Jazz breaking news: A master at work: Ron Carter returns to Ronnie Scott's
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Jazzwise to the Power of 15 continued last night with a very well received set by the accomplished jazz, soul and house music-influenced singer Zara McFarlane and her band, opening for the first of two shows by Ron Carter and his Foursight band.
The sold out show attracted many musicians to the club who had understandably come to hear one of the world’s most influential jazz bassists, a complete master of his instrument, whose place in jazz history remains impregnable and who with this band and others he has led in recent years continues to create new stimulating directions in jazz while respecting past achievements.
As the bassist of the second great Miles Davis Quintet in the 1960s, the tall, sharply dressed 74-year-old has nonetheless immersed himself in the most demanding of pursuits, refusing to rest on his laurels achieved during some five devastating years with Miles all those years ago, getting inside the song, reinventing the song and pursuing its reinvention relentlessly.
Above all he is master of the groove in whatever context, then or now. Take, for instance, something like the title track of the 1970s-era CTI album Blues Farm where you’ll hear that infectious touch that gets you moving, or more recently in the 1990s his work with rapper MC Solaar on the track ‘Un ange en danger.’
With Carter it’s all about the song and the stated or implied rhythms that lie within, and the ‘featured’ song last night, his 'favourite' of the moment, happened to be ‘My Funny Valentine’, and the interpretation begun on the piano by new recruit Renee Rosnes whose opening gambit on this most heartbreaking of songs was both baroque in its scope and in its emotional range. But think for a moment of the 1965 live Miles Davis album version when Carter with the Miles quintet (Wayne Shorter had not yet joined) recorded the song live at Lincoln Center. Suddenly the distance of time, and knowledge of that date did not matter at all. This interpretation was quite different and sufficient unto itself.
With the Victor Feldman song ‘Seven Steps to Heaven’, found on Carter's Blue Note album Dear Miles from 2007 like ‘Valentine’, also part of the 100 minute-long set again a potent part of Davisiana, the band positively zipped along, reflecting the effortless joyfulness allowed by the song’s meter, with superb percussionist Rolando Morales-Matos and drummer Payton Crossley, who both performed with Carter at Ronnie’s three years ago, showing in this context that they have a style all of their own, which means that these classic standards gain a new life at the heart of Foursight. It would be hard to think of any more enthrallingly sophisticated sound in jazz right now. A homage to the past perhaps, but all about the here and now as well.
– Stephen Graham
Tonight Jazzwise to the Power of 15 continues with the second sold out show by Ron Carter’s Foursight. Support is from talented newcomer saxophonist Josh Arcoleo and his quartet