"Two days later," Morello said, "I got a call from Tommy Dorsey's manager. He said, 'You got the job. Tommy's gonna give you the money.' I told him it was too late, I'd just signed with Brubeck. 'Oh, you don't want to play in Birdland all your life,' he said. 'Look what we did for Buddy Rich and Louis Bellson.' I told him, 'You didn't do anything for Buddy Rich and Louis Bellson. Look what they did for your band.'" Brubeck sent Morello some of the Quartet's records so that he could hear the pieces they would play on his first appearance with the band, a television show in Chicago. Morello flew there from New York. 
Joe Morello (born July 17, 1928 in Springfield, Massachusetts) is a jazz drummer perhaps best known for his twelve and a half-year stint with The Dave Brubeck Quartet. He is frequently noted for playing in the unusual time signatures employed by that group in such pieces as "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo à la Turk".
Morello suffered from impaired vision since he was born, and devoted himself to indoor activities. At six years old he began studying the violin, to feature three years later as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, and again three years later.
At the of age 15 Morello met the violinist Jascha Heifetz and decided that he would never be able to equal Heifetz's "sound", so switched to drumming, first studying with a show drummer named Joe Sefcik and then George Lawrence Stone, author of the noted drum textbook Stick Control for the Snare Drummer. Stone was so impressed with Morello's ideas that he incorporated them into his next book, Accents & Rebounds, which is dedicated to Morello. Later, Morello studied with Radio City Music Hall percussionist Billy Gladstone.
After moving to New York City, Morello worked with numerous notable jazz musicians including Johnny Smith, Tal Farlow, Stan Kenton, Phil Woods, Sal Salvador, Marian McPartland, Jay McShann, Art Pepper, Howard McGhee, and others. After a period playing in McPartland's trio, Morello declined invitations to join both Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey's band, favoring a temporary two-month tour with the Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1955. However, Morello remained to play with Brubeck for well over a decade, only departing in 1968. Morello later became an in-demand clinician, teacher and bandleader whose former students include Danny Gottlieb, Max Weinberg, Gary Feldman, Patrick Wante and Rich Galichon.
Dave Brubeck Quartet
Joe has appeared in many Brubeck performances and starred in over 60 Albums. The song he is probably most famous for is Take Five in which he takes a drum solo that slowly releases itself from the rigidness of the 5/4 time signature. Another example of soloing in odd time signatures comes from Unsquare Dance, in which he solos using only sticks on the rim over the 7/4 time signature -- no small feat. At the end of the track, the band can be heard laughing about the results. Other works include Blue Rondo á la Turk, Strange Meadow Lark, and Pick-Up Sticks.
Throughout his career, Morello has appeared on over 120 albums, 60 of which were with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. He has written several drum books, including Master Studies, published by Modern Drummer Publications, and has done an instructional video for Hot Licks titled The Natural Approach to Technique. Morello has won numerous music polls over the years, and was elected to Modern Drummer Magazine's Hall of Fame in 1988.
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Biography of Joe Morello
Joe was born on July 17, 1928, in Springfield, Mass. Having impaired vision since birth, he devoted himself to indoor activities. At the age of six, his family’s encouragement led him to study violin. Three years later, he was featured with the Boston Symphony Orchestra as soloist in the Mendelsohn Violin Concerto. At the age of twelve, he made a second solo appearance with the orchestra. But upon meeting and hearing his idol, the great Jascha Heifetz, Joe felt he could never achieve “that sound”. So, at the age of fifteen, Joe changed the course of his musical endeavors and began to study drums.
Joe’s first drum teacher, Joe Sefcik, was a pit drummer for all the shows in the Springfield area. He was an excellent teacher and gave Joe much encouragement. Joe began sitting in with any group that would allow it. When he was not sitting in, he and his friends, including Teddy Cohen, Chuck Andrus, Hal Sera, Phil Woods and Sal Salvador, would get together and jam in any place they could find. Joe would play any job he was called for. As a result, his musical experiences ranged from rudimental military playing to weddings and social occasions. Eventually, Mr. Sefcik decided it was time for Joe to move on. He recommended a teacher in Boston, the great George Lawrence Stone.
Mr. Stone did many things for Joe. He gave Joe most of the tools for developing technique. He taught Joe to read. But most important of all, he made Joe realize his future was in jazz, not “legitimate” percussion, as Joe had hoped. Through his studies with Mr. Stone, Joe became known as the best drummer in Springfield, and rudimental champion of New England.
Joe’s playing activity increased, and he soon found himself on the road with several groups. First, there was Hank Garland and the Grand Old Opry, and then Whitey Bernard. After much consideration, Joe left Whitey Bernard to go to New York City.
A difficult year followed, but with Joe’s determination and the help of friends like Sal Salvador, Joe began to be noticed. Soon he found himself playing with an impressive cast of musicians that included Gil Melle, Johnny Smith, Tal Farlow, Jimmy Raney, Stan Kenton and Marian McPartland. After leaving Marian McPartland’s trio, he turned down offers from the Benny Goodman band and the Tommy Dorsey band. The offer he chose to accept was a two-month temporary tour with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, which ended up lasting twelve-and-a half years. It was during the period that Joe’s technique received its finishing touches from Billy Gladstone of Radio City Music Hall.
Since 1968, when the Dave Brubeck Quartet disbanded, Joe has spread his talents over a variety of areas. He maintains a very active private teaching practice. Through his association with DW 
Drums, Joe has made great educational contributions to drumming, as well as the entire field of jazz, by way of his clinics, lectures and guest solo appearances. Joe has recently been performing with his trio of Doreen Gray (piano) and Nate Lienhardt (bass) in the New York metro area.
Joe has appeared on over 120 albums and CDs, of which 60 were with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. He won the Downbeat magazine award for best drummer for five years in a row, the Playboy award seven years in a row, and is the only drummer to win every music poll for five years in a row, including Japan, England, Europe, Australia and South America. He is mentioned in Who’s Who in the East, twelfth edition, and the Blue Book, which is a listing of persons in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States who have achieved distinction in the arts, sciences, business or the professions. Revered by fans and musicians alike, Joe is considered to be one of the finest, and is probably one of the most celebrated, drummers in the history of jazz.
