Any Way You Slice It, This Ron Carter Cake Is Delicious

Ron Carter, ‘Foursight — The Complete Stockholm Sessions’ (IN+OUT Records)At Birdland: The Ron Carter Quartet (through October 8), the Ron Carter Trio (October 11-15), the Ron Carter Big Band (October 18-22), and the Ron Carter/Bill Charlap Duo (October 25-29)In terms of long-term career benefits, being a sideman in a truly legendary band is like having a role in a highly successful TV series. Just as the residuals will keep on paying for as long as the show is in syndication, veterans of the bands of, say, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or Art Blakey can be relied on to promote themselves to leader status and keep the well-paying gigs flowing. With Ron Carter, the situation is precisely the opposite: He’s such a remarkably strong bandleader, one who has consistently overseen the creation of so much of the best jazz of our time, that it’s hard to believe he was ever a sideman — even though he achieved his greatest fame as the bassist with Miles Davis’s classic quintet of the mid-1960s.This month, the maestro is celebrating his 85th birthday with an epic series: He’ll be part of four different ensembles over four weeks at Birdland. The first, a quartet that co-stars tenor saxophonist Jimmy Greene, pianist Renee Rosnes, and drummer Payton Crossley has made only one recording so far, a concert in Sweden in 2017 in which they were billed as “Foursight,” a catchy group name, to be sure. More recently, fully two hours (15 tracks) of these performances have been made available in a new package titled “The Complete Stockholm Tapes.” Of the six tunes the quartet played during their late set on Tuesday, half were associated with the late trumpet icon Davis — as much for their presentation than for the music itself. As Davis started to do in the ’60s, the bulk of the set was delivered without talking, flowing from one song to another without any pause in the program. The first 50 or so minutes of the set was structured in something like a suite, beginning and ending with Mr. Carter’s original “Caminando” (that’s Spanish for “Walking,” which might be a reference to a famous Davis record, “Walkin’”).In the five years since the Stockholm concert, the quartet has grown even tighter. The second set commenced with a quiet drum pattern by Mr. Crossley that was quickly joined by Mr. Carter, and then by Ms. Rosnes and Mr. Greene. “Caminando” gradually morphed into “Joshua” by the British pianist Victor Feldman, which was the first tune Mr. Carter ever played with Miles Davis (at least in a studio), almost 60 years ago. From “Joshua” the ensemble shifted gears and grooves but remained in a modal mood with “Flamenco Sketches”; it would have been foolish for Ms. Rosnes to avoid sounding like Bill Evans, so she not only called to mind his playing on “Kind of Blue” but his signature vamp on “Peace Piece” and “Some Other Time.” Elsewhere during the set, Ms. Rosnes summoned the spirits of such fully-fisted hard bop keyboardists as Horace Silver, Red Garland, and Bobby Timmons.Although they aren’t billed as “Foursight” at Birdland, this is a real band, not just four players who happened to be available, and thus worthy of a real group name. The individual pieces fit together in a way reminiscent of the Modern Jazz Quartet, who inspired the name of the Carter ensemble (with pianist Donald Vega and guitarist Russell Malone) the Golden Striker Trio, appearing at Birdland next week. Like the MJQ, their playing has real purpose, not just jamming in the spur of the moment — as rewarding as that can be. It’s especially admirable that the band never shouts; like the late Lee Konitz, it grabs your attention and holds it by playing music that doesn’t need to resort to obvious trickery to maintain your focus. Equally gratifying, it’s a band led by a bassist — one of the few who could command our attention with an entire evening of his own solos. Yet he plays solos only sparingly, making us appreciate them all the more.After the “suite” part of the evening concluded, Mr. Carter spoke briefly, recounting how fans in clubs invariably demand that he play something from the Miles Davis book. He obliged with a heartfelt reading of “My Funny Valentine,” essentially a duo with Ms. Rosnes. (He introduced it as “Miles’s favorite song,” and he should know.) Mr. Greene got to shine on a gutty and fundamental but still understated 12-bar blues, and they concluded with two standards, “Someday My Prince Will Come” and “You and the Night and the Music.” On these last two in particular, Mr. Greene’s tone on the tenor and his relaxed yet intense playing put me in mind of the “round sound” of the late Hank Mobley.More Ron Carter ensembles are coming to 44th Street: After the Trio next week, there’s his big band and what promises to be an inspired piano-bass duo with the formidable Bill Charlap (who, coincidentally, is married to Ms. Rosnes). That isn’t even a full catalog of Carter groups — notably absent is his long-running, remarkably fluid duo with tenor master Houston Person. As noted, Mr. Carter doesn’t speak very much on stage or crack wry bandstand jokes; his major idiosyncrasy is to introduce the members of the group by their formal names, i.e., “Irene” Rosnes and “James” Greene. Note that he doesn’t give his own as “Ronald” Carter, but whatever he wants to call himself and his bands, I want to be there to hear them.

Any Way You Slice It, This Ron Carter Cake Is Delicious

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