Pushkin, We're continuing our celebration of Blue Note Records eighty fifth anniversary with a conversation with a certified living legend, Ron Carter. For starters, he was a key member of a group that's on the shortlist for the Greatest band of all time. That's the second Great Miles Davis Quintet, featuring Ron Carter himself, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams,
and naturally Miles Davis. And although many conversations with Ron Carter start and end with that period of his life from nineteen sixty four to nineteen sixty eight, at eighty seven years of age and as a lifelong seeker, there's a lot more to the Ron Carter story, and I'm happy to say we got an interesting little slice of
it for you today. When Don was and I sat up on the stage at the Blue Note Club in NYC with Ron Carter, we wanted to know a little more about his life growing up in Detroit, class aspirations. In response to those questions, Mastro Carter delivered an emotional, stream of consciousness response that resonated deeply with both Don and I. My hopes that it will move you as well.
And since we're celebrating the eighty fifth anniversary of Blue Note Records, ron Carter also gives some fascinating insight into a few key people from the label's esteemed history. This is Broken Record Liner Notes for the digital age.
I'm justin Mitchman.
Here's Don Was and myself from the Blue Note in New York City with Mastro Ron Carter. To see the full video version of this episode, go to YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast.
When I first got the job at Blue Note, I went to the archives, did a little research, and there's an insanely inordinate number of musicians who come from Detroit, like not even a close second in terms of cities. What do you think it is about Detroit?
You know, I think when the when the people from the South went up north that migration. I just think that that the enthusiasm of being free and the chances of being productive and being free went to where the industrial states were. They had those kind of options, and Detroit has always been a manufacturing city cars right now, and then Henry Ford made the unfortunes with the assembly line in Detroit. And my general view is that the people who were of that mindset They all came to
places where he could find the work. You know, the musicians went to Philadelphia, person that East Builders and uh Pittsburgh Ahmed. But somehow Detroit was the biggest manufacturing city that had the most options. As a non his struggle guests, you know.
Right, you chose to be a classical cellist originally represent your ambition and you changed. What were the circumstances that that caused you to change over to playing bass? From Chello.
The start of the story is I was going to all black junior elementary school and this person came in with it. Came into a room where they had these things front on the table, you know, like ten to ten eleven twelve year old kids. She says she's going to start the orchestra at this school, and children, these
are the instruments that we're going to play. I walk around and pick one that you think appeals to you at the best sound you can get out of there, whatever it sounds like, and we'll make some music together. And somehow the cello caught my attention. It was it was aluminum, you know, And so as I got better the teacher's record and I said, I was looking past their teaching level. Ultimately, I was considered a really giant talent for an African American fourteen year old. And so
one day I looked around. My dad said, son, if you want to be in this game, you got you gotta be better than everybody else who's in the game. Okay. Having said that, I thought that I was upholding that general family motto, you know. So I looked around one day in the base player was graduating this. I'm a senior in high school. A senior had done met there would be nineteen fifty three fifty four spring, you know. And I was always good at math. My father was
a genius, but I could subtract pretty good. So I'm looking around and said, if he's only one guy there and don't need a base player not as a zero, I don't want to be that guy. So prince my parents that do is a good way me to get better, you know, and get get get get the work out, looking for get the exposure, get the experience. Because I
was the only guy playing this, you know. So they they sold my cello and the borrower money for a base and got some lessons, you know, and uh, the Eastman was having auditions throughout the country Eastern School of Music. So I got some books, got a teacher and figured out what the library was, and audition and I got a full scotship for four years. I'm not a bass
player at Aceland, you know. And uh, while I knew of jazz, because we all knew about the jazz and blues and stuff like that, I never gave it a thought of being a player on that level. I was gonna be a cello solo man. Now I was gonna be an orchestral bass player. I almost gay with that because I got the same notes basically, you know, different attitude, but I could do.
That, you know. Uh.
And as I got better at Eastman cause it was a very competitive investment environment, you know that they were like, uh, six or seven African Americans and a student bid them maybe six or seven hundred kids and then about ten basse players, yeah, bass player of students, you know. Uh. And again I'm st I ask cause him was a teacher, and he's Tim's coming on how I was improving and how I was really understanding the music, the music and around me, you know, how to playing on an orchestra.
Just those kind of details that good teachers show students who they think are capable of handling another level of performance.
You know.
So I'm getting better. You know, I'm still working on my father's mental You wanna you wanna play the game, you gotta have a better hand, so to speak, you know. Uh, So, I mean I'm getting orchestra. I'm done this. I'm getting all these gigs. I go home for the summer because I have no money to stay in town s. School
is over, the dorm too is closing, you know. So I get my car drive back to Detroit, and my neighbor, who was a saxophone player, said, hey, hey, Ron, I'm the I'm putting together a little band to play for the Dwayne State University parties for sororities maternities. But we need a bass plick, and you do that. I said, well, I don't read a little library, and I understand that's
different music. But if you can give me some records or something we listened to in the library, I'll see how much I can learn in the time I'll be home for this three months off of school. And at the time, Dave Blue Brick was really hot. But jazz goes to college. That record you know with uh so, I said, well, I learned some of these songs cause I'm starting to sing like Chet Baker. I said, Chet Baker, you know, he's a singing trip. Okay, whatever.
I know.
The piano player love Bud Powell. And back in the day there was jazz on TV Detroit and that they still have the show from Rouge Lounge, which is about our drive outside Detroit Northeast and the host of Swoopy Sales, the comedian yeah you know. And one day here on this show the Max Roads Quartet with uh Max, George Morrow. You know, I think maybe a Bubb's on the band and maybe Heroldlin. I can't remember this so far back,
but he he was, he was. They had the twenty minutes of songs with Bud Powell and Max I said, said, rock this is it. Yeah, I said, okay, I'm still playing Bark and Beethoven Brahms, cause that's what I'm That's what I'm aiming for. But look out for the summer. The scholarship didn't cover all my expenses and I need to have some money so I could back to school cause my parents weren't able to take care of the
remaining kids. There were like five left that at home when I left for Scolet, so I'm responsible helping him to cover and stuff. So okay, I can do that. As I'm getting better. I get back to Rochester for this my junior my sophomore year, and uh there's a local club. Local clubs have some music, the black clubs, you know, thirty into all night sessions till four or five o'clock in the morning, and I got eight o'clock thiry class man, Come on, it's Carter. Hello. You know.
I'm into that kind of zone, you know, but I need the money, so I try to figure it out. You know, I've got some books, I got the library. Uh. I was able to do the jam sessions at the night, from the two mid night the three in the morning, you know, but I got better at it, you know, by still in an orchestra, I'm still trying to get this orchestral orchestral accomplishment that I'm aiming to do.
You know.
Jazz was something that helped me stand school by strings for the instruments, stuff details, you know, a and uh I I noticed the bulletin board. They would have jobs for orchestras, auditions, stuff like that, you know. And uh, while I saw that, I was still not seeing it and that those auditions were kind of general, but I wasn't feeling any schooled encouragement to check that out, you know. And and it didn't stop me on my tracks as to why I weren't they encouraging me to check it out.