Source: http://www.joemorello.net/bio.shtml
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Joe Morello...By Rick Mattingly
Born July 17, 1929 in Springfield, Massachusetts, Morello began studying violin at age six, and three years later was featured with the Boston Symphony Orchestra as soloist in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. By age 15 he had switched to drums, first studying with a show drummer named Joe Sefcik and then studying with the legendary George Lawrence Stone. "I'd work out of his book, Stick Control, and after I could play the sticking patterns I'd start throwing in accents in various places," Morello recalls. Stone was so impressed with Morello's ideas that he incorporated them into his next book, Accents & Rebounds, which is dedicated to Morello. Later, Morello studied with Radio City Music Hall percussionist Billy Gladstone, one of the most technically advanced drummers of all time.
"My training was basically classical snare drum technique," Morello says. "But I used it the way I wanted to. The objective of a good teacher is to bring out the creativity of the pupil. Some teachers insist that a student play a certain style. Let the students be themselves and\ develop their talent. Give them a knowledge of the instrument; once they have that, they can use it the way they want to use it."
After moving to New York City, Morello worked with an impressive list of jazz musicians including Johnny Smith, Tal Farlow, Phil Woods and Stan Kenton. While working with Marian McPartland at the Hickory House, Morello's technical feats attracted the attention of a legion of drummers, who would crowd around him at a back table during intermissions to watch him work out with a pair of sticks on a folded napkin. Jim Chapin tells stories about unsuspecting drummers who would try to impress Morello by showing off their fancy licks. Morello would listen intently, then say, "Is this what you're doing?" as he'd play their licks back at them twice as fast.
His 12-year stint with Brubeck made Morello a household name in the jazz (and drumming) world, and on the quartet's recording of "Take Five" he performed one of the most famous drum solos in jazz history. "When people use the word ‘technique,' they usually mean ‘speed,'" Morello says, commenting on the solo. "But the ‘Take Five' solo had very little speed involved. It was more about space and playing over the barline. It was conspicuous by being so different."
After leaving Brubeck in 1968 Morello became an in-demand clinician, teacher and bandleader. He has appeared on over 120 albums, the latest of which is his own Going Places, released last year (1993) on DMP. He has written several drum books, including Master Studies, published by Modern Drummer Publications, and has done an instructional video for Hot Licks titled The Natural Approach to Technique. Morello has won countless music polls over the years, and was elected to the Modern Drummer magazine Hall of Fame in 1988.
Morello says that the secret to technique is relaxation. "It's a matter of natural body movement," he explains. "When your hand is relaxed, your thumb isn't squeezing against your first finger and your wrist isn't at some funny angle. The stick just rests in the hand in a very natural position. When you strike a practice pad, you should be able to hear the ring of the wood stick. The average person chokes the stick, and that comes through on the drum. The whole thing is relaxation and letting the sticks do most of the work.
"Technique is only a means to an end," Morello stresses. "The more control you have of the instrument, the more confidence you will get and the more you will be able to express your ideas. But just for technique alone - just to see how fast you can play so you can machine-gun everybody to death - that doesn't make any sense. Technique is only good if you can use it musically."
Throughout his career, Joe Morello has embodied that ideal to the fullest, achieving renown for both his technique and his musicality, and inspiring generations of players through the example he has set of always striving for excellence.
"I'm sure there are people who disagree with my playing," he says, "and there are some who think I'm the greatest thing that ever happened. That's what is so great about this art form. It would be awfully boring if everyone played the same. You would only have to own one record.
"I've heard people say, ‘This drummer swings more than that one.' I think ‘swing' and ‘feel' are individual things. There is not just one way to swing. It's a feeling that comes from within that you project through the drums.
"I'm not the end-all and know-all of the drums. There's a lot out there I don't know, but I'm trying to do the best I can. The main thing is to be original."
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Joe Morello
By Andrew Velez
It was actually as a violinist that drums meister Joe Morello began his musical life at age five in his hometown, Springfield, Mass. A musician's musician, Morello (79), who now teaches and conducts jazz clinics in the US and Canada, has appeared on over 200 recordings. Still, it's safe to say his place in jazz history is as the drum-beating heart of a now-legendary quartet of piano great Dave Brubeck. From 1956 through 1967, Morello, Brubeck, alto sax great Paul Desmond and bassist Eugene Wright vastly expanded the audience for jazz by bringing it to colleges and in doing so also advanced the cause of racial integration both onstage (Wright was black) and in their audiences.
Because of what Morello dismisses as "a little trouble with my vision" from early childhood on he was unable to see well enough to read music. He simply memorized everything by ear. Drawn to "timpani and all those things" he became a regular at a local vaudeville theatre where he'd always sit near the drummer. At home he played on the back of a kettle until by hawking Christmas cards he earned enough to buy a snare drum. By 16 Morello was playing in "dives and dumps" with older musicians. "Then I started getting good jobs in hotels with quintets and Latin bands." When he was "around 19 or 20" buddies altoist Phil Woods and guitarist Sal Salvador talked him into going to New York.
Soon he was meeting musicians like Marian McPartland, who's remained a lifelong friend. One evening at the Hickory House where she was appearing, guitar ace Johnny Smith introduced himself and asked, "How would you like to play with me at Birdland for two weeks?" Morello's unhesitating response was "Who do I have to kill?"
Of his first for-real New York job he enthuses, "It was great! They had the name up on the marquee and everything. We were playing opposite Dizzy Gillespie." A tour of local clubs with Smith followed, then a stint with Stan Kenton's band and "two or three years" with McPartland. Morello remarks modestly, "I don't know. It came easy for me. I guess I was lucky." And then came a call from Brubeck. Morello had reservations about accepting his offer because "...I'd go into Birdland with Marian and the spotlight would be on Desmond and the piano and the other guys were in the dark. They weren't even on the billing. ...[Dave] asked me if I'd be interested in playing with his group. And I said well yah… But I want to be able to play. With the two [previous] drummers you have, you could get a metronome. You don't need me to do it. ...I told him I'd tour with him and that would be a good test. ...And he was very fair. He said he would feature me and he did."
Their first gig was for television in Chicago before a club date. Brubeck had sent Morello a couple of his albums and marked up three tunes, "...tunes with time and tempo changes with modulations from one to another. Which is basic. For me it was very simple… Brubeck arrived late and harried. There was no chance to rehearse. ...I said let's just do it. He was kinda amazed that I played with him and not one mistake."
Of the quartet Morello says pridefully, "Well that was a rhythm section that Dave will never have again." The quartet's Time Out album became and remains Brubeck's biggest seller, most famously for the tune "Take Five". But it's their 1963 Carnegie Hall album that Morello calls their best. Of that night he says, "Brubeck was nervous and said, 'It's Carnegie Hall!'" to which Morello replied, "Man, it's just a goddamn building!" A memorable part of the evening was "the drum thing—'Castilian Drums'. I started to play and Gene whispered, 'You got 'em standing.' I just kept going and Gene said, 'they're standing AGAIN!' We got five standing ovations. I thought they were going to jump on stage. It was crazy!"
