Ron Carter is the world's most recorded bassist (Wikipedia puts the number of his recordings at 2,221 so far). Mr. Carter chats with fellow Epifani Artist KJ (@TheOddysy) about how he approaches practicing, playing live, and recording in the studio with myriad world-class artists from Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock to Roberta Flack and A Tribe Called Quest.
"What's the difference between playing live and recording in the studio?" inquires KJ. He's not just asking for the audience, he wants to know how the master's mind works. Mr. Carter is characteristically witty, first deflecting the questions, then coming at them from the point of view hard won by decades on the scene.
"The difference is I get to hear my not-so-good choices," Carter says of his thousands of recordings." This compared to his thousands of hours on stage: "I like the chance I'm gonna get and then it's gone... and then you can enjoy the moment." We should all be so lucky as to be able to enjoy every moment on stage. Surely that's the hallmark of a veteran at the top of his game-the ability to push the world aside and exist in each instance of a live performance. Or a recording session, for that matter.
KJ asks if there is a mental preparation, a conjuring of the internal fortitude required to get up on the band stand night after night and take those chances. "It's kinda over my head. I gotta stand up so it does't get over my head so much more," the master deadpans. And yet even in the joke there is a solemn truth in his sentiment. To stand up, to ask the audience to trust you, to balance their expectations and desires with the artistic integrity you require, that is the journey of a world-famous sideman and bandleader.
At the end of the conversation KJ brings up the magic number. "You've played bass on more than two thousand recordings over the years. What have you learned?" A less noble man, a man resting on his laurels would likely give an off-the-cuff answer. He would attempt the impossible, the unlikely, in summing up 50 years of blood, sweat, and tears. He would say something with affected profundity, but banal, obvious drivel would be all that was left after the dust settled. But Mr. Carter is nothing if not noble in his lifelong quest to answer his own unanswerable questions. And so his response is that of teacher who will always be a student:
"I have to get better."
Ron Carter and KJ have been Epifani Artists for many years. They both currently use Piccolo and UL 901 bass amps to power DIST2 dual-impedance bass speaker cabinets. Mr. Carter routinely mounts his on a speaker stand, a customization performed by Nick Epifani himself.
Audio/Video was captured by Shapeshifter Labs, owned and operated by another bass legend, Matthew Garrison (his father was the great Jimmy Garrison, bassist for John Coltrane and a contemporary of Ron Carter at the height of the bebop era. Editing by Ruddy Alcantara.
More info at epifani.com
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