I just said, look, I'm trying to I'm trying to get a degree here, but I'm I'm got a minor and I got a major in this, got these classes. I'm in a very competitive environment. All these kids think they're the best there is and they'd work until that end. They got practice time. I mean, it's just other factors in my life, right, you know. Uh, I had really learned how socialize with white people, cause I'm I'm all black community. I'm growing up in that environment, you know.
M Uh, I had a scholarship, but I meant I had to work in the kitchen to wash the dishes during the meals, you know. So I met some nice guys who were in the same general boat who had a lot more money, but they were real nice guys. So to this day, I still contact those guys cause they're still my friends, you know. So I was getting out to learn how to learned how to socialize with a uh, a non complete black environment. So I was
growing up too at the same time. You know. A footnote to this story down is that uh Eastman School in musical separate from University of Rochester physically. It was like a s four mile distance in campuses, you know. And so when the freshman met at the Eastman, the guys from the River campus they called it, came to the school the s you know, socialized, you know, and uh, a couple of size, couple of guys thought that all musicians were at the time.
The work was fruits.
You know, it was not a very nice word, you know, A and uh us on Detroit and that put there with that hardhead and you know, the badass on my jacket, that kind of stuff, you know. I said, I said, so I have not about I just made a couple acquaintance and said, man, those guys can't talk to like that. I mean, I'm not sure, but I don't know about you guys, but I'm not I'm not buying that kind of description of me, you know, said well, well, gee, what do you want to do? I said, well, I
was play a decent basketball player. I want to try to make the team, said man, but you got practice that. Yeah, I know that, I know that very well. Well let's see what happens. So the two of us got unerved together. You know, we would bicycles two and a half miles out of the campus and all that kind of stuff. And then we had the couple of practices and the guy got the squad down to whatever twelve people, and uh, I made the squad. So I was playing. I was
on the Trusturant squad basketball team. I got made in about three games by two points. But it was okay. The point, well say, I made the squad, you know, but it was seemed clear me that I couldn't do both and being I couldn't be a good basketball player, and my goal to be it was to be a good player. I couldn't do both. So I acknowledged that. I told these guys, okay, this is one guy who did that.
You know.
In the meantime, I'm noticing the bolleting board mentions about the auditions for the violence section. They the third violin player, earlyer, thesistant concert master, and they need a bass player at somewhere. So I noticed these sayings, you know, and uh, I'm not feeling any encouragement. And I'm not feeling any overt encouragement. The one said, hey man, check this out. Try how that feeling. I didn't get that. I wasn't feeling that
you and any event. One of the processes at the time now was that every every every orchestral sequent of Rochester Philharmonic they would need some spaces field. So they called students in the school who could cover the libor who deserved the right, who who earned the right to be a part of the Rochester Philharmonic as they were
juniors or sophomoret or seniors in college, you know. And so it turned out nineteen fifty eight they needed a bass player for the Philharmonic orchestra for the fifty eight fifty nine season, you know.
And uh so asker said you should be the guy to do that.
So I said, okay, So whatever whatever the process was, I got a call next day said that they had the opening and the Philharmonica and they want me to fill the chair. I said, okay, this is what it takes, huh, okay, sign me up. Okay. So for a year I was the probably first personal club player in the Philharmonic Orchestra.
You know, I'm still making gigs on weekends now. And uh one weekend there was Horace Silver's band a place called Squeezers bam Box, and the horse had Teddy Kodak, maybe Clifford Jordan our farmer.
He got a really good band man still back in Detroit.
No, no in Rochester, Rochester, Yeah, uh had a really good band. So ultimately I joined the house the house band, the place called a rich Crest and uh uh just out side of New York, and they bought him acts and I was part of the intermission band. Me drummer named Don Manning and pianist named Joe Close who walkman left town and went to Joe went to sell the
uh Jo Ernestin Anderson a really good piano player. And then even some seeing all these guys come in weekends with this with the uh uh officer of dis disach band. Uh I met ike Issex, who was what Camonkree at the time. You know, Sam Jones came through, you know, uh sunny Stick came by himself as a single and and uh so he played with the house band. So and me, the Joe and and Don and the first time he tried us, I was de flat blues right here.
M I said, well, okay, I can do that nothing but the blues and deflat then, I mean, really that's the test, you know, and so we got. It was that nice experience to me to see how this guy who is as close to bridge you can get without being buried, played every night that level. I mean, it was just often. It's just amazing, you know. Uh some Gaelic mean that he may not know his name, but he's one of the early duals Slim and Slim and Slam. And he came in as a single and we talked
about music and changes and chords. You know, they were really making this music concept more available to me firsthand.
You know.
So anyway, I'm in Philharmonic Arcs. We have concerts, and I got a white bow time matching vest, you know. And then uh uh they had guest conductors, Pierre Montreu, uh, Leo Postokowski, all these people came into four or five of them. And so one day I'm got to rosal Leo Posta Cooski was about for six you know, now six two six three something like that. You know, he said,
why don't you have a seat? I get some look in the eye to eye, cause I was you know, he says, so the young man, I have noticed your performance here, and you seem like a really good person and a marvelous player. And I'd like you to go to my orchestra down in Texas. But the boy of the directors right now, I'm not ready to hire colored people. H I said, Okay, that's the first honest I mean, that's the first honest answer I got to describe the classical world at that time, you know, I said, okay,
and and uh right went right. Then I knew that I had to find another a another play to play music, you know. And along this time the bass players would say that I had some skills, and they thought that I'd do good in New York. They didn't know my classical interest. That that wasn't con that wasn't there thing. I just a bass player was in the and then in the mission band, you know, they said, New York. He's a good bass player. And she'd come in and
try you look, you know. In the meantime, I met a couple of guys called the Man Jones, Gap and Chuck and their family the man Jones. Frank and Nancy hosted any musician who came to town who played jazz. They hosted them for lunch or dinner. It's clearly amazing. So I meant dazzy. I meant all those guys at
their home for dinner. And the Chuck and Gap had a band, and and the tentler named Benny sells out in a band called Little Giants, and uh or Keaton has heard about them and game they made a record with the Riverside. Uh So I was in my first record back then in those days, and they were clearly encouraging me, not necessarily not to play classical, but to acknowledge from my talent. Also lay you know, they're providing
many a meal cause I had no money. The kid didn't pay much, but he did keep me in school. I just got married in nineteen fifty eight. I I was not scustling, but they made it easy to not worry about where my next meal was coming from. Frank and Nancy well a lovely couple.
Man.
You know.
Of course Chuck got famous, and the Gap cause the local piano player who've worked all the time. They're really great people. Until this day. I'm in touch with gap in Charlie. Now you know in any event, U ultimately, Uh, jazz shows ken in Rochester at the Eastman Theater, and they had the Jazz Package shows and they were all jazz acts. The particular show.
Had men A.
Ferkinson's band, had Lamon Herricks and Ross's band, had Dave Rubik's group and Miles all in the same show man, you know. And and UH and me and Chuck and Charlie went to the concert. I said, let's see what it looks like, you know, Okay.