Of those Brubeck years Morello says, "Dave was a very interesting guy to play for. He was one of the most creative people I've ever seen. He wasn't playing what everyone else was trying to 
do. ...He said to me, what I want to do is all these different tempo changes and stuff. Do you think you could do that? And I said, shit yah, why not! ...There were various tempo changes that were very simple. He was so knocked out when I could play those things. It was easy. Because I always liked to delve into rhythm patterns and do crazy things. ...It came easy to me."
Now blind in one eye, Morello still teaches and holds jazz clinics and there's talk about a possible gig at Birdland. Of his music he says, "I sort of believe in the melodic thing. That people can hear some relationship to the music you're playing. ...the various pitches on the drum and you've got to build up to a climax ...And it's all improv. I never played the same thing twice."
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When drummer Joe Morello joined the Dave Brubeck Quartet
By the fall of 1956, Joe Dodge was worn down by the travel and the intense schedule and wanted to be with his family. He told Brubeck it was time to look for another drummer. In the Quartet's New York stays, Desmond had heard Marian McPartland's trio and was impressed with Joe Morello, the drummer who had been working with her since 1953. Morello, born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1928, played there with alto saxophonist Phil Woods and guitarist Sal Salvador before he moved to New York in 1952. After short stints with guitarist Johnny Smith and with Stan Kenton's band, he settled in at the Hickory House for a long run with McPartland and quickly became a musicians' favorite in New York for his time, touch and a technique that equalled Buddy Rich's. Tall, quiet and diffident, with thick glasses to aid his drastically poor vision, Morello looked to McPartland "less like a drummer than a student of nuclear physics." Morello could swing firmly at low volume. With McPartland he used wire brushes, rarely his sticks. NBC-TV's Dave Garroway, a canny jazz listener, said that Morello's touch on his cymbals was like a butterfly's wing. That was the kind of drumming Paul heard at the Hickory House. It fit his ideal of what drumming should be. He enthusiastically recommended Morello to Brubeck.
"Paul told me we should hire Joe Morello. He said Morello was a fantastic drummer who always played softly, with brushes," Brubeck said. "I went over to hear him with Marian and was knocked out."
Morello remembered Brubeck and Desmond coming into the Hickory House several times to listen to the McPartland Trio. "I had been planning on leaving Marian's group anyway," Morello recalled. "There was an audition and an offer from Tommy Dorsey, but his manager got cute with money and while that was on hold, Dave called and asked if I would be interested in joining his group."
Morello did not jump at the opportunity.
"I met him at the Park Sheraton in New York, where he was staying. I told him the times I'd heard his band at Birdland, the spotlight was on him and Paul, and the bass player and drummer were out to lunch in the background somewhere. I told him I wanted to play, wanted to improve myself. He said, "Well, I'll feature you."
The Brubeck group left on a tour. When the Quartet returned, Morello said, he told Dave, "Let's try it. Maybe you won't like my playing and I won't like the group. There's no use signing anything until we're really sure." In lieu of a contract, they exchanged telegrams confirming their intentions.
That night at the club, Brubeck urged Morello to use sticks and assigned him a solo. Morello said that the solo got "a little standing ovation." Desmond left the stand for the dressing room. "At the end of the drum solo, he just took off," Morello said. When Brubeck got there at the end of the set, Desmond wheeled on him and presented an ultimatum: "Morello goes or I go." Brubeck said, "Well, he's not going."
"Joe could do things I'd never heard anybody else do," Brubeck said. "I wanted to feature him. Paul objected. He wanted a guy who played time and was unobtrusive. I discovered that Joe's time concept was like mine, and I wanted to move in that direction. Paul said I had to get another drummer, I told him I wouldn't. I didn't know whether Paul and Norman would show up the next night. They came to a record session at Columbia in Chicago during the day, but they wouldn't play. So Joe and I played for three hours. And they told me they were going to leave the group. And I said, 'well, there'll be a void on the stand tonight because Joe's not leaving." 
"So, I went to the job and, boy, was I relieved to see Paul and Norman. But I wasn't going to be bluffed out of Joe. It was not discussed again. That was the end of it. Paul knew that Morello was one of the greatest drummers who ever lived, but what he wanted was a steady beat. Some nights Joe would do more than that and Paul would say, 'Please don't do adventures behind me.' Later, of course, Joe and Paul became very close."
In the months following the failed bluff, what Brubeck has called an "armistice" was set up, but the situation more closely resembled the edgy cease-fires of Sarajevo or Belfast. After New Yorker writer Robert Rice traveled extensively with the Quartet on tour, he described the hostilities in a profile for the magazine.
"...bloody war was likely to rage whenever the Quartet played, with Brubeck doing his best to mediate between Morello on the one hand and Bates and Desmond on the other. Morello would play some passage that Desmond considered to be in abominable taste, and Desmond would express his feelings by blowing a strident parody of it on the horn -- and then become doubly incensed when the audience, as often happened, cheered the horn passage. Or else Morello, who is utterly unbending about the prerogative of a jazz group's rhythm section to guard a tempo once it has been set, would hear Bates accelerating to keep up with his leader -- who, like many jazz pianists, tends to play faster when he becomes excited -- and would start kicking the bass drum furiously in what he considered the correct time, a procedure so noisy that it couldn't help bringing back the strays, and that won Morello the hatred of Bates. On one occasion, in what he now sees as a fairly infantile gesture of defiance, Morello took a drum solo at such an exaggeratedly fast tempo that Bates had to play in half time, Desmond simply walked off the stage, and even Brubeck's neck got red with fury; at the end of that concert, Desmond strode over to Morello, said, 'All right. I'll take a full-page ad in Down Beat saying that I can't play fast. Will that satisfy you?,' and strode away again. Things got so bad that for a time Morello insisted on setting up his drums on the opposite side of the piano from Bates, so that he wouldn't hear the bass at all, while Desmond hardly ever played more than two or three choruses at a time, and only Brubeck, who had to try to play hard enough for four men, was on speaking terms with everyone else in the group."
