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Mingling

James Carter unlocks music’s possibilities by

fusing different genres.

Melodies

Photo by Vincent Soyez

James Carter performs with the Oregon Symphony May 9–11, 2015.

InSymphony: How did you get started with music, and when did you know you wanted to be a musician? James Carter: I come from a musical family, actually. I’m the youngest of five—two brothers and two sisters—all musically inclined. In my household, it was a very fertile environment for the arts. In addition to my siblings, my mom played piano and violin in her formative years; dad played a mean radio. I had a host of cousins that played. Friends have also shared similar musical interests and inclinations. So, very, very fertile household as far as music was concerned, and I flirted around with some other instruments. I always jokingly [say] that I am a frustrated guitarist who ended up on saxophone.

InSymphony: How do you feel the city you grew up in, and the schools you went to affected your ideas about music? JC: In Detroit, the city itself is very musical and artistic to the nth degree. Back in the day, of course, we had individuals who were part of the great migration from the south coming up north to find jobs—

[with] Ford and various other automakers. As a result, they brought that soul with them, and if they weren’t able to make it on the assembly line, they made it into the clubs. So, for me personally, I really think the pivotal point was running into my musical father, Mr. Donald Washington. He came at a crucial time when I was really thinking about quitting. The reason being that there wasn’t a program or teachers at liberty that were teaching pre-adolescents about jazz to keep enthusiasm up. He was one of the rare individuals that did. The classes that I was attending at the time were regular instrumental music classes that had the first divisional band, the books. You learned a new note every other lesson—“Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Hot Cross Buns”. Today we learn the quarter rest and that stuff—one rest, two rest—that type of environment. So, meanwhile, back at home, I’m listening to radio and to records and whatever I can—very enthusiastic. I’m digging this jazz. That was courtesy of my mom because when she was doing chores around the house, she would always have music on,

By Samantha EdingtonBlues, rock, funk, jazz, soul, Latin. Saxophonist James Carter’s successful work on multiple

recordings, skilled improvisation and performances with his Organ Trio can attest to his mastery of these musical dialects. The seed of his proficiency in musical language was nurtured in what Carter calls “a fertile environment for the arts,” surrounded by music aficionados in his family and friends as he grew up in Detroit. Also encouraged by his mentor and teacher Donald Washington, Carter began his serious pursuit of music as a teen with scholarships to the highly regarded Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and Interlochen Center for the Arts summer program.

Years down the road, the major element that defines his music making is experimentation across musical genres, or “cross-pollination.” In knowing many different musical styles intimately, Carter is ready to call upon and fuse them into something different and complex, unleashing new possibilities. And though many pieces become familiar with repeated performances, Carter is always ready to peel back the layers and discover different nuances: “You can go to that well so many times and still be nourished.”

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and that would be the most peaceful time ever to see mom, so I wanted to be a part of that as opposed to getting on her nerves [laughs]. That music always seemed to do that and it’s one thing that [introduced me to] Billie Holliday, Carmen McRae, Ella Fitzgerald. I’d say about seven or eight times out of ten, there was a sound I heard—that sound was the saxophone—that’s what sparked my interest.

So, Mr. Washington comes along, and he hears what I can do and he uses that to build upon, and I just take off from there. He would give lessons to me at the time. They would include classical scales and whatnot, and the last half of it we dealt with the jazz.

Before this, I was really into science, particularly chemistry and biology—and computers, to a lesser extent. But, music came in and just put all that aside.

InSymphony: You are a proponent of “cross-pollinating” music. Why is it important to experiment with musical styles? JC: Not only have knowledge of them

but be intimately with them to the point where you might be able to call upon that language later and it’s knowledge. It’s like dealing with another dialect of your mother tongue, so to speak, to deal with different genres of music—if one has the aptitude to do so.