You know.
So it turned out some almost supposed to take the band to the train station, cause that was part of the truck line from Canada, Canada upstate New York. Yeah, you had the other to New York City. And they all made a stop at this Rochester cause there's a big school Rochester, rit big you know, it's Eastern Kodak, it's all there, Balsh and Lob, it's all there. It's a good financial stop to make come way back to
New York from Canada, you know. And anyway, so who was supposed to take these guys to the translation never showed up and s and so uh the guy asked me, would I take him to the transtation. Miles band through the transtation. I said, I got to look forward.
Man.
You know these guys they they didn't at level of transportation. So no, no, no, they ride with you. So I took Miles and and and uh Red Garland to the transtation of my car. And but that's it, just ride. We were you know, they were famous. I'm in school, I'm basic playing school. But the Philarmonic had you listen to them yet?
Not really?
I mean I knew who they were, but then everybody knew who they were, you know. But uh, I was just impressed that they trusted my driving skills.
Yeah, yeah, I got nineteen nineteen fifty Ford man, come on, you know, uh so you see hello, how are you mister Davis and mister mister Garland.
You know I'm the guy to go take it to the train station. Okay, good, all right, Okay, that's it. So I graduated. So in the meantime, Jicko Hamilton had a band and he told me we had we we see said, uh someone said, he said, hey, Ronnie, all you played Chell? Yes I do, mister mister Hampton said play something. So I brought a chiller and said in the practice room and play a couple of things with a box that I knew, so still had some skills, you know. He said, we were working in New York
on this day, August. Work it is, and if you get to New York when you graduately, come to New York. And if I'm working, take my Chello players about to leave the band and I need a policeman.
Are you interested?
I said, well, I mentioned, I'm not sure how many skills I have left cause I haven't played in a long time, but I think I can hamlet it, you know. He said, well, come to New York. And then if they how are you? I said, okay. So I graduated at June of nineteen fifty nine and got me to New York office for the same year, and the band was working at Birdland. So I walked downstairs. You know, I'm mister Hamilton here. He said, well, change the plans.
I said, oh yeah, what said, Well, chel players are going to stay, but I need a bass player White Rules for bul Rules have decided to go back to Seattle and set up shopping in Seattle. Are you doing to take this gig? I said, sure, I'm here now I've meant a commitment to stay here. You know, who's in a band. Then this buddy Mire plants playing guitar, that Gerson was a cello player and her dolphin was a red player. I said, okay, and he said, I said, we're leaving in uh wherever it is. We got to
come country on the road, and we come back. We go to California for a while. I said, well, you know, I'm still going to school. He said, well, why don't you try to delete the school until January and en roll? And I'll say, I don't know, not to talk to them because I got a scholarship for a master's program for the year, you know, and I'm not I think i'd cancel it. I'll be in We'll talk with him,
you know. So I talked to the school and said, I got this chance to go on the road, but chick on hambleting, you know, can I start my scholarship in January of nineteen sixty rather than.
The fall of fifty nine?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I said, okay, okay.
You know, so I left town with chicken hamblting for like five four weeks, all these stops on We drove from Boston to Los Angeles.
Drove.
How was that drive?
We had four drivers, Chico, me and Timmy and his brother drove.
So it was fun.
You know, I'm just a guy in Detroit, but family of six, six girls and my brother. It's all new to me. Man. You know. Uh, one of the stops, by the way, it was in Washington, d C. The first stop in Washington, and uh, it's it. It was really north of New York, but cause it's really down south for me, you know. And we put up to Howard Johnson's if you know that name from back in the day, and and uh were right in the bus of the the shows and of the show's tracking by bus.
You know, they had Colin Hawkins and Mouser's band. That's just a great bunch of people. To watch them operate, watch them talk, watch how they communicated with each other with all their genius skills.
You know.
So we end in waiting in the bus for a while. We still waiting, and then the guy comes back and says, well, you know that they don't serve black people. Yes, we have to go around the back or find somewhere else to eat, you know, And Howard Johnson's Yeah, I said ah, this is, this is, this is Yeah, you got the bus for the geniuses and they didn't want to serve them be cause they're not white. I didn't. I didn't,
I didn't. I I didn't get that. You know, I'm uh twenty maybe nineteen now, you know, from Detroit, like the riots and all that stuff. So I the idea of that kind of convertation is not new to me. But to be so close to it and to see the people who they don't wanna serve a sandwich to man this talent, how could that be?
Man?
But so I'll just fucking picture how could that? How could that take place? You know? Hello, world, world, next door? Come this way that you know? Any event, I got over that and I understood. Okay. So one of these things I do, guys, is when I do these interviews. They always wanted to know about my classical background. I said, okay, you know, and and uh how I feel about it, you know? And uh do I have no regrets? And do I miss it? All those courts I give our
small yes, I do miss it. I've made some wonderful fore answer that I grew up with some great people who are trying to play it better like I was. You know, I missed the sound of the orchestra. That's one thing to listen to a record. It's nothing to be sitting right in the middle of the sound. That's an incredible feeling. Man, I missed that, you know, but they were not. But take what you do, just the interviewer, this is nineteen sixty two, sixty three, sixty four, whatever
it was. Just take some pictures of the orchests. Go back, go back ten years now. All orchestras had a photograph for the orchestra for the promo Chicago, Philly, Cleveland, New York, Boston. And you let me know how many minorities are in those orchestras compared to the orchestras on the stage now, whatever it would have been. And you think that's okay, You think that didn't You think that hasn't made an impression on May still And I said not. These schools
and it's not a propaganda's conversation. Now this is page three. These schools are still turning out wonderful African American musician players to be primarily symphonie players or players. And if you look at the number of photographs of these orchestras at five year intervals, and the same five year intervals that these schools are turning out these wonderful classical players orchestral players to.
Be what happens to them.
According to these pictures, they're not working with Cleveland or Philadelphia or New York or Boston or Los Angeles, where these kids what happened to them. The reason my picture is not in these pictures, they're towing them out in the ago that they weren't ready to hire color people. That's why I'm not playing there. According to these pictures, I'm looking at if I've got my shirt, like home glasses, all that kind of stuff. Nonhing's changed other than the
date of the calendar man, you know. So there's a lot of work. There's a lot of work to be done. And my footnote to this kind of conversation always kind of ends up there because they think I just know about miles and my life started in nineteen sixty three to sixty eight and a half. You know, I as to say I'm expearenced. I'm living that life, you know, you know, and one of the things that keeps just fire blue. You know in Nassian Torch that the hottest
fire is not to flame. It's this blue thing, you know, one of the kind of things that keeps keeps me on fire, that color. You know, our situations like when I was doing commercial work in New York, New Orchestra's doing stuff bix bix scores in New York. You know, there has a sex us of a se base section of uh. They were from four to five players A and UH. I was known as the hot jazz player in town. So they wanted to know what I'm They wanna know what I'm doing there.
You know.