There were serious disagreements among musicians over whether Morello's feet may have been just a trifle faster than even Buddy Rich's. He was unfazed by polyrhythms and unusual time signatures. Morello was not about to let all those chops go to waste, and neither was Brubeck. But it was clear to Desmond from the outset that in his musical life, Lester Young's ideal of a little tinky-boom was a rapidly-receding golden memory.
Norman Bates saw the conflict from inside the battle. "When you consider the combination of Dave and Paul, who's now making this small sound on the alto saxophone, if I can call it that, you will see that there had to be something to hit the fan with. Someone had to be forceful, had to show real power. So between Dave and Paul, I think, the arrangement was that Dave would do all the barking that needed to be done. Now, they've got Joe Morello, and he rapidly adjusted himself away from the very well-integrated, consistent piano of Marian McPartland, but, with that as a model, he didn't know what to do. Joe had to learn how to adapt himself by not participating in Dave's excursions. So, we found Joe, during Dave's solos, studying the ceiling while knitting softly with a pair of brushes until it was his time to shine, which was a solo. Well, when he'd catch Paul playing a repeating phrase of some kind that had some rhythm content to it, some simple pattern, Joe, as soon as he recognized the pattern, would join right in and play something that was in his mind appropriate and called for. Paul didn't like that at all," Bates said. "He didn't want to be shoved, or muscled, or bound, or confined."
Brubeck was able to make the center hold through all the internecine battles over tempos, volume, and drum fills during Desmond's solos. Despite their powerful disagreements about how Morello's skills should be deployed, Brubeck was able to take advantage of the respect Morello and Desmond had for one another's abilities. The respect was ultimately to grow into genuine affection, but that was at the end of a rough road.
Bates said, "Paul's comment when Morello was still trying to join in and being advised what he should and should not do, was, 'This is the death of the Quartet,' simply. If he had played like Pete Brown, then the two of them would have had a lot to say to each other. But by this time, he was not playing like that. He was playing in the way that people expected him to play and that was good enough for him, and that had to be good enough for anybody else."
"For a while it was uncomfortable with Paul," Morello told me. "But as time went on, it worked out. We became very close and used to hang out together. The last four or five years we hung out quite a lot, actually." Morello's phrasing and inflection were uncannily like Desmond's when he said that.
"I think the world of Paul," Morello said. "No, it was more than that. I loved the guy."
Morello’s advent laid the groundwork for the adventuring that allowed the Brubeck group’s success with unorthodox time experimentation. In the meantime, Columbia had them recording on a demanding schedule, a new album every quarter. They made a succession of theme-related LPs like Southern Scene, Gone With The Wind and Dave Digs Disney and a continuation of the college concert motif. Ted Gioia wrote, “By the time of Jazz Goes To Junior College in 1957, the band’s umpteenth live campus date, it seemed as if the move to junior colleges came about because Brubeck had gone through all the four-year institutions around.”
After his old friend Morello joined the Brubeck group, Phil Woods began paying more attention to the band and to Desmond. He and his pal Gene Quill may still have been wearing their altos like six guns on their hips, but they could no longer dismiss Desmond as just another effete saxophonist from west of the Hudson. Like other open-minded Charlie Parker disciples, they recognized Desmond’s musicianship and his individuality. 
“With wisdom -- well, maybe not wisdom, but a with a modicum of maturity -- I got to appreciate Paul,” Woods said, “because he was a great alto player. The older I get, the more I appreciate him. I heard a lot of Lester Young in his playing, the economy factor, always finding the one note that would work. He didn’t try to sound like Bird. Neither did Lee Konitz. They didn’t do any false posturing or any vaudevillian vulgarisms. They played who they were and they were both gentlemen.” Woods paused. “I think one of my most successful pieces is the one I wrote for Paul, from my album I Remember. It’s called ‘Paul.’ I tried to capture his musical thing, and it’s one of my more satisfying compositions. I’m sorry he never heard it.”
Gerry Mulligan, the baritone saxophonist whose quartet’s rise in favor and fame paralleled the increasing success of the Brubeck group, was an inveterate sitter-in. When he made an impromptu guest appearance with Brubeck at a Carnegie Hall concert in 1954, he and Desmond enjoyed the rapport and discussed the possibility of recording together. Label conflicts prevented it then. Desmond was signed with Fantasy, Mulligan had other label obligations. Finally, a swap became possible when Norman Granz agreed to allow Stan Getz, one of his Verve artists, to record with Fantasy’s Cal Tjader in exchange for Desmond’s recording with Mulligan. In August, 1957, the saxophonists went into the studio with Mulligan’s bassist, Joe Benjamin, and drummer, Dave Bailey, for two sessions that produced a twelve-inch LP. The pianoless format appealed to both men, and the record is relaxed, wry and witty, with tight, often interactive playing. They did a blues and an assortment of standards, some retitled in line with Desmond’s and Mulligan’s love for word play. “All The Things You Are” became “Battle Hymn of the Republican.” “These Foolish Things” emerged as “Wintersong,” “My Heart Stood Still” as “Standstill,” “Let’s Fall in Love” as “Fall Out.” They also played Mulligan’s “Line for Lyons,” which became a staple of Desmond’s repertoire in later years.
In early 1958, with a world tour for the State Department in the offing, Norman Bates elected to get off the road and return to San Francisco. Morello recommended Eugene Wright as Bates’s replacement in the Brubeck Quartet. He had heard Wright night after night in Cal Tjader’s quintet, when the two bands played opposite each other at the Blackhawk, and was impressed. Wright had led his own band, the Dukes of Swing, when he was in his early twenties in his native Chicago, then worked with Gene Ammons, Count Basie, Arnett Cobb, Buddy DeFranco and Red Norvo. When he joined Brubeck, he had been the bassist for three years in the remarkable edition of the Tjader Quartet that also included pianist Vince Guaraldi. Tall, a powerful bassist with a commanding presence, he satisfied Desmond’s basic requirements of steadiness and swing. Wright’s roots were always firmly attached to the basics, but his mind was open to new musical ideas. He was interested in Brubeck’s time explorations. Still, when Brubeck asked him to join the band, Wright had his doubts.
“I went over to his house so we could try each other out,” Wright said. ‘Brother Can You Spare a Dime,’ that’s the first one he pulled out for us to play. We did the introduction and the first chorus, then we started smokin’, and we started laughin’, ‘cause we got to groovin’, just the two of us, and Dave said, ‘Eugene Wright, you happy?’ and I said, ‘Dave, if you’re happy, I’m happy. I’ll take the job.’ But I told him, ‘I don’t know if I can make it with your friends.’”
