Although you could put up a very strong case in its favour, even if James Carter weren’t the finest saxophonist of his generation, he’s undeniably the snappiest dresser. I saw him perform at the little local annual jazz festival in Souillac on the Lot/Dordogne border back in the year 2000 or 2001, whenever he was pushing his tribute to Django Reinhardt, Chasin’ The Gypsy. He was on top form and looked the business that night in either the loud checked suit on the back cover of the album or something equally lurid. My friend, who wasn’t then and probably still isn’t really into jazz, was knocked out by the saxophonist. Admittedly, James treated his audience to some fiery rhythm & blues à la Big Jay McNeely in his encore, but it was a testimony to his ability as a jazzman to preach to the unconverted.
My introduction to James Carter came with a promotional cassette copy of his marvellous third solo album, The Real Quietstorm – one of the finest jazz albums of the 1990s in my ‘umble. He sports another million-dollar suit on its cover (as well as a tie that would give Cab Calloway a run for his money), but more to the point the nine numbers confirm how equally comfortable he was and is with ballads and with up-tempo numbers, and with the baritone, tenor, alto and soprano saxes as well as the bass flute and the wonderful velvety bass clarinet, an instrument that’s reputedly very difficult to play (as well as afford). It sounds like a recipe for a slightly annoying showcase for his considerable talents, but never comes over thus. It’s simply that he was young and spirited and just so darn good on whatever he picks up to play.
Living in an age where anyone in the audience can record a performance on their phone, you are spoilt for choice of ‘JC in The House’ on YouTube: JC in the context of an organ trio, showing himself to be the inheritor of Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis’s mantle; JC duelling tenors with his closest contemporary rival, Joshua Redman; JC with a big band; JC the lush balladeer. In the end, I plumped for the latter – and in particular two performances: one at the Marciac Jazz Festival in 2016 as part of an organ trio, which would have done quite nicely had it not been for the other: effectively a 7½-minute solo in which he turns his tenor into what Don Byas dubbed a ‘sexophone’. It’s lush rhapsodic stuff that makes your toes curl and the hairs on the back of your neck stand on edge. Not yet 30, it is a precocious and virtuoso performance. Commentators object to ‘all that popping and slapping crap,’ but what little there is could be put down to youthful exuberance. Without a certain element of show-boating, there wouldn’t be that magical moment just before the end when someone in the audience whistles and Carter responds instantaneously with a high note and a wry smirk.
It’s no accident that among the vintage saxophones Carter owns is one that once belonged to Don Byas. Even as a young tyro, Carter always respectfully acknowledged his debt to the elders. If he’s anyone’s heir apparent, it’s probably the man from Muskogee’s, although there’s more than a suggestion sometimes of Ben Webster, whom he played in Robert Altman’s 1996 film, Kansas City. Here he is then, performing with extraordinary élan ‘I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone’, written by the jump-blues pianist and band leader Buddy Johnson, who also wrote the immortal ‘Since I Fell For You’. Because the spotlight is so much on Carter himself, it’s very difficult to identify who’s with him in the band, but given that it’s 1997, it could well be his regular band of Craig Taborn on piano, Jaribu Shahid on bass and Tami Tabbal on drums.
The Detroit-born saxophonist has matured nicely since his more exuberant youth. He has brought out umpteen albums under his own name and contributed to umpteen more – playing majestically, for example, on pianist Cyrus Chestnut’s eponymous album and, somewhat surprisingly, Madeleine Peyroux’s Dreamland. Like Chick Corea, he’s always ready to form genre-specific bands to focus on the different aspects of music that he loves: his Elektric Outlet, for example, probably helps to satisfy his ‘frustrated guitarist’ urge. His organ trio has released a Live From Newport Jazz album on Blue Note, still the jazz musician’s stamp of approval. With so much talent to spare, it’s hardly surprising that he’s not content to sit still and blow permutations on the same theme. The New York Times has described him as ‘one of the most charismatic and powerful soloists in jazz’, and it’s the power allied to the loving finesse of this performance that makes it in my book so outstanding. Whether he’s playing the huge, cumbersome bass sax (as he does on Chasin’ The Gypsy) or the baritone, tenor, alto or soprano saxophones, he does it with such confidence and panache that it’s hard not to agree with the Washington Post’s verdict that ‘to hear saxophonist James Carter is to be blown away.’
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