So the the the the the the game was guys that the everyone who were not specifically assigned their first chair, they got there earlier so they could be the first chair. That means you got the best money, highest paid, you got a little more respect from the orchestra, could do the first chair violin as a base play, whatever where it was, you got a chance to make the boweling, the fingering you were. That was all on you. And
the remaining four or five people in the section. Their job was to say yes, yes, yes, yes, you know A and UH. Because I was either number four or five on the list of important players. You know, I I I didn't feel that. Uh, they thought I'd be along there cause I just finished I said with Miles Miles Davis last night, or or Randy Weston or Herbian Man, whoever, whoever the gig was for that week. You know. So one day I had enough, So t the sessions were like nine to nine to one and two to five,
and you come back and you do the lunch. You know, I said, Okay, guys, I got this. I'm I'm telling me, you know. So we took a break at one one o'clock, you know, and I know that uh about twelve thirty one o'clock they gonna start filtering and get for the next happen. You know, I get there before these base prients get there. Now, while I hadn't been in an orchestra seriously for like three or four years, I never forgot the library, and I knew all the things that
base priers had the audition to be accepted. I know that stuff. Man, I just didn't put in the trash. Can just stort part of my uh DNA, you know. So what I decided to do is just give them a lesson of what my capacity was in my experience. So I just said I'm selling in the last chair cause that was my seat at the film, you know, okay, And I played three or four orchestral excerpts through the keys, and I just let it. That's that's my statement. M that's him. I said, hey, where you go? I said,
I got a gig my to Berlin. Then I I can't stay here. You know. That's the footnote. That's kind of conversation. So yes, I'm still affected by that. You can't let that go. If you let it go, it continues somewhere else and someone who can't handle it. And I hate to thank guys of how much talent that's not available to a public of listening music because they're not they're not the uh cause they're probably of the
minority string section, string player, you know. Uh. Again, the pictures are slowly having a little more representative of a broader musical ability of players in minority community who deserve to be in these chairs. Like these other guys and gals are gal singular, you know, but I think, uh, this blue part of the sling torch, I think is necessary for me. You know, I enjoy the memories and I don't regret not being able to have those memories live. Matter is that they wanted to hire me and I
passed the auditions. They couldn't afford me. I mean they we could not afford what I get. I'm bringing a whole whole other vibe to this orchestra and what they stand for. I'm more famous than the conductor. What does that cost?
We'll be right back with more from Ron Carter after the break. We're back with more from Ron Carter. Down was and me? How do you contriue the blue flame that they keeps you from here? How do you keep that burning without burning yourself?
The DNA that helps make keep a balance, you know, uh, balance meaning there's always someone out there, some young kid of color, you know, who was who was going through what I went through sixty years ago, and if they're doing any homework and do any research, because it's not so available to them, because you know, here's some person who went through this kind of experience that I'm going through sixty years later, he found somewhere else for his talent.
It doesn't mean that there can be a good jazz player. I mean they may turn out to be a better writer. I'll put their skills into being a composer. Or a better teacher. It just says them know that there's still the way to be involved in the community of some kind, even though it's not the one that you instanly chose, and someone else made that choice kind of for you. They threw you, and they threw you into another train track. That's okay.
Did you feel like a did jazz playing the gig and you were doing and eventually I mean, you know, did that ever feel like a consolation?
Early on, I felt like this one I'm supposed to be.
Now.
I never took it as a a great second choice. I'm saying those guys missed it.
Yeah, you felt a natural affinity for it certain.
Parts, yes, but I understood to do what I was doing they required another kind of level of work and commitment. It's one thing trying to stand what the right note could be some other things for other patients to keep looking for it.
Did you listen to other styles of music, like when you were a kid, did you listen to the c KLW?
And probably, But at the time, you know, church was still very important in my my and my family's, in my community's life, you know, So I knew all the church songs, all the words, you know, uh at the time my conversation. Then then then all the world changes. But I understood the harmony. You know. It was kind of complicated, you know, and I never went to the rehearsals because I was playing show and the stuff doing. You know. So that kind of muty was always in
my in my family and my community. Uh. No one said jazz is the devil's music in myles or uh uh uh. When they when they would take the little kids to the uh Symphony Hall, Fisher Theater and they in the in the Detroit to see the orchestra, they encourage this, this is what the orchestra sound like.
They were.
They weren't saying that you can't be in there. But at the time of twelve or fourteen, you don't see anybody who looks like you, m a and they aren't planning that seed. They're just showing you an orchestra.
You know.
Where you take it from now that's kind of up to you. Your background, your interest, your the determination, you know, your skill level wherever it is. You know, do you wanna go through all this what whatever?
You know?
But no, I don't. I don't think that my career now it's that. I never thought it as a uh uh Constellation prize.
Yeah, yeah, I think.
Of how much those guys missed it.
Yeah.
Well, when you go back to Detroit over the years, I mean as your career starting is, you're going back late fifties, early sixties through the sixties, and you're seeing like Motown, for instance, happening in Detroit.
Was that?
I mean were you Were you watching that at all and interesting at all?
Not at all at Detroit.
I wasn't a jazz player, and so when I would go back for summer vacations, I would never go to the jazz clubs. I had a job by the one summer I spent as a progression director. My job is go to the parks at a park at seven o'clock. At eight o'clock, take out all the gids about the baseball, bat, the tub, the gloves, all that stuff, and mine to the kids behavior from nine o'clock to three o'clock. When that time came up, put stuff away and do it again tomorrow. So I kept my health together, I got
my physical skill together. You know, I was older than most of the kids, so that was really the old man who's controlling that. The bad Mitton said, you know the guy who made us pick up the bases after the softball game. That I was okay with that because that's what I was. You know, I just want to be better than they were.
Add it you.
Did, did you bump into James Jamison?
None of those man, I didn't know any of those people.
Where was the people you went to high school? Was like Alice Coltrane, I didn't know her.
My got Ira Jackson suophone players started playing after a while. Kirk Leitzing was my classmate. He used to do his homework homework. Uh, my classical my classmates of cast, they were all classical players like I was. And uh some of them went on to a major orchestras and conductors, the major's orchestras. Uh, some of them. A couple of them went to, uh we're in the Washington the DC Symphony. You know, a couple of them in the major orchestra
scattered throughout the world. I was the only one of my class who went to jazz to this level wherever the level that is. But I kind of lost track of those guys and none of none of 'em did this for a living m you know.
And you didn't know Paul Chambers.
My father knew Hispanically, were both bus drivers. Yeah, and I didn't meet Paul in New York officially, but we never hung out cause I had a family. He had a family. He was trapped with Miles all the time. M I came to New York. I was still a student of Manhattan for a master's.
Yeah.
Uh, I did two gigs, but I was not where he was in the in the spectrum of the jazz community, you know. Having met Sam Jones and in Rochester, I came to New York and at some point a year or so later, Uh, Sam was working at Monk and at some point he got sick and he called me to c I meet this gig for him. I said, well, Monk, he said, yeah, you can do that. So I said okay.
