s this amazing pianist. Her name’s Renée Rosnes.
Kellams: Yes.
Wells: And she plays with this all-women’s supergroup called Artemis. And so she’s Carter’s pianist now, and that’s a really high honor.
So let’s just check out the kind of music that Ron Carter and his current quartet are playing these days. I think you’ll really like it. This is called “You in the Night and the Music.”
Kellams: That’s “You in the Night and the Music” from Ron Carter and the Foresight Quartet. Talking about Ron Carter because Wells, host of The Jazz Scoop on Saturday nights, recently talked with Ron Carter.
Wells: Oh, it was so much fun. So great. And to see the Foresight Quartet play like that live—that was recorded in 2018. So seven years later, the band is just as developed, this almost telepathic relationship. You know, Mr. Carter said, you know that something’s going on on stage when you see the members of this band raising their eyebrows at each other. And so I have these photographs of Ron Carter raising his eyebrow. Now I know what’s going on. And they were doing a lot of eyebrow-raising during that set.
One of the many interesting things about Ron Carter is he has this extensive website that offers instructional books on music, videos. There’s a clothing line. This man knows how to dress. I need to up my game. Okay, there are crossword puzzles and many things. And the instructional materials are pretty interesting. They’ve been adapted to the modern age. You can scan a QR code in a chapter and up pops a video of Ron Carter playing that section for you.
So I asked him if this online store was providing a decent income. We know the challenges in the music industry. And his response was that only he, his accountant and the IRS know that answer.
Kellams: I love that.
Wells: That was a quick way of getting around that question.
So he did say that the jazz audience really isn’t large enough to provide any significant income stream from these online sales, but it plays an important role in another way, and that’s cementing a relationship with the audience.
“I think that the world is moving so fast that our options are being more visible for longer periods of time, without literally being there, are so more accessible to us. It gives me a chance to be seen in environments and locations much more often than it would be under normal circumstances. Normal being 20 years ago.”
Wells: Well, the most moving part of the interview involved Mr. Carter talking about the passing of some of his close friends and his musical colleagues. You get to that age, you’re going to start losing your friends. I saw this with my mother-in-law, and it was painful for him to experience this.
Last year, he lost longtime collaborator, guitarist Russell Malone, who died suddenly of a heart attack. Much younger man, in good shape. But Malone and Carter had toured and recorded together. I had a chance to see them perform once at the jazz festival about a decade ago. And the beauty that these two men created in performance was remarkable.
So I asked Mr. Carter about the loss of Russell Malone and other colleagues.
"So I wanted to shift gears here for a second and just talk about some of your collaborators. Russell Malone—loss of Russell Malone was very tragic. I don’t have to tell you that. You know, how has the loss of such a major collaborator affected you both personally and artistically?"
“That’s a tough question, because it’s an ongoing question. That question you will ask today, you may have to ask it tomorrow, because some of my dear friends have—we call it left the concert. But people like Russell did leave an impression on you. That doesn’t go anywhere.
“You know, I wake up every day and I realize that of most of my friends in my age group, there are not a lot of us still standing. And I’m grateful for the chance to get up and play on their behalf or carry the flag as near as I can carry that as far as I can in honor of those friends who are responsible for helping me grow, or responsible for me to understand what the word merchandising really meant, who helped me be a bandleader of some note, who helped me understand how important playing every night really is—wherever you are, with whomever that happens to be.
“And that they’re not with me physically to remind me of those events or like events, occasionally they weigh heavy on my heart. I just have to stop sometimes and just kind of inhale and exhale in a private room just to acknowledge my debts to all those people who I can no longer shake their hand or hug them.”
Wells: Here is Ron Carter and the late Russell Malone playing together, just to give you a sense of that relationship.
Ron Carter and Russell Malone on the 2003 album Golden Striker.
Kellams: I’m talking with Wells, who interviewed Ron Carter, and I think by all accounts, you’re happy you did that.
Wells: Yeah, for sure. It was—I have Ron Carter albums that I bought when I was 17 years old. Talked to him about those albums. It was neat. It was neat.
So I knew better than to ask Ron Carter about his favorite album.
Kellams: Oh, yeah.
Wells: He was not going to go there. But I did ask him about his performance on a legendary album. I don’t know if you know this, but he played on “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” Gil Scott-Heron.
