High kicks and belly blows

Young James Carter takes a breath.

The hottest new jazzman since the last hot new jazzman picked up his soprano saxophone on a certain night in August 1996 and plunged right into a 50-year-old romper by the great Don Byas called "1944 Stomp."

Right away you knew you were in the presence of a star. James Carter, a slender, dignified 27-year-old out of Detroit, kept his instrument brimming with sound, perfectly in tune whether he was whistling like Rahsaan Roland Kirk or honking like Hamiet Bluiett or caressing a down-home New Orleans phrase like Sidney Bechet.

The tempo was brisk as the changes to "Exactly Like You" trotted by, but Carter made it sound like he was just so full of music that he couldn't play fast enough -- Charlie Parker and John Coltrane used to have the same problem.

But the omnivorous Carter ear is not quite finished with bebop yet, and no matter how much the opening night crowd may have wished it, he is no Coltrane either.

Not that Carter can't develop a line in a decidedly first-rate fashion. Not only can he do that, but he has a rare orchestral faculty that enables him to provide delectable textures and to manipulate the emotional backdrop as well.

"Portrait of Janine," a fascinating work by Spencer Fairfield, gave him a chance to demonstrate his prowess in this regard. He raided jazz history Coleman, Johnny Hodges, Eric Dolphy, Louis Jordan and Jimmy Dorsey with greater or lesser degrees of affection and respect.

But he interspersed passages of purely rhythmic substance and never lost the dance-like momentum of this highly evolved chart. (Craig Taborn on piano, Jaribu Shahid on bass and Tani Tabbal on drums were particularly light and lethal behind him here, as they had been all evening long, though he was in no danger of being overshadowed.)

You'd have to have a heart of stone or an ear of tin not to be impressed by the sound Carter got on clarinet when he played a blues number by Buddy Tate called "Blue Creek." This showed genuine mastery, and the number, heard in a duet with its author on his new Atlantic album "Conversin' With the Elders," was compelling.

On the other hand, holding a single note for three choruses is a bit gimmicky, even if Kenny G can't do it. And while Carter projected a credible blues feeling -- or even passion -- he's not going to give Stanley Turrentine any trouble for some time.

A final ration from the avant garden found Carter using his tenor saxophone, the history of which he chronicled, including some sarcastic yet affectionate slap tongue essays, alternating with his own individual method that involved contrasting portions of beauty and the beast, set against some oomp-cha rhythms in cornball three-quarter time.

Moment to moment, it was an evening for the ages, or at least 1996.

He's not as long and tall as long, tall Dexter Gordon,  but James Carter found plenty of room for three saxophones under his arms as he took the stage, clad in a mustard-colored, Nathan Detroit-model suit with a wide-open plaid.

The young man from Detroit put the tenor to his lips, and he and alto man Cassius Richmond jumped right into "Don's Idea," an intricate line by long-dead saxophone master Don Byas. Behind them, the rhythm section of Craig Taborn (piano), Jaribu Shahid (bass) and Leonard King (drums)
Carter's sound as he took the first solo was wider than the deck of the Titanic, the sign of a good ear, big chops. He fashioned a few diverting swing phrases before an imperceptible hiccup, and suddenly the sound seemed to become like Jackie Chan cavorting up there, with high kicks and belly blows, barks and whistles and blinding somersaults.
And so it went all night. Carter began a lovely Sun Ra ballad, "Hour of Parting," with a long soliloquy on hi a trice, which is like a flash, he'd go from big to pig, squealing as if in pain. A handsomely draped phrase crept in from time to time, but Carter, who cut his teeth in the bands of Lester Bowie and Julius Hemphill, seemed to prefer the Knitting Factory zone -- a land of cold, vivid irrationality.

Taborn, Shahid and King, by contrast, were sensibly Basie-like in their unflappable cool, swinging imperturbably as Carter went into his Screamin' Jay Hawkins-Illinois Jacquet moves. Carter's sax partner Richmond gave every note a chance to exist, and you felt one or two might have sprung from the heart.

Yes, Carter's rich supply of deviant sounds -- from the booming bottom to the reeling, whistling top -- was colorful as hell and enjoyable enough in a Jimi Hendrix sort of a way. But for every note in one of Carter's razzle-dazzle piles, there's a player somewhere in Los Angeles who can play just as fast. That's how you get out of Pocatello, kid. Then what?

Tony Gieske has been reviewing jazz and occasionally playing it on his cornet since the 1950s, when he wrote the jazz column for the Washington Post. Now he works for the Hollywood Reporter, where his reviews and photographs, such as these, appear regularly.The photographs are available as prints or as scans by sending an e-mail to grnskl@earthlink.net. More jazz stuff can be seen by clicking on the links beneath.