So I got my base and a cab and went in the subway and went down to a place called Circle in the Square, which is a block from the village gate. Cause this nice small theater, and I met mister Monks and mister Monk, Sam Jones is sick, and he called me the sub for him. He said, okay, do you know my songs? I said, most of them. He said, well tonight we'll find out which ones you don't know, and he was okay. So we did next
week in Philadelphia for a week. So we getting this kid getting Barons' car as five thirty drive to drive to uh the PEPs to show place in Philadelphia, do two sets, getting her car and drive back to New York cause I had a class in Manhattan at eight o'clock in the morning. Did that for a week, but they shore one Saturday. Yeah.
Another base Uh A bass player that you seem to have an interesting relationship with early on was George da Vivier.
Yes, I saw George working with you. Did you go hambling? And and uh uh I didn't know the drummer, but the singer was uh Lena Horne.
Wow.
And George had had uh yell lieutenant sunglasses. Not only did he play it great, he looked different a and uh. Ultimately we became really good friends, I mean really close friends. Uh. When he got sick, I was by his side, you know. But he had a club called the Bass Fiddle up on Saint Nicholas in about a hundred and thirty fourth Street, and I would go back to the gigs to talk with him from my music, and he would had a juke box. They had all the jazz records on it.
He would play one. He said, Oh, young fella, how'd you do that? I said, I said, Uh. MR said no, no, no, George, Uh George, I just hear what I do and try to find out how to make it work tomorrow night. He love that kind of stuff. I was with him on his bad days and his health days, you know. And and uh uh. One of his last earthly beings was a mona. Hinton and Milk were very great friends
of his. And somehow he had gotten really sick of his home uptown and he couldn't get a cab t to couldn't get anybody to come pick him up and take him to the hospital. So i'mnna call me at home. Said, can you come to where we are uptown, to George's house, the apartmentere he was, and take George to the hospital cause we can't get a cab. M She said absolutely.
So I got my son in the car, put the back seat down the little Volval, we drove uptown to George's house and ultimately they found a cab driver who will take him to the hospital and he was last. He didn't survive much past that time, you know. Uh, but yeah he was. He was uh a person whose imagery of the base was really really impactful. This is what the base can do in the group. A and uh, we didn't have a social connection in terms of going going by south for Dannel or come to my hout.
And it was always com to the base. H how the base does in the groups. The white groups are called him. They needed him there cause he was the best at what there was. He had what they needed. There's a a very important thing to see it take place, given being told that the orchestra are not ready to hire colored people yet.
Yeah, and I'm un in them in New York.
Man, with all these great players come to New York, I see this guy playing in the same base I'm kind of playing. And he gets these gigs cause the white guys know, they didn't need him in the orchestra and the and the S and the and their group. That's quite a.
That kind of well white jazz groups ja.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but the white guys were badly the Benny Goodman the kind of cats you know though, that that spectrum of Yeah, the music scene, the big time guys. Yeah, they call George to call Milt cause they knew they were bring something into their band that nobody else give 'em.
Yeah, left an impression. I got that.
We'll be right back with the rest of our conversation with Ron Carter after this last break, We're back with the rest of our conversation with Ron Carter.
For listeners who don't really know when you when you talk about the role of the base in a in a band, I don't. I don't know that the people really understand everything that that a base can do besides just hold down low end or something like that.
Well, you know, I kind of don't mind that. I mean, I go to concert occasionally classic concerts, and I've gone to the offense I can't and I don't see the audience specifically one what kind of basse player, what kind of based does the bass player I have? And what kind of strengths is he using? And what kind of fingering does he have? I don't see them doing that. You know, only the he has audience is forced to be that kind of research person for the person for
his don't you need to know what I do? Just can you like the.
Results of it? That's what I'm concerned with.
Having said that, though, you can't just accept that as being the way it is. And I try to respond to them in an adult fashion, not not sandbox styles. I try to explain to them that just okay, I'll tell you.
What you do.
You person, watch the next football game, you two. You know, there's a guy who's clearly the quarterback. What he's doing, he's got if it's in his ear, he's got ear ear piece. That's someone upstairs, and and the thing and the coach. I tell him what I played the call? Uh yeah, and he's doing, has this honest sleeve he has. He has the the details here some kind of way, and he's called shots wherever he does. Everybody must buy that cause he just got the word from heaven or
that this is what it is. Okay, he got quint out on the stage, the main net to cost the tune. And there's no one doing like this but this guy in his head. Imagine that. I try to him to see that kind of angle.
You have all the power.
Indeed, and they understand that they're rating four guys buying largely understand that some of them don't. That's okay.
What happens when you start going in a certain direction and you feel the other players aren't there.
I don't want to go do that. Yeah, I accept that. Maybe they want me to two p all night. I'll do it. Footnote to this answer. I was doing that date with a singer at some point, and the process was they would have an arranger coming from California, make some sketches for the arrangement, and the singer would come in and rhythm sec make this. They'd make this track with him singing, and the arrange would take the tracks back out to California and filling in with the orchestra
the stuff. You know, well, I'll joined this part on this specific date. And uh, the rhythm section I was with was a really a bunch of good guys in New York. That's always the case. And we communally had decided that these changes were kind of stiff and we didn't wanna do that for six hours.
You know.
Our job was kind of making hip for us, cause we got to play this stuff.
You know.
We'd do four or five tunes in the day, just like two days for my day and wet Tuesday, you know. So the second day we'd come in and and the range cast me over. Said hey, hey, do you have a seat, And I said, I'm feeling pretty good. You know, now much talk? He said, you know? Uh, I like where you play, that's why you're here. But I like my baselines on our route. I said, well, well, so so I'm gonna gon do those songs again. Say I'll tell you one. I'll play your ship until you can't
stand it, and then you tell me I'm free. So we did two, a few songs, he said free, and we became dear friends, I mean really dear friends. Yeah, to this day, nothing to tell you. But my point was I played what they want, and I have to trust that their judgment, that maybe I have a better idea to do it than they have.
What about the times you're not so sure? I read or heard or read somewhere I can't remember now where I saw this or read it. Where you said the first time you played with Herbie that he was playing chords, you weren't quite sure what they were, and so then you weren't quite sure what you should be doing exactly just early on.
Uh, I'm not sure that's quite an exact translation. I think what I might have kind of conveyed to the question or questionnaire was I know what he's doing, but I couldn't figure out the best note to make that work. And uh, I didn't understand that he trusted me that much that he would go with my way because he didn't know where I was going other than that it
wasn't what he his way was. And at some point, without discussion the rehearsal, we decided it was decided that my way wasn't a bad way, and then it could work for everybody.
So there was some conversation and dialogue in GM.
But not not what people would think, you know. We didn't have sound with a blackboard and listened to ultimate texts and figured out what now that we.
Had a life.
Yeah, when the gig was over, Man Herbert just got married. It got a big record, very big record. Tony was living the stair at someone at Miles's house. I had this new family. I've gone home out doing other stuff other than Miles's band. There wasn't that kind of necessary additional time to feel that the band could do something that's really great, something really nice. Ultimately, it was a
little past night, yes, but we didn't understand. I didn't understand the ramifications of what we were doing as we speak, you know, But again, our relationship was based on being wild for other guys night in.
And man out.