Kellams: Yeah. Wow. Really?
Wells: Not only that, he has a story about this that is really, really fascinating. I remember listening to “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” released, I think, in ’71. It was a big thing on KPFA in Berkeley, the Pacifica station, which I listened to as a young kid. So it wasn’t the first hip-hop album, but boy, it was influential. And some people call Gil Scott-Heron the grandfather of rap. That’s probably not right, but you kind of get the idea.
So how did Ron Carter, this giant on the jazz scene, end up with this young D.C. vocalist?
Carter: “That record just happened, and I was in the right place at the right time. Gil Scott-Heron came to New York to make a record with the Midnight Band, who he worked with in D.C., and there was one of the cases, Rob, for musicians who play in the clubs, don’t have the chance to learn how to play in studios. It’s a different skill level, a different level of energy, different patience, different set of rules in the studio.
“And evidently, the group who came with Gil Scott to do this record, they were not experienced enough to be able to make a record about 40 minutes of lacquer. And the producer of this project was a friend of mine. She called me up and she said, ‘Hey, Ron, I got a project here. The singer from Washington, D.C., and he’s got a band, but they don’t know how to make a record. Taking too much time to figure out how to make a record. Can you come by and play a tune or so?’
“So I said, okay. So I got my bass. And not knowing who he was or the band, I expected the producer to think that I could be the guy to help these young musicians not just watch how a record is made, but enjoy seeing the process that they didn’t quite understand before.
“A more experienced person came in and in the heat of battle took the flag and carried it another extra block for them. They were all nice. They were all scared. Said, ‘Yeah, come on, move over. Let me sit down here.’ Gil understood the pressures involved now because the band was not successful making a big record in New York.
“It was kind of an interesting tableau of emotions going on at this thing. And I said, ‘Well, give me some music.’ And they talked the arrangements down. I said, ‘Well, let’s try this one. And if that’s your key, let’s make it work.’ And then we did the whole record like that in a day.
“And it turned out that that was the record that made Gil Scott-Heron’s name be in capital letters. And the concepts and the language skills, the background music—it was all really perfect for that moment. He rode that wave as long as he could breathe. Man, it was just an amazing event for me.”
Wells: Got to play “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” Here’s Gil Scott-Heron with Ron Carter on bass.
So that’s Ron Carter playing with the great Gil Scott-Heron. That was from a 1971 album called Pieces of a Man. I love the rhythm section. But that flute was played by Hubert Laws, and the drummer is Pretty Purdie. So they had a band.
Ron Carter—this isn’t just a knockoff. He also played on A Tribe Called Quest in their 1991 album called The Low End Theory. I mean, this guy can play classical music. He’s recorded works of Bach. He’s played a huge range of jazz. He plays hip-hop, funk. And this is why they call him The Maestro.
So I would just conclude, I’d encourage anyone who wants to learn more about Ron Carter to watch this really neat PBS documentary called Finding the Right Notes. Jon Batiste is interviewing Ron Carter, so we got somebody who knows what he’s talking about.
And I just wanted to wrap up this interview and this segment by talking about this duet that he did with pianist Stephen Scott on a tribute album to Miles Davis. The album is called Dear Miles. It was recorded in 2006, and the track is “Stella by Starlight.”
So that was a standard that was part of the Miles songbook for probably a decade. Carter backed—he played with Miles as they performed this song throughout the mid-60s. It’s on My Funny Valentine concert album. And so this Ron Carter album—this version of “Stella by Starlight”—really captures that full tone and his technical perfection. And you can hear the influence of Miles in the phrasing here. That use of space. It’s vintage Ron Carter.
Kellams: Well, we’re going to listen to that as we leave. Wells hosts The Jazz Scoop that you can hear every Saturday night on 91.3 KUAF. Rob, happy holidays. We’re moving in the holiday season.
Wells: Thank you very much. Happy holidays to you.
Kellams: And you’ll be back on our show with something else soon.
Wells: I have something I’m going to talk to you about after this.
Kellams: Oh, okay. Well, let’s listen to music, and then I’m going to find out. I’m going to get a sneak preview. Thank you, Rob.
Wells: All right. Thank you, Kyle.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
