[I made a mistake and declared March 4th Ron Carter’s birthday, it wasn’t, it’s today, May 4th.]
To mark Ron’s birthday, I’ve restored a laserdisc of performances played live by Ron Carter. Before we get to that, enjoy this short 2012 tribute to Ron.
When I started filling out my Creed Taylor collection, I had no special appreciation for jazz music, I don’t consider myself particularly knowledgeable about jazz, or the styles, or particular merits of the instruments, or any particular artists. I like what I like. To be honest that was more the dance style of much of the Kudu label, as well as uptempo danceable tracks. However, over the past couple of years, reading autobiographies, listening to old albums, I’ve definitely become a massive fan the music and style.
This is especially true of the output of Hubert Laws, Bill Evans, and Ron Carter. My collection includes 135 albums, and a laserdisc, that Ron has performed on. That might seem a lot, until you know that Ron has recorded more than 2,200 albums, an accomplishment honored in the 2015 Guinness Book of World Records.
Ron has one of the best websites of any musician. There are also a lot of instructional and educational videos of/by Ron on Vimeo(see below for link).
Double Bass Live – The Laserdisc
I waited a long time for a laserdisc to come available in the US at an affordable price. They been able to get them from Japan, but they were priced at $25 and up, and then there is postage and potential import duty. Sadly, the old adage, “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is”, came true.
When my version showed up, it had a small crack on the outside edge of the disc, that extended about 1/2 inch in. Fortunately, like pretty much any discs except vinyl records, laserdiscs play from the inside out. In this case it meant the last 8-minutes of the disc was unplayable.
As far as I’m aware, there are at least five laserdiscs that Ron is part of. Three that feature Ron, including one with Freddie Hubbard. I hope to feature some of those, as well as the complete set of “Creed Taylor” produced laserdiscs in the upcoming months.
More Information
Ron Carter artist page [discogs.com]
Ron Carter’s website [roncarter.net]
Ron Carter videos [via vimeo.com]
Double Bass Live [The US laserdisc entry on discogs.com]