There's There was a compilation of put out kind of recently handful of years ago, made five years ago called Bootleg five. It was a Miles Davis re release and as a bunch of session as a bunch of recordings of you guys talking in between in the.
Studio and.
Uh, it's it's you can tell listening to it that you guys weren't one hundred aware of what you were contributing to the world of music because it was all very casual, you know.
Well, I think what I hope that people would understand from that particular set of records discs is that while Miles was the band of leader, he was not leading the band. He took information from everybody. He said, what about this, or don't do that? Try to He was
open to any suggestions. We thought they would make not just the music different, but absolve him from the responsibility of making everything happen, you know, not that he couldn't, not that he had did, but with this select bunch of four other guys, they relieved him of that sole responsibility of being not just the band leader, but leading the band.
It's like a good basketball team.
The band was leading him and he understood that all you got to do is man is be able to hit a set shot and take you stand over there, it's coming your way.
And t o too here. And it seemed like TiO Maceo, yeah, would produce it. Like you know, he was involved quite a bit too.
He was kind of having kind of kind of control on some of the stuff and and and uh uh uh budget. You know, it was time they had. He wanted to make sure that everyone got back on time from going out to get the drink or going out to scent get lunch. Uh. He was kind of the that the uh, the guy with the card that was into the time machine you call that thing pushed the car. Yeah, and he was the guy who organized the dates, book the studio, time was there for the mixing. He did all that kind of stuff.
Uh.
He's a good composer. You know. I think we played a good sex one at one time, and that was on one of this projects.
I had fun. Yeah.
Uh seeing how he was the leader for a change because he wasn't no leader with milesers Man. He was. He was the guy who was part of the process. Now he's the guy who's dictating the tatoon, the temple, the key, all that stuff. It's interesting to see him no longer be the guy hiding behind the curtain of the or the glass. Now he's on the other side, you know. And he understood a whole another level of it that takes something that happened. I appreciated that.
ESP was produced by Irving Townsend, right what did they did? My nmsel a falling out.
With I have no idea. I never knew little details, and I didn't really care to know them, you know, and only not that it isn't I didn't care. I was more concerned with I think guys, can the man hear where I'm going sooner? H And then can I remember a nice thing I did on the first set? To do it for the third set tomorrow night and see how many guys pick up on it? And to that end, I have a book come out of the public company called uh Tratography, and this book is written
out scores. What is what we have done is transcribe five different performances of the same song, the same band perfect laboratory, so cool, and and it transcribes my basic line for two and a half courses. How it changes for the side performances, but how the band as still what I'm playing, and that's what we did live every night man.
Because it's not just a static baseline, No, it's.
Every night it's something new based on this process, based on this germ. Now every night you water it. Yeah, how how.
Do you clear your mind of so that you're not repeating what you did the night before, but moving it forward. I'll tell you something happened to me recently. I played a gig in Detroit a couple of weeks ago, and it was good to see all these folks. People I went to elementary school came and they were all there before the show, and then we went out to play, and I realized, I'm completely I'm prepared to play the show.
And it took me fifteen minutes to get in a proper headspace to just be inventive and to let go. I'm curious about the balance of again, like following that seed you're talking about planting, but also being spontaneous.
One of the things that I try to do down is kind of have a line between them and me and just me. You know. You know we've had times they've been stuff's going on right now it's difficult to turn off the news, yeah and go to work because the news is so so in motion consuming, man, you know. And I say that because I feel like I'm getting like this right now, just thinking about trouble, the trouble, the difficult times we're in, and I know I got to go play a threell next week with a coin
I've got to put. This film is a signed long enough to do what immine hopes I can do for the band and my devices. Guys, it changes from how swept up I allow me to get in this over here. You know, there have been times when this part has been so emotional for me that it bleeds over into
the first set of who I'm working with. Most of the groups work with can't understand that issue because they have it also, you know, and they would like to think that the band over here, they're strong enough in their personal beliefs or they're saying to kind of let this not be so important to their performance here, but still color it because it's part of the emotional life they're living. You know, I did a record call when skys are Gray come my first blat and jazz record
that that really is nice record. Harvey and Mason, Steve Crouhan, Steven Scott on a Monday, the Sunday before I had done a memorial for my late wife, and these guys understood what I was literally I was coming from. And to say they had my back is kind of crude, crude, And it wasn't that they had not back. They just had my sensitivitiy or tuned up so high that you know that they trusted my choice. If they would want
to argue, they had said, no, it's not the right time. Yeah, God, trust this guy because he's hearing some stuff over here. They help me maintain a separation of this event and this performance. Your friends out there, they don't understand how they have impacted. Your choice is over here. Only you understand that you plural have to understand that they don't
know the difference. They don't know you have choices they and there's no year there m They will accept by and large what you give them because they expect you to give them a good menu. Your job is to pick the menu and what things you wanna really serve them that you're really comfortable with, given their tastes are not sophisticated. I mean that can give you y. You don't get them a test that's over there that you
me do this. I that's no. You wanna have them lead this gig to me to hurt our friend Don that hadn't hurt in a very long time. He sounded wonderful. Your job is given them right things from this menu. So you gotta turn this off, turn this down h long enough to be able to fulfill your responsibility to them. Also, these guys, M it is not that it is not an easy thing to do, you know, and and know that we're confronted with these two emotions daily. M. It's
something that we all quietly fight. We all quietly, uh try to find a balance. Now somehow we don't. We musicians don't really discuss this kind of process that we use because we have an image of ourselves being kind of above the fray. You know, you feel that you
feel down, Let's play the blues whatever things. We're kind of kind of given, uh more credit than is due of maybe a pull over inst about these doul drums, you know, I mean we love the imagery of being a guy who does this, you know, and the fact that the band is doing this because they're following your lead. You've got to accept that responsibility and take care of it.
Man, do give rituals.
I try to have quiet before I go to work. My tech guy didn't understand that.
At first.
We were driving. He picks me up, you know, drive turn the music. I'm not turning music off, No, no, no, I just need to clear my head from these things that are in a way.
You know.
I don't listen to music from come nowhere. I drive to my car, turn the music off like a sponge man.
We all are.
Everything affects us. I try to limit those affecting events as much as I can to to it. No music in the car, don't talk to me. Talk to me after the set because I'm still here and what I'm trying to do for this next hour and a half. And then make some strange looks occasionally, and then some people get offended, and I'm sorry that they feel that way, but as much better to feel that way. And now didn't feel that way this way because I didn't do my job.
You do you find by taking that much time to sort of before before you go to work, to clear your head and kind of adjust your intent, so to speak. But does that create any anxiety as well?
Like is it I'm there because I belong there? Anything in any anxiety may have maybe that someone touched the baseball office out there, someone food with the knobs, you know, physical things that I can't control and I accept, you know, Uh,
well it cracks me up. Man. When we were at the club called Sweet Basil, uh seventh Avenues down and downtown, the way we were set up, the audience had to walk by the bandstand to get to the restroom, and invariably on the animation someone wo walked by going to the bathroom and hit the cymbals or do you like to hold the piano? They had to see what they had to They had to had to be a part of the thing, man, you know, and uh yeah, you're not a part of this. You're a part of this
part of the equation. Yeah, yeah, you get the guy draws the line, you know.