When he got together with all three, Wright discovered a high level of musicianship, and he found a bond with Morello resembling the instant rapport that Brubeck and Desmond had discovered a decade earlier.
“Right away, Joe and I were as one. It was like Jo Jones and Walter Page with Count Basie. It was right from the beginning. Joe Morello and I locked up immediately. Joe’s out of New York and he had that thing -- Ben Webster and all those guys loved him because he had that little extra thing you need. When musicians used to ask me how I could play with that band, I told them they weren’t listening. I told them I was the bottom, the foundation; Joe was the master of time; Dave handled the polytonality and polyrhythms; we all freed Paul to be lyrical. Everybody was listening to everybody. It was beautiful. Those people who couldn’t accept it were looking, not listening.”
Officials at East Carolina College in Greenville, South Carolina, were looking. Wright was to make his first appearance with the Quartet there on February 5, 1958. With a gymnasium full of students waiting to hear the band, the dean of the university told Brubeck they would have to play without Wright. Iola Brubeck recalled, “This was the one where the university president said he didn’t want another Little Rock.” Four months earlier in Arkansas, Little Rock High School was integrated under the protection of Federal marshals and troops from the National Guard and the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army. The south was in turmoil over school integration.
“I couldn’t go on because I was black,” Wright said. “So Dave said, ‘Well, listen, if my bass player can’t go on stage, then we won’t be going on, either.’ So it went from the dean to the mayor to the governor. That had never happened before.’” Brubeck, as fierce in his sense of justice as he was adamant in defense of his music, refused to back down to a system of segregation he abhorred.
Word of what was happening leaked out to the students crammed onto the floor of the gym and into bleachers along the sides. They began stamping their feet in favor of Wright’s playing. Brubeck said that to the musicians waiting in the dressing rooms below, it sounded like a thundering herd of buffalo.
“Finally,” Wright said, “the governor told the man, ‘I guess you’ll have to let him play.’ Those students were so mad. They’d been waiting for an hour and a half. When we did hit the stand, man, we were smokin,’ burnin.’ After that nonsense, for some reason we were really up. We hit and, man, we played a straight hour and fifteen minutes. That was the very first time I played with Paul, and I really heard him play. Dave laid out for some reason or other. Joe and I started marchin’ on him, boy, right in the pocket. What a lot of drummers and a lot of bass players don’t know, is that you never start forte. You drop down, and that’s what got Paul. He had plenty of room and air to build. He built about fifteen choruses. I can’t remember what the tune was, a standard. 
“We started him here.” Wright put his hand at chest level and slowly raised it. “And about two, three choruses, he started stretching out, and we moved it up another notch. We got him to such a peak that when he finished that solo, where Dave would normally come in and play a solo behind it, he had to play the last eight bars and take it right out. The house came down. We had to wait about five minutes, six minutes before they they cooled down. ‘Cause they were aware of what was happening. People are funny. They can sense things, the audience, especially the ones who love music. And, boy, he just stopped the house.”
The musicians who came to be called the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet had gone through their baptism of racist fire. Now, they were off to see the world.
Source: http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=greatencounters16.html
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Thursday, February 26, 2009
JOE MORELLO
Friday, February 13, 2009
RON CARTER
"I'd like to know where all of his tales comes from. I've got to get me some of that!"-Bill Cosby
"...an acknowledged master..." -The Wall Street Journal
"(Carter) is arguably the gretest bass player jazz have ever known." -Philadelphia Inquirer
"Carter is a standard-bearer on his instrument..."-Jazziz
"One of jazz's most venerable bassists."-Jazz Times
"Ron Carter Has Become the Mercedes-benz of bass players."-Stereo Review
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Ron Carter (born May 4, 1937, Ferndale, Michigan) is an American jazz double-bassist. His unique sound has made him a long sought after studio man. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on cello. He also has recorded a large body of classical work, and he contributed to the film score for Desperate Characters (1971).
Early life and education
Carter started to play cello at the age of 10, but when his family moved to Detroit, he ran into difficulties regarding the racial stereotyping of classical musicians and instead moved to bass. He attended the historic Cass Technical High School where he played in the Eastman School of Music's Philharmonic Orchestra. He gained his bachelor's degree in 1959, and in 1961 a master's degree in double bass performance from the Manhattan School of Music.
Career
His first jobs as a jazz musician were with Jaki Byard and Chico Hamilton. His first records were made with Eric Dolphy (another former member of Hamilton's group) and Don Ellis, in 1960.
Carter is an acclaimed cellist who has performed on record numerous times with the cello, notably his own first date as leader, Where?, with Dolphy and Mal Waldron and a date also with Dolphy called Out There with George Duvivier and Roy Haynes and Carter on cello; its advanced harmonics and concepts for 1961 were reminiscent of the then current third stream movement on cello by Carter.
Fame
Carter came to fame via the second great Miles Davis quintet in the early 1960s, which also included Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams.
Carter joined Davis's group in 1963, appearing on the album Seven Steps to Heaven and the follow-up E.S.P., the latter being the first album to feature the full quintet. It also featured three of Carter's compositions (the only time he contributed compositions to Davis's group). He stayed with Davis's regular group until 1968 (when he was replaced by Dave Holland), and participated in a couple of studio sessions with Davis in 1969 and 1970. Although he played electric bass occasionally during this period, he has subsequently eschewed that instrument entirely, and now plays only acoustic bass. Carter was close with Davis and even revealed to an interviewer in 1966 that the famous trumpeter's favorite color was fuchsia.
Carter also performed on some of Hancock, Williams and Shorter's recordings during the sixties for Blue Note Records. He was a sideman on many Blue Note recordings of the era, playing with Sam Rivers, Freddie Hubbard, Duke Pearson, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Hill and many, many others.
Later career
After leaving Davis, Carter was for several years a mainstay of CTI Records, making albums under his own name and also appearing on many of the label's records with a diverse range of other musicians.
He appears on the alternative hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest's influential album The Low End Theory on a track called "Verses from the Abstract". He also appears as a member of the jazz combo, The Classical Jazz Quartet.
Carter was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Music Department of The City College of New York, having taught there for twenty years, and received an honorary Doctorate from the Berklee College of Music, in Spring 2004.
Ron Carter is a pipe smoker and has been featured in a few advertisements for tobacco pipes, clothing lines, and basses.
Ron Carter appears in the advertisements for a Tully's chilled coffee beverage in Japan.
