JAZZ : AN APPRECIATION : John Carter: He Expanded the Literature

You never would have guessed how John Carter’s music sounded from just talking with the man.

The acclaimed jazz clarinetist-composer, who died March 31 of complications from lung cancer at age 61, was a cautious, innately dignified man who carefully searched for the right phrase or word to express himself in conversation.

Given his formal bearing and thorough grounding in the jazz and classical traditions, one would probably assume that Carter was a man of conventional musical instincts--someone who favored either standards or originals that stuck close to proven models.

In fact, Carter’s vision was far from conservative.

Through a long and distinguished career, he always looked to expand what cornet player Bobby Bradford, his collaborator of 25 years, once termed the common literature of jazz. Carter’s music was marked by a stately elegance set against darting runs that swooped and swirled through different registers in explosive flurries.

“There’s an element of a revolutionary stance in what we are doing and have done for a long time,” Carter once said of his music with Bradford.

Over the last 10 years, Carter enjoyed international acclaim for his playing and for his ambitious five-album “Roots and Folklore” series of octets dealing with the African-American experience. He got the idea in 1974 when his son returned from West Africa and mentioned about castles in Ghana that had been used as holding pens for Africans before they were sent on slave ships to the Americas.

“I’ve always been very keen on the idea of people doing what we can to make race relations better in this country,” Carter said. “A lot needs to be done to dismiss ideas that had been presented to us about what the African brought to this country. Rather than . . . being a savage . . ., the truth was Africans came here with very many positive things.”

The native Texan who moved to Los Angeles in 1961 was intent on becoming a studio musician, but found that path too limiting. He used his master’s degree in music education to become a teacher of instrumental music in elementary schools throughout the Los Angeles area.

Ironically, Carter’s death comes at a time when more of his music was becoming readily available. He is featured on two new CD releases by pianist Horace Tapscott on the Swiss label Hat Hut, the same label that released Bradford’s “Comin’ On,” a excellent 1989 live recording of the Bradford/Carter quintet. But the “Roots and Folklore” series is the best introduction to Carter’s demanding but rewarding music.

Though a non-malignant tumor forced the removal of his left lung early last year, he made an emotional appearance with his octet last September at the Los Angeles Festival, where he played a portion of the suite. It proved to be his final performance in his adopted hometown.

Carter’s death leaves unfulfilled his dream of performing the entire “Roots and Folklore” series on five consecutive nights. More importantly, it deprives the Los Angeles jazz scene of a quiet, steadfast force who rigorously stuck to his artistic principles and preferred to let his memorable music speak for him.