When you you mentioned like physical distractions, do you ever find you you've been playing the same base for decades, right, sixty years? Does it feel different like another instrument some nights? Yes, what is that? Well, you know, the base is a box.
It's a box, a wooden box that's held together, that's separated by a stick. It's called sound most about that sound post. It would do like this just because the pressure of the strings. It's also the fact that the weather it affects the basis expanding contraction a small, small degree. But you feel in the strains got off someome. You get tighter, you know, the certain gigs that I don't do. Because the bases land for an hour between sets and a window and the windows kind of cold air, it's
gonna pick up the base. The base is literally freezing. And now that turn the heat on. Now the base which whitch got which got this way because there's been cold there? And that goes like this and my hands, my hands no difference right away, said oh man, I got to play harder because the strings are so tight. Now because of this, you know, my body's warm. The lights are on. All these factors change the instruments physical
response because it's going like this ever so slightly. And as they do this, the strings go higher as well. You know they they stand there, but the strings are moving just because this activity is going on. You know, and it's always you know all it's just cracked me up, man, and said, we go offrom the parking lot to the bandstand, there have no chance to get warmed up, so to speak.
The bass didn't been walked into four blocks and in the rain going to the gig, you know, going to literally to the bandstand, you know, and uh, but that's kind of the physical thing real we're we were looking in every night, and I think the most we can do is to be aware of there certain things we can't control. We've got to be aware of that it's happening. Though we can't say I didn't know what that. I don't know what happened. How can you not know? Man?
You just walk four blocks in the rain, there was snow, the basis cold, the heat's on on the badstand. How could you not know that's going to affect this box some kind of way. I think if they understood that, they will have a less a little lower level of frustration, and they would play it different because they understand they got it. They warmed up, as the bass does physically as well.
When you play in a theater, and especially with modern sound systems, where they got the subwolfers projecting out the thing and it comes bouncing back at you, and the drums come bouncing back at your thirty milliseconds later. How do you deal with that?
Well, I try to have the band not rely on that relies so singly on the they all those things, the monitors. Yeah, yeah, I want them to guy and rely us. Must they can on what they hear immediately. If I can get them to trust the band's sound without this other stuff, this delay of the beat doesn't take them so far out, so to speak. You know, when you have your own monitors, guys, I think each guy once says loud like it's just them more hard practice, piano, soft pedal that you know.
Yeah, let's shift up from one said. You mentioned Tayo Macero. You've worked with all the great producers, the legendary producers. You Creed Taylor, you worked with Bob Field, Alfred Lyon. I'm wondering, you know, from a Blue Note perspect to certainly what made Alfred's records different. You happen to be on the best records that I think are in our catalog, from Speaking No Evil and Maiden Voyage and stuff with Bobby Hutcherson, Real McCoy, all all the things she did
with McCoy. The players changed, but you're on all of the best records. I think that's a strong testimony as a like working with Alfred as opposed to other producers.
Alfred understood just a feeling, he would say, it's got to say, it's got to say. He understood that emotion. He didn't know anything else, by anything else. He didn't know notes. He couldn't really know that he hit him in the head on the subway, but he knew that this thing didn't have the element he recognized. And the band who understood how little Alfred knew about music. He understood this primals, that God work, this this primal instinct
of swing. And when he said that, the band just stopped in their heads, detegrating this guy and understood that he was telling them that this stuff is not happening because he can't feel it, and that's all he has to tell him. And that was important to the bands. All of those guys, man, all of them will say, oh yeah, okay. The fact that he said that he understood his limitations were telling them that wherever they were it was the wrong place for this.
Because he he wasn't intrusive, then.
Helps him. He made sure we had lunch before, He made sure that that's what the physical details and maybe maybe maybe rehearsal sometimes there was none, you know.
Uh.
His his his ability to put together the best set of guys was another. It was a whole different kind of skill that most producers don't have. Forever reason, you know, my favorite player, but does he sound good with this guy? Or who's gonna pull this state together? Who can we trust to be the lynch pin? You know, who's gonna those He had that sense of combinations that a lot of producers don't happen to have. For another set of reasons.
M you know it's a casting director. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's a big skill. Yeah who w wh Which producers do you think? What with the the best th th that she worked.
Was fit almost too many of the name cause y you never know who they are until it's all over.
Yeah.
And and unless I hear the the to foind a product, I I don't have that chance to track down most of those sayings.
So I do.
I don't know who did their job better than somebody else did. That's the other that's the courtion right now. Yeah, yeah, uh, I just think that that they would call me for their projects. They thought I could be a guy who could help them do something that they thought they wanted. Yeah, and I admire that skill. I admire them. Haven't heard enough music during that kind of choice.
Duke Pearson was another person who was important at Blue Note and was a player, but also.
He also play trumpet.
Man played, Yeah, great player, but also produced records. Yea, how was he as a.
He he's a player who knew how to produce, not the producer who played a little bit. That's not a bit different. Yeah, and he played good too. By the way, my footnote of that story is that Oran was trying to get him to make he wanted to make one more record. He moved on to Atlanta and all that kind of stuff, and I was working in California, and I ended up in Berkeley, which is where the Fantasy Studio was a nice studio man and the good engineered
Jim Starn And and somehow Duke was ailing. But I didn't understand that, and I think Orn didn't understand that either, because no one really said why he was ailing, but what it was. And then they come up to much later. And anyway, Duke finally got got some kind we got to California for this recording session with me and him.
You know, cause Duke has did a lot of duels in New York when he was in New York and Bradley's the the Lions here whatever they were, he kind of had them hire me and him to do a duel thing. Bradley's uh nick a blocker. I Anyway, when Duke finally got out to the to California to make this record, we were I was working at night with who maybe my band, but I was at free during the day. So we spent two or three days all day hoping Duke would feel better enough to complete the
tune or something. You know. Uh, I'm not sure it had on our efforts. You know, ultimately he passed away from multiple scrosses who understood, but no one nailed that as the cause of him having the physical dift of the physical difficulties he was experiencing. And maybe I'm just repeating the room I heard. I'm not sure, but ultimately he couldn't finish cause he was in so much discomfort.
It.
Uh, but what what a you know, even the names of the people who I knew who are who are no longer. I call him left the concert and I look around, man, and and I'm the when the last guy's standing, and it's just I just get chills thinking that I can't count on those guys to be there wherever there is, you know, I can't count on those guys to call him up and say every birthday, you know, or I can't count those guys say now you stop that,
get out of here. Come on, as I've been known to say, the guys who are getting in my nerve, you know, my last nerve. As a matter of fact, I miss those guys.
Man.
I'm some guys saying, man, how did you do that? And I can't hear that from those guys, a lot of them, so subject it calls me to sit back and reflect on uh lonjevity.
Do you do you do you call a lot of your old friends that are still around Sonny Rollins or Herbie Hancock.
