As one of the fieriest saxophonists to emerge in the mid-’90s, James Carter has maintained his status as one of the most versatile and innovative jazzmen on the scene. He can play it sweet and slow or hot and swinging, but as his Thursday set at Jazz At The Bistro proved, he’d rather blow your head off with some blistering free jazz.
Carter brought his organ trio to town this trip, with Leonard King on drums and Gerard Gibbs on the Hammond B3 organ. Both men provided ample room for Carter to explode or reflect, supporting the softer moments gracefully and propelling the swirling improvisations into the high heavens.
The trio began with their take on Oscar Pettiford’s “Trictotism,” with Carter using his soprano sax to create bird calls while Gibbs answered with a siren blare from the Hammond. From there the pace never dropped, and Carter had expired one of his saxophone reeds before the organ solo began.
The rest of Carter’s set maintained the same pace, with some atonal squawks leading into some pleasing jams and soulful ballads. In a more charming moment, Carter played “stump the band” with his sidemen, playing snippets of pieces as they racked their brains and checked their fake books for the right song. Instead of Carter simply shouting out the song title, he let the tenor sax answer.
The set ended with a blinding bop romp, reminiscent of classics like “Salt Peanuts” or John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” Like all of the songs in the set, this one worked on the theory of entropy–that order leads to disorder and vice versa. What begins in a whisper crescendos to a scream, what starts in racket will resolve in repose.
For all of the free-form art on stage, Carter is apparently a little more particular about who takes his pictures. During his second song, Carter came over to where The University News was sitting and politely but firmly asked our photographer to stop taking pictures. This request wouldn’t have been so odd had it not been for the presence of another photographer for the St. Louis American who was taking pictures of Carter and co. in a more flagrant manner, yet received no reprimand.
As our photographer snuck a few more shots in, he was met by menacing glares and motions from the stage. Perhaps he felt threatened by our wide-angle lens; it’s difficult to say. Regardless, it seems unwise to pick on patrons with fewer than 20 people in the club.
But lest that experience sour your view of Carter, rest assured that he is a master of his unique craft, a sax man who can jump genres in a single jam, whose percussive snaps and pops from his instrument open up a new dimension in improvisational jazz. Just leave your cameras at home next time he comes through town.
