One Bassist, Three Different Rooms
Ron Carter
Ron Carter has played on more than 2,500 recordings — more than any other bassist in jazz history. These three tracks catch him in three different rooms: leading his own laid-back groove on 'Blues Farm,' holding down George Benson's more exploratory CTI date, and driving the harder, harmonically restless quartet on Wynton Marsalis's 'Black Codes.' The instrument doesn't change. The job does.
Blues Farm
Ron Carter — Blues Farm (1973)
On the title track of his own album, Carter sets the temperature instead of following it. Under 's electric piano, 's organ, and 's uncharacteristically restrained drums, his bass lines take their time, stretching the space inside the blues. On his own record, he is the one deciding, not the one waiting.
Beyond the Blue Horizon
George Benson — Beyond the Blue Horizon (1971)
On George Benson's 'Beyond the Blue Horizon,' recorded before his crossover into vocal pop, the trio chases improvisational risk more than song form. Carter here plays reactive rather than assertive, waiting for 's phrases to land before answering. With 's drums roaming free, the bass becomes the one fixed outline in the low end — the opposite listening posture from his own record.
Black Codes
Wynton Marsalis — Black Codes (From the Underground) (1985)
'Black Codes (From the Underground)' was written with the harmonic restlessness of the Marsalis brothers' generation, and Carter appears here as a guest inside a much younger band's language. Against 's constantly shifting chord voicings and 's drums pushing at the edges of the beat, Carter's walking bass is sharper and faster than on his own record. The same bassist, adjusting his vocabulary to musicians twenty years his junior.