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Ron Carter is among the most original, prolific, and influential bassists in jazz. With more than 2,000 albums to his credit, he has recorded with many of music's greats: Tommy Flanagan, Gil Evans, Lena Horne, Bill Evans, B.B. King, the Kronos Quartet, Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, and Bobby Timmons. In the early 1960s he performed throughout the United States in concert halls and nightclubs with Jaki Byard and Eric Dolphy. He later toured Europe with Cannonball Adderley. From 1963 to 1968, he was a member of the classic and acclaimed Miles Davis Quintet. He was named Outstanding Bassist of the Decade by the Detroit News, Jazz Bassist of the Year by Downbeat magazine, and Most Valuable Player by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
In 1993 Ron Carter earned a Grammy award for Best Jazz Instrumental Group, the Miles Davis Tribute Band and another Grammy in 1998 for Call 'Sheet Blues', an instrumental composition from the film 'Round Midnight. In addition to scoring and arranging music for many films, including some projects for Public Broadcasting System, Carter has composed music for A Gathering of Old Men, starring Lou Gosset Jr., The Passion of Beatrice directed by Bertrand Tavernier, and Blind Faith starring Courtney B. Vance. Carter shares his expertise in the series of books he authored, among which are Building Jazz Bass Lines and The Music of Ron Carter; the latter contains 130 of his published and recorded compositions.
Carter earned a bachelor of music degree from the Eastman School in Rochester and a master's degree in double bass from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He has also received two honorary doctorates, from the New England Conservatory of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and was the 2002 recipient of the prestigious Hutchinson Award from the Eastman School at the University of Rochester. Carter has lectured, conducted, and performed at clinics and master classes, instructing jazz ensembles and teaching the business of music at numerous universities. He was Artistic Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Studies while it was located in Boston and, after 18 years on the faculty of the Music Department of The City College of New York, he is now Distinguished Professor Emeritus although, as a performer, he remains as active as ever.
Source: http://www.roncarter.net/officialSite.html
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A legendary player with one of the most recognizable tones in all of jazz, bassist Ron Carter has appeared on literally thousands of recordings over the course of his nearly fifty-year career. Aside from his distinguished career leading his own units, he has played with a who’s who of jazz players of the last half-century, and established himself as one of the genre’s all-time greats.
Source: http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/legendary+jazz+bassist+ron+carter+on+being+a+bassist+and+bandleader
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Ron Carter aspired to be a classical cellist, but ended up as a bass player who helped shape modern jazz. He was a member of Miles Davis' classic 1960s quintet, the group whose dauntless experiments with form and musical landscape vastly contributed to the jazz palette in the decades since. Today Carter is one of the most esteemed performers, recording artists, and jazz educators around, and his life story can be found in a new biography entitled "Ron Carter - Finding the Right Notes" by Dan Ouellette.
The book is the first to be published by ArtistShare, a fan-funded music network that compensates artists directly for their work, and allows audiences a chance to witness the creative process. The biography is available now for pre-order on Oullette's website, where you can also watch videos and listen to podcasts of interviews with Ron Carter.
Source: http://jazz.about.com/b/2009/01/30/ron-carter-biography.htm
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Biography by Ron Wynn
The epitome of class and elegance, though not stuffy, Ron Carter has been a world class bassist and cellist since the '60s. He's among the greatest accompanists of all time, but has also done many albums exhibiting his prodigious technique. He's a brilliant rhythmic and melodic player, who uses everything in the bass and cello arsenal; walking lines, thick, full, prominent notes and tones, drones and strumming effects, and melody snippets. His bowed solos are almost as impressive as those done with his fingers. Carter has been featured in clothing, instrument, and pipe advertisements; he's close to being the bass equivalent of a Duke Ellington in his mix of musical and extra-musical interests. Carter's nearly as accomplished in classical music as jazz, and has performed with symphony orchestras all over the world. He's almost exclusively an acoustic player; he did play electric for a short time in the late '60s and early '70s, but hasn't used it in many, many years.
Carter began playing cello at ten. But when his family moved from Ferndale, MI, to Detroit, Carter ran into problems with racial stereotypes regarding the cello and switched to bass. He played in the Eastman School's Philharmonic Orchestra, and gained his degree in 1959. He moved to New York and played in Chico Hamilton's quintet with Eric Dolphy, while also enrolling at the Manhattan School of Music. Carter earned his master's degree in 1961. After Hamilton returned to the West Coast in 1960, Carter stayed in New York and played with Dolphy and Don Ellis, cutting his first records with them. He worked with Randy Weston and Thelonious Monk, while playing and recording with Jaki Byard in the early '60s. Carter also toured and recorded with Bobby Timmons' trio, and played with Cannonball Adderley. He joined Art Farmer's group for a short time in 1963, before he was tapped to become a member of Miles Davis' band.
Carter remained with Davis until 1968, appearing on every crucial mid-'60s recording and teaming with Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams to craft a new, freer rhythm section sound. The high-profile job led to the reputation that's seen Carter become possibly the most recorded bassist in jazz history. He's been heard on an unprecedented number of recordings; some sources claim 500, others have estimated it to be as many as 1,000. The list of people he's played with is simply too great to be accurately and completely cited. Carter's been a member of New York Jazz Sextet and New York Jazz Quartet, V.S.O.P. Tour, and Milestone Jazzstars, and was in one of the groups featured in the film Round Midnight in 1986.
He's led his own bands at various intervals since 1972, using a second bassist to keep time and establish harmony so he's free to provide solos. Carter even invented his own instrument, a piccolo bass. Carter's also contributed many arrangements and compositions to both his groups and other bands. He's done duo recordings with either Cedar Walton or Jim Hall. Carter's recorded for Embryo/Atlantic, CTI, Milestone, Timeless, EmArcy, Galaxy, Elektra, and Concord, eventually landing at Blue Note for LPs including 1997's The Bass and I, 1998's So What, and 1999's Orfeu. When Skies Are Grey surfaced in early 2001, followed a year later by Stardust, Carter's tribute to the late bassist Oscar Pettiford. In 2006 another tribute album was released, Dear Miles, dedicated to Miles Davis, also on Blue Note.
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… Using Nothing But His Bass
When Warren Murchie of Global Bass informed me that he had arranged my recent interview with the great Ron Carter, my first reaction was -- FEAR. Ron, undeniably one of the most influential bassists in the world, has done so many interviews during this long career. I ought to know, I had studied them all. I worried that Ron would be disinterested, and his responses laconic. I told Warren that I would rise to the challenge, and do a story about Ron like no other. I reasoned that it would be a labor of love to write about a man who has been an icon to thousands of musicians around the world -- with this writer being at the top of the list. 