Yes, yeah, I just feel the spirits. Okay, I call those guys, you know, I talk. I call that called h A couple of guys doing their birthday and I just have your birthday for him, you know, And it tracks him up that I was stopped. Of course I was stopping my day.
Man.
He's not that important in my life. Come on, it is, that'stuff whatever it is, you know.
G let's talk about Wayne for a second. Yeah, one of the kind. Yeah, how do you think about him? How do you think about playing with him?
And when I first met Wayne, he was playing with manon Fergus's band and uh his friends second tend I guess, I don't know, doing them doing occasional arrangements, you know. Uh, that's my first meeting with him. And also later I met his brother Alan, who played a little bit trumpet, you know, when they won the Avant guarde guys at the time when not travel with the psop or Miles is bad. My My my job was to do two things.
Not let Wayne buy too many books and uh kind of translated what he said to the interviewer, you know an and uh Wayne left at both of those jobs. You know, He's gonna buy his books and he's gonna say what he's gonna say, you know, and he's gonna also write what he could write. And it's just a g a great writer man. Yeah, he he I think he understood, n not that the guys didn't. He understood that the base sound was important, not specifically the note choice,
but of course that's part of it. M that's a B, that's a not specifically to rhythm or not specifically maintain the forum. He thought for him, the sound of the base was so important that they made the band work for him, if for another reason because of that, the others were important to him. He wrote, stuffs off them. They're kind of changes, different kind of form, different temple. Of course they were important to him, but for him that song was critical to his being in the band.
And critical to his compositions.
And t Wayne to Wayne, two more questions and I'm getting emotional hairs and that's kind.
Of okay, let's talk Let's talk about let's talk about Ron Curter. Universe is one of the most remarkable things.
Amazing. Yeah you said that too, Yeah, ask me how they did it all. I can tell you, man that people came by two nights ago with found at seventy five more records to the universe. Yeah, I'm just stunned. And this guy that's got that kind of like, guys, who's you see them? The pizza shop just being guys. But to be able to conceive of that and and and put that in the form that it can be added to as you discover them just mind boggling.
Man.
People should check it out. It's it's a Ron Carter universe if you if you search Ron Carter Universe dot com. Yeah, and then the club I spelled the form are in dot com.
You know.
Yeah.
It's just stunning, man.
Yeah, and I mean every I was going to say it would be great if everybody could do it, but everybody can't do it because you've played on so many records. No one's got that kind of repertoire or the discography where but I could spend hours on it.
And the more you find, the more other combinations you find, the personalities and what record this is on the dates and you get to a ten second on YouTube. But it it just Yeah. Fortunately, you know, when I talk to guys, I'm standing up otherwise so far off my head sitting down. Let's say you guys be quiet.
And l le let's also talk about all the all the books you write. Y, you're a great educator, mentor figure.
Well, Y, you know, I I think my age group has responsibility, so that the next generation doesn't realize that these people before them really impacted what they're trying to do now, you know, And and I think, what what what I've tried to do with my books, especially to the bass players, gave them my head start on what it takes, what tools it takes to do what they
think they hear with help from my processes and my books. Uh, you know, don I I've always felt that unless the bass player gets in the bands, the band really can't cover a lot of different territory, because this is the guy who does everything, you know. And I explain to them my name's gets stunned, you know, I say, this is the only guy in the band who plays every note.
He plays every beat, He pays every form, he plays every groove, wherever it is, he plays every presence and his his his, this his bareness for every beat of every song. Forever woe. Players pay three courses and they sit down and go to the bar beyond. Players clean their fingernails during the base so long. Trummer's always doing this fix or something. This is the only guy who does every note, and unless he improves, he can't help
them grow. And most most badly, most members don't really know how to help him, and they don't know how to tell him what he needs to make him more efficient with them. And it's not just louder man. You know what about the note choice? How are you gonna mark the form for us? How you gonna get us in tune? You know? And I tell these guys said that whenever A Miles will be at the stage, he'd come back back in. He had two notes, he said, run sharper flat, say too high man, cause the hard
got cold. All this you know deal, you know you check check check me out because he trusted my sense of this is a pitch man. I'm telling uh Russell sharp man, let's go man, cause it hurts my hand. I'm trying to find out exactly what the my base wants me to play the note in the same place, night in the night out. These guys don't allow it to happen. They're playing sharper flat as as they will fine, you know. So I think these are something on the
base player's responsibilities. Once he understands what they are, the driver is to go somewhere someone who can help him sharpen these skills that he needs.
To have.
To not just be a member of the band, to be, but to be an integral part of the band, not just sin I'm in the band, in the band, yeah.
Right, the QB.
Yeah on my playlist right here, man, there's the changes. Wait guys, sorry, yeah, good one more.
One more yeah. Well. Two studios.
There's many great studios, but there's two studios where some of my favorite records have been made. One was Van Gelder's Place in New Jersey and the other's Columbia thirtieth Street Studio. And I've always been fascinated by Columbia thirty Street because I can't go to it.
Yes, yeah, that's not fores ye. But one of my favorite studios were Clinton.
Yeah.
Oh.
And then right now it's a it's a flat flat the surface. There's nothing there at all. Man, there's the fence around it. It's gone. I've been gone about ten years.
Where is it?
Forty sixth Street and tenth Avenue. Right across the street was a pottery shop called Muddy Fingers, and down the street was the Old Folks Home. And there's two great great rooms. And I made some wonderful sounding record that's just see. The base was in charge that day.
Wow.
And when you get to record right, you own that sucker, man. I have a record called All Along, That's what it is. It's all alone, just me and the base sounded great that day and Rudy captured the greatness of the sound of the base. So all my stereo guys wanted to check their guy out this record, just to tell you how low it can sound good. It's just a wonderful sounding disc. And Columbia had that came down the sound weft the hall another one of my outdates with Miles.
Like Gil Evans, it was a great sounding room, just because the air then then have a debase from vibrating to it's optimum.
But thirty Street wasn't necessarily available to everyone. Yeah, so many good records there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It really really set the standard.
Man.
Fortunately they have able them been able to get the historical landmarks so that they can't tear it down and put a co op or a mom and pop store there.
They did get the historical land Yeah, they did get that.
A lot of work, a lot of paperwork, but they had to wherewithal and and and never give up up to them this to get the sucker done. And I applaud them every hour because Rudy's Rudy's monument. It's necessary to still be standing. It's not this, it's this. Can you imagine these guys just taking the one master tape and for the raise cutting it to edit distant. What kind of skill is that man? He didn't miss He nails an East one man. I'm telling you, yeah, incredible.
Here's a really good Wherever you are, Ludy, I take my hat off to you.
Earned it many Thanks so much for doing this, mister Carter.
Thank you, my friend, Thank you, my friend.
Thanks so much to Master Ron Carter for opening up to Don and me about his early life in music and some of the friends he made along the way. You can hear our favorite tracks written by or featuring Ron Carter on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com. You can also listen to this interview and other recent episodes at YouTube dot com. Slash Broken Record podcast goes all some video episodes.
Up there too.
Follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record PI. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Derek Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is ben To Holliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app and on YouTube.
By Theme Music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond,