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Legendary bassist Ron Carter continues to find the right notes

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January 24, 2012|By Andrew Gilbert

Ron Carter is touring with his trio again after expanding to the 17-member… (PETER WOCHNIAK )

Ron Carter keeps moving forward, but the past never stops nipping at his heels. With thousands of recordings to his credit, including dozens of bona fide modern jazz classics, the legendary bassist has forged a legacy outsized even by the measure of his 6-foot-4-inch frame.

Rather than resting on his forest of laurels, including honorary degrees from New England Conservatory and Berklee, he continues to explore new projects and settings. Last year he released his maiden voyage leading a large ensemble, “Ron Carter’s Great Big Band,’’ a historically encompassing CD with arrangements by Robert M. Freedman.

“It’s fun to be in charge of 16 guys rather than two,’’ says Carter, 74, who opens a two-night Regattabar run tonight with his “Golden Striker’’ trio, featuring the gifted young Nicaraguan-born pianist Donald Vega and superlative guitarist Russell Malone, heard to advantage in recent years with Sonny Rollins.

“Bob Freedman and I worked closely on coming up with songs that an older audience would be familiar with, but set to a broader array of musical concepts.’’

The deeply informed historicism of “Great Big Band’’ makes for a fascinating contrast with last year’s most widely hailed session from the vaults, the Miles Davis Quintet’s “Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1.’’ Featuring three CDs and a DVD, the package offers yet another bracing look at the trumpeter’s well-documented band at its most volatile and cohesive, building on some three years of bandstand experimentation.

Arguably more influential today than during its mid-’60s heyday, the ensemble known as Davis’s second great quintet (I’d say it was his third, following an earlier incarnation with saxophonist George Coleman) turned Carter into a big league star with his fellow sidemen Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Tony Williams.

For Carter, the most revelatory dimension of “Europe 1967’’ is the DVD, which features sets from Stockholm and Karlsruhe, Germany, the only video available of this vaunted quintet. Watching the footage decades later, Carter was struck by the physical nature of the bond that created such extraordinary music.

“There’s constant eye contact in that band,’’ Carter says. “You can see the level of trust we developed as we telegraph a musical move with a raised eyebrow, a frown, or a shifting position. That’s why I’d tell my students that you’ve got to keep your eyes open on the bandstand. You never know when you might need to duck a pie in the face.’’