Ron Carter to celebrate 85th birthday with 2022 Carnegie Hall performance
The legendary bassist will perform with three different ensembles on May 10.
Ron Carter is one of the most decorated, accomplished bass players in American music. To celebrate his 85th birthday on May 4, Carter will put on a special concert at New York’s famed Carnegie Hall, according to a press release.
The one-night-only event will take place on May 10 at the Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. Hosted by NBC newscaster Lester Holt, Carter will explore six decades of material, performing with three band combinations; a trio, a quartet, and a nonet.
Special guests will be announced in the coming weeks, but fellow bass legends Buster Williams and Stanley Clarke have been confirmed to appear.
“Ron Carter to me is the most important bass player of the last fifty years,” Clarke said in a statement. “He defined the role.”
Considered by NPR “one of the most influential and widely recorded bassists in jazz history,” Carter was recognized in 2015 as the most recorded bass player in history by Guinness World Records with 2,221 listed recordings at the time.
As a member of Miles Davis’ revered 1960’s quintet with fellow icons, pianist Herbie Hancock, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and late drummer Tony Williams, Carter is a template for what consistency and intensity in improvisational music.
Carter was also featured on classic records with Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Eric Dolphy, Quincy Jones, A Tribe Called Quest, Aretha Franklin and Billy Joel.
Halfway through his eighth decade of life, Carter has shown no signs of slowing down. On Jan. 31, he will be up for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Solo for “You Are My Sunshine,” from his latest album, Foursight: The Complete Stockholm Tapes; if he wins, it would be his third Grammy.
In February, he and his trio will play four sets in two nights at Denver’s Dazzle club; on January 31, he lent his bass to trumpeter Nicholas Payton for his album Smoke Sessions, released this past October.
Earlier this month, Carter released the documentary Round Miles on his official YouTube page. Originally recorded in 2015, Carter has a roundtable discussion about his late trumpet playing boss, and his innovative work, with Hubbard, drummer Roy Haynes, bassist Marcus Miller and saxophonists Jimmy Heath and James Moody. Hubbard, Heath, and Moody have all since passed away.
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