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Kenny Barron/Gerry Gibbs/Ron Carter: Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Dream Trio
by Dan McClenaghan
Drummer Gerry Gibbs calls this band the Thrasher Dream Trio. That “Thrasher" aspect of the appellation might make the uninitiated conjure images of burly tattooed guys in sleeveless shirts, sporting long black hair--and maybe facial make-up--slamming their instruments in the heavy metal bass/drums/guitar mode. But this couldn't be further from the music at hand. Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Dream Trio teams two seasoned jazz veterans--legends, really: bassist Ron Carter and pianist Kenny Barron--with relative newcomer Gibbs, on an energized set of ...
Continue ReadingRon Carter: The Right Notes, Alright
by R.J. DeLuke
There can't be any jazz musician or jazz listener who doesn't know Ron Carter and his standing as one of the most successful and influential bass players in the history of music in America. He's a musician of the highest order, with a rich, immediately identifiable sound that has resonated in the jazz world for some five decades. Those beautiful bottom notes. Always on the search for the right ones, he probably hasn't played too many clunkers over the years. ...
Continue ReadingRon Carter at 75: New York, March 27, 2012
by Bob Kenselaar
Ron Carter at 75: A Life in MusicAlice Tully HallNew York, NYMarch 27, 2012On the night of the Juilliard School's tribute to Ron Carter, electronic billboards lining 65th Street near Lincoln Center flashed bright pictures of the iconic jazz bassist. The event was a lot like the man and his music: there was an atmosphere of elegance and warmth, occasional touches of wry humor, some chamber music colorings mixed on a deep jazz palette, and ...
Continue ReadingMcCoy Tyner: McCoy Tyner: Extensions
by Chris May
Languishing off-catalogue for many years, McCoy Tyner's Extensions may be the pianist's most unjustly neglected album. Strange days, for not only is the music ineffably vibrant, but Extensions is the only recording ever to feature Tyner alongside pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane, who replaced him in saxophonist John Coltrane's group in 1966. The album has one foot in the echoes of John Coltrane's “classic quartet," of which Tyner was a member from 1960-65, and the other in the astral jazz ...
Continue ReadingDonald Harrison: This Is Jazz
by Greg Simmons
Saxophonist Donald Harrison's name is writ large on the cover of This Is Jazz, but the album is a collaborative trio in every sense. After all, playing with legendary bassist Ron Carter and drummer extraordinaire Billy Cobham could never be equated with simply hiring sidemen. Recorded live at New York's Blue Note, the six tracks on this album take post- bop expansion to exemplary heights and keep it there for the duration. Harrison has a tight but wandering ...
Continue ReadingRon Carter: All Blues
by John Kelman
In the 1960s and 1970s, few bassists were as ubiquitous as Ron Carter, from the experimental post/free bop of trumpeter Miles Davis's 1960s quintet to straight-ahead swing with guitarist Kenny Burrell and the greater extremes of saxophonist Archie Shepp. With the emergence of CTI Records, Carter became something of a house bassist for the label; on the recent four-CD retrospective box that launched CTI Masterworks, 2010's CTI Records--The Cool Revolution, the bassist appears on no less than 29 of its ...
Continue ReadingJim Hall: Concierto
by John Kelman
Amongst the many CTI classics of the 1970s, few stand the test of time as well as guitarist Jim Hall's Concierto, an ambitious album that, in its original form, married one side of modern mainstream with a second taken up by a 19-minute version of Joaquin Rodrigo's 1939 piece for classical guitar and orchestra, “Concierto de Aranjuez." That Miles Davis and Gil Evans had already delivered what was considered the definitive jazz adaptation on the trumpeter's 1960 classic, Sketches of ...
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