Now more than ever, I truly believe that everyone has a destiny, and that all things, good and bad, happen for a reason. How else can one explain how Ron picked up the bass one day … and ended up changing the world! Was it fate that Ron Carter would eventually make the acquaintance of Miles Davis and become a part of the illustrious quintet that gave us quite possibly the most celebrated, beloved music of our times? How else can we explain the fact that when Miles Davis brought his musicians together to record, everything fell into place so perfectly, as if it were truly meant to be -- even down to the studio chosen. Rudy Van Gelder's studio, nestled away in an undisclosed location in Englewood, New Jersey, became the place where the revolutionary music was to be forever documented into our hearts and minds. It was clear to me that it was fate that led me to interview a man I had all but worshiped for so many years.
As I write this article, in the background, someone is babbling about Madonna's new, controversial video, a video that is too violent to be shown on television. When asked, Madonna apparently stated that the purpose of the video was to "raise questions and open dialogue." Ron Carter accomplished this objective armed with only the revolutionary sounds of his bass. When I was a six-year old child, my Dad (a trumpet player who toured the world with Tito Puente), introduced me to the music of Miles, Tito, and Freddie Hubbard. The music alone raised the questions, and dialogue inevitably followed about true art, and the distinctive soul of an excellent musician. I distinctly remember staring at the photo of Ron Carter on the back of his LP entitled Peg Leg, which my Dad just happened to have lying around the house. With his pipe and beard, Ron looked so dignified, sort of like a college professor. And in truth, that is exactly what he is to so many. Ron's playing on the LP was quite scholarly indeed -- it was vintage Ron Carter. It was a primer on truly advanced upright bass playing. The fifths, major sixths, the funky double stops, the piccolo bass, the growling tone, and the low C's (courtesy of Ron's fingerboard extension), were all there for me to hear, absorb, and learn. I vividly remember, as a teenager, listening to Freddie Hubbard's great LP entitled Polar AC (produced by Creed Taylor). Ron absolutely knocked me out with his opening riff to the title track, outlining the D to D sus chord changes with style. "Naturally" was the first track on side 2 of the LP, and was arranged by Grammy Award winner Don Sebesky. Ron's bass sounded awesome, and when he played those low C's on his fingerboard extension towards the end of the verses, I knew I was hearing something special. Can you come up with more inspiring dialogue?
The truth is that we were all privileged to have had Ron Carter to lend us inspiration, but who inspired Ron? I asked Ron if there were any particular bassists to whom he listened when he starting out. He responded: "Primarily, no. I listened to J.J. Johnson and [baritone saxophonist] Cecil Payne. J.J. was a trombone player who was able to make the instrument do something other than slip and slide. He found a way to play all those notes, and all those intervals without going past the bell of his horn. Cecil Payne came up when you had Gerry Mulligan and Harry Carney all playing with the same basic sound. Cecil was able to find his own quality that's clearly a personal approach to the instrument as far as sonics are concerned."
You see, Ron learned the merits of developing a personal sound and style partly from his exposure to JJ and Cecil Payne. This is perhaps one of the most important lessons you can learn from Ron. It is critical to develop your own style regardless of what instrument you play. Be inspired from listening to others, but don't plagiarize. Innovate, don't imitate! It is the only way to have staying power.
Ron has a brand new CD entitled When Skies Are Grey. It is a classy, Latin influenced collection of music all anchored by Ron's bass mastery. According to Ron, arranger Bob Freedman played a big part in the tight focused sound of the CD. Ron has worked with Freedman since the 1970's (Freedman was the arranger on the Peg Leg LP in 1977). "He's a wonderful arranger", Ron acclaims, "he's worked with Lena Horne, Harry Belafonte, just a wonderful arranger. I like the way he writes. I like the way he works. I like what he does."
Like all true innovators, Ron's mindset on When Skies Are Grey was not to compete with or copy the great Latin bands of today. "I wasn't trying to imitate guys like Tito Puente, because they do what they do with all those pieces much better than I can with a quartet. I was trying to acknowledge their presence on the Jazz scene, and have people go away feeling that if you don't have three violins, five trumpets, [and] six percussionists, you can still play the Latin beat."
Percussionist Steve Kroon, pianist Stephen Scott, and drummer Harvey Mason all added their unique styles and sound that make this record a wonderful piece. I was surprised to find Harvey Mason on this CD (thinking that he was primarily a funk/R&B drummer). I voiced this to Ron who replied, "I often hear that comment that people are surprised to see Harvey in a Jazz setting, and it really surprises me, because I've always known Harvey as a jazz drummer, I don't know him through all the other music everyone seems to associate him with."
All the material on When Skies Are Grey is strong, and the musical performances stellar. From the opening tune entitled "Loose Change", the Ron Carter touch is evident. Ron lays down the opening groove as only Ron can, incorporating major fifths played harmonically into the bass line. Besame Mucho is the second tune on the CD, but before you start thinking Julio Iglesias, think again. Bob Freedman's arrangement is really fresh and hip. My favorite tracks are Corcovado (which was written by Antonio Carlos Jobim) and Mi Tiempo, a Ron Carter composition. On Corcovado, Ron plays the melody, and Stephen Scott really embellishes with some nice chord voicings. Mi Tiempo is a Ron Carter extravaganza in which Ron is the catalyst for some great interaction between Steve Kroon and Harvey Mason. To sum it up … it's all good.
As those of you who have followed his career already know, Ron has always been an innovator in regard to tone. He was the first bassist to really get that growling tone on the upright bass. I listened attentively to every aspect of When Skies Are Grey, and I noted that Ron's tone seemed a bit rounder and warmer on this particular outing. I wondered if he did anything different this time around when recording this CD. Ron replied, "As you know, when you make a record, a lot of things are out of your control. There are a lot of processes that take place after the recording is done that affect tone. There are about six processes that take place in the studio, and sometimes the engineers get it right, sometimes they don't. The bass sounds different every day, my hands feel different, but as far as the tone of the new CD, it's nothing that I'm consciously doing."
In the studio Ron never uses an amplifier when recording his tracks. Critical to his beautiful sound are his hands. As everyone knows, that's the starting point for great bass sound. But in particular, Ron records his bass with a Neumann microphone. The instrument Ron used is the instrument that he has been playing since 1959. His bass is a Juzek, "whose parts were made in Czechoslovakia, and assembled in Germany before Germany became east and west, about 1910 or so. I have a fingerboard extension that I put on in the 1970's, probably the first extension of it's type, which now has become a standard in jazz. I use LaBella 7710's, which is a black nylon wound steel core string, and I've been using them for the last 12 years, and a David Gage (The Realist) bass pickup."
