When Ron Carter is on stage, class is in session. It’s not that there’s anything academic or didactic about the legendary bassist’s performances. Rather, Carter presides over a kind of seminar that you rush to for a front row seat, and that you exit breathless, eager to discuss the themes and revelatory details he’s covered.
At Friday’s performance, the second of three nights at SFJAZZ, Carter’s Foursight Quartet gave a masterclass in dynamic control and sustained lyricism, navigating a finely calibrated balance between arrangement and improvisation. Beyond that, the four musicians managed to transform into a singular organism that moved seamlessly from tune to tune, opening with 30 minutes of exquisite interplay.
Pianist Renee Rosnes, familiar to Bay Area audiences via many gigs with the late vibraphone maestro Bobby Hutcherson and as a founding member of the SFJAZZ Collective, played with the controlled force and ringing touch that have long distinguished her work. Drummer Payton Crossley, the longest-serving member of Carter’s band, brought far more than an acute textural sensibility. His skill at applying rhythmic force at low volume opens up the quartet’s sound so that Carter’s sinewy notes linger in the foreground.
Jimmy Greene, the band’s junior member at 50, was a marvel of concision. His tone and harmonic vocabulary sometimes brought to mind George Coleman, Carter’s bandmate in Miles Davis’s oft-overlooked early 1960s quintet, but distilled — Greene only needed to use one note for every 10 of the profuse Coleman.
On the Miles Davis/Victor Feldman tune “Seven Steps to Heaven,” the title track of the 1963 album that documented Carter’s arrival as a Davis sideman, the quartet caromed through the jagged melody. A piano-bass duo rendition of “My Funny Valentine” was a tour de force that made a ravishing adventure of the ubiquitous standard.
Part of the fun was that Carter was clearly having a ball. At 88, the bassist embodies old-school panache. There were suits and ties with crimson pocket squares for the men, and a black pantsuit with ample sequins for Rosnes. Introducing the players, he used given names — Irene and James. No Renee and Jimmy for Prof. Carter. So when he exclaimed, “This is the shit going on here!” the contrast between his avuncular formality and irrepressible joy landed hard.
For the standing-ovation-inspired encore, the quartet romped through “You and the Night and the Music,” interpreting the Arthur Schwartz/Howard Dietz gem with roller-coaster swerves of momentum. Livestreamed for SFAZZ members as part of the Fridays Live series, this class was best attended in person.