InSymphony: Who would you say, or what, are some of your major musical influences?JC: We could be on the phone all day with that one, but…definitely my teacher, Mr. Washington, who put in my ear that music and life don’t separate and there’s a certain joy in being able to play more than one instrument. Just like we’re talking about cross-pollinating different musical styles and genres, he plays the whole woodwind family. He also encouraged me to check out flutes and clarinets and double reeds because they are part of the same family, and the versatility aspect of being able to play them in different contexts and to get certain sounds and feels out of them that you could once again cross-pollinate and use just the multiplicities,

the possibilities, involved in that alone. Encourage the search.

InSymphony: Did you learn to play other instruments? JC: Yes. When you think about how academically it’s done, if you want to be a woodwind artist, for example, they say you learn clarinet first before they give you a saxophone. But I went the route where I learned to play baroque recorder first, and that was the very cheap and inexpensive way of weeding out who’s going to be able to go on to an actual instrument. So, I went from baroque recorder to alto saxophone, and the rest of the saxophones, and flutes, then clarinet and then double reed.

InSymphony: How did the James Carter Trio come about? JC: The trio was actually born June 2001. It became the core group of the Live at Baker’s CD I did back in that year. And we’ve been together pretty much ever since. This year, I am breaking in a new drummer. And it’s just a very powerful group when you think about the power and the soul that an organ trio definitely

Portland ColumbiaSymPhony orCheStra

Steven ByessMusic Director & Conductor

2014-201533rd Season

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Dynamic DuosMay 1 & May 2

BACH: Double Concerto for Two Violins in D minorString students of PCSO

RAVEL: Tombeau de Couperin

BRAHMS: Double Concerto,Op. 102

Hamilton Cheifetz, celloCarol Sindell, violin

Johannes Brahms’ Double Concerto for violin, cello, and orchestra is the remarkable realization of a composer’s dream — to create a new “super” instrument by combining the violin and cello in a solo voice that transcends customary limits.

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{ }Q & A

For an extended version of this and other interviews, scan this QR code with your smartphone or visit http://orsymphony.skiesamerica.com.

has with such minimal personnel. It’s economic and it’s powerful. It packs a soulful and cultural wallop all in one.

InSymphony: When you come to Portland and do the Sax and the Symphony, what are you looking forward to? JC: Well, [I’ve] been playing this piece since 2002, and I look forward to the fact that every time I play it, it is a new piece. Playing it with different symphony orchestras, there’s always something that will stick out that I never heard in the previous renditions of it. Now that I’ve gotten familiar with the piece, I [can] apply that energy on being metrically correct over to something else, such as filling out the soprano and tenor—they kind of lend themselves to the male and female roles now—where I am able to give the music more character and more structure, and also to pay attention to certain melodic and harmonic bits that are contained within the orchestra itself. And that makes the whole piece a lot more cohesive, as opposed to here’s what the orchestra is

playing, and then when it is time for me to solo it’s something that is totally irrelevant. It’s really been about, okay, I heard that now. For the first time, I can hear what the tuba is doing here, when I couldn’t five years ago.

Every time I hear something from Duke Ellington or something [else], I’ll hear it differently because of where my listening is at, at the given time. And, you pretty much have an epiphany as a result of that: music that has continuous nutritional value to you. You can go to that well so many times and still be nourished, put something back in it.

InSymphony: What is in the works for you for concerts, albums or shows? JC: I’m going to do this project that entails not only my quintet, but also a full big band. And, I’m looking forward to bringing the full big-band version to the states—if I get a hold of the charts and spirit them away—and get that happening back here, where I’d be able to do it with the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra, based here in New York. In addition to that, I’m keeping going with the Organ Trio. I’ve been doing a project called Django Unchained, where

I’m taking the music of Django Reinhardt and putting it in a more urban context with the Organ Trio, where we incorporate different grooves and meters and stuff, give it a more urban swag, if you will.

I’m also looking forward to this year. [It] marks the eightieth birthday of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and over the years I’ve been doing participations with Steve Turre, who had been one of Rahsaan’s later players before his death in ’77. We’ve been doing a tribute band, and we’re recording the Spirits Up Above album in tribute to Rahsaan. This year, we’re at least looking at doing a couple of performances at Café Stritch in San Jose, and that would be for a jazz fest, Labor Day weekend. That’s just to mention a couple, not to mention going back over to Europe, too.

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