Looking to the future, I wanted to know Ron's views on Rap and Hip Hop music. Since the music industry has become such a melting pot, I wondered if there was a possibility of a future Hip Hop tinged to Ron Carter's musical offerings. "The language of a lot of the Rap stuff is pretty coarse for my age group. I don't appreciate some of the words and thoughts. If some of these rappers really want to become poets as they profess to be, they'd have people playing with them live to really affect the music." Ron further noted that "A Tribe called Quest and Dr. Dre know the jazz cats, they just haven't gotten around to feeling it essential to incorporate it into their music, especially live." One thing is for sure, although I currently do not own any Hip Hop CDs, if Dr. Dre hires Ron for an upcoming project, he's got my word that I'll buy it!
For your information, Ron is a degreed professional, with degrees from Eastman School of Music, and a Masters from the Manhattan School of Music. Ron has been teaching music at City College of New York for almost two decades. "I've been teaching full time for the past 19 years, at CCNY, City College of New York [at] 138th [Street] and Convent Avenue (212-650-5411). I teach four ensembles and seven bass students." When asked if he presently has any prodigies under his wing he replied, "They all show promise, how they do when they get out there is another story, but they all show promise."
In these times of hype and fads, it is easy to find a new "star", but increasingly difficult to find great music. We have game shows in which pretty faces are awarded record deals without having to pay their dues -- the dues every true musician must pay in order to reach a higher level. Ron Carter has paid his dues and as a result has lived and thrived in the worst of times. He is a role model for all -- black, white, whatever your ethnicity. He is proof positive that it is possible to make a living as a musician without selling your soul, "selling out", or trying to copy the flavor of the month dime a dozen bands with which we have been inundated of late.
However, it must be noted, that the music business itself does have its price. On a personal note, in the pursuit of "making it" in the music business, this writer has shelved a lot of the music and musicians that were once so important to me as a young optimistic beginner. Trying to make a name for myself and work in New York's unforgiving music seen can be overwhelming. Listening to Ron's new CD brought back all of the beautiful musical energy I once thrived upon. Ron is still here, right now, inspiring and enlightening and for this I must say … "Thank You, Ron."
If you are serious about music, I strongly suggest picking up When Skies Are Grey. You will be listening to the most revered jazz bassist alive today -- the one and only Ron Carter. Make it your business to learn about him, you will truly enrich your life by doing so.
On a sad note, one week before the recording of When Skies Are Grey, Ron Carter's wife passed away. It was something that I did not feel comfortable discussing with Ron at the time of the interview, but I think it is important that the readers of Global Bass send Ron their warm thoughts. Ron, the consummate professional, had to put aside his grief and head into the studio to make music. My deepest condolences to Ron and his entire family.
I would like to thank Ron Carter, Cem Kurosman, Marty Straub, and most of all, Warren Murchie for granting me this distinct honor.
Source: Tony Senatore, March 22, 2001
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Discography
As leader
Yellow & Green
Pastels
Anything Goes
Piccolo
All Blues
Bass and I
Stardust
The Golden Striker
Orfeu
Telepathy
New York Slick
Blues Farm
Standard Bearers
Jazz, My Romance
When Skies Are Grey
Friends
Holiday In Rio
Mr. Bow Tie
Ron Carter Plays Bach
Uptown Conversation
Carnival
So What
Peg Leg
Meets Bach
Spanish Blue
Patrao
Parade
Guitar & Bass
A Song For You
Brandenburg Concerto
Live at The Village Vanguard
Eight Plus
Dear Miles
Etudes 1982
Live at Village West with Jim Hall
Telephone with Jim Hall
Third Plane (1978) with Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams
As a sideman
Herbie Hancock - Empyrean Isles, Maiden Voyage, Speak Like A Child, V.S.O.P.
Joe Henderson - Power To The People, The State Of The Tenor: Live At The Village Vanguard
Sam Rivers - Fuchsia Swing Song, Contours
Eric Dolphy - Out There (1960)
Coleman Hawkins - Night Hawk (1961) with Eddie Davis and Tommy Flanagan
Andrew Hill - Grass Roots, Lift Every Voice, Passing Ships
Bobby Hutcherson - Components
Wes Montgomery - So Much Guitar (1961), Tequila, California Dreaming
Oliver Nelson - Sound Pieces
Miles Davis - Quiet Nights (1962), Four and More, My Funny Valentine, Live at the Plugged Nickel, Miles Smiles, ESP, Miles In the Sky, Seven Steps To Heaven, The Sorcerer, Filles de Kilimanjaro, Water Babies
Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil (1964), The All Seeing Eye
Toshiko Akiyoshi - Toshiko at Top of the Gate (1968)
George Benson - Giblet Gravy (1968)
The Rascals - "See" (1969)
McCoy Tyner - The Real McCoy, Expansions, Trident, Counterpoints, Fly with the Wind, Supertrios, Extensions (1970)
Quincy Jones - Gula Matari (1970)
Freddie Hubbard - Red Clay (1970), Empyrean Isles, First Light
Donald Byrd - Electric Byrd (1970)
Roberta Flack - First Take (1970), Quiet Fire (1971), Killing Me Softly (1973)
Milt Jackson - Sunflower (1972)
Billy Cobham - Spectrum (1973)
New York Jazz Quartet - In Concert in Japan (1975)
The Wiz (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (1978)
Jim Hall - Alone Together (1986), Concierto
Helen Merrill - Duets (1987)
Harry Connick, Jr. - Harry Connick Jr. (1987)
Johnny Frigo - Live from Studio A in New York City (1988)
Twin Peaks (Television Series, 2nd Season) (1990)
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory (1991)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (Motion Picture Soundtrack) (1993)
Austin Peralta - Maiden Voyage (2006)
Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker (2001, Vertical Jazz) (deleted)
The Classical Jazz Quartet Plays Bach (Vertical Jazz, 2002)
The Classical Jazz Quartet Play Rachmaninov (May 16, 2006, Kind of Blue)
The Classical Jazz Quartet Play Tchaikovsky (September 19, 2006)
Christmas (2006)[3]
Grace Slick-"Manhole (1973)
References
http://danouellette.artistshare.com/default.aspx
Ron Carter Official Website
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