Carter Nonet Shows Singular Spirit

In a recent conversation, bassist Ron Carter promised that his nonet was going to be something special.

And he was right. His opening set Tuesday night at Catalina Bar & Grill offered perfect testimony to the fact that innovation and adventure still exist in jazz, at a time when the music is passing through a period of distinct retrospection.

A group consisting of four cellos, two basses, piano, drums and percussion is, on the face of it, an unusual instrumentation. For Carter, it affords a variety of tonal coloration that best allows him to explore his orchestral compositional goals.

Equally important, if less promoted by the ever modest Carter, the ensemble served as a marvelous setting for a series of his extraordinary solos. Praised over the years for his powerful work as a rhythm section player, Carter has never been fully acknowledged for his virtuosic skills as a soloist.

In a program that included several originals, as well his arrangements of Leon Russell’s “A Song for You” and the traditional spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” Carter’s melody lines were upfront most of the time. And whether he was simply stating the theme or cruising through a set of variations, everything he played had the balance between logic and emotion that can only come from an inherent compositional overview.

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The nonet, despite a few problems with the room’s acoustics, produced one of the more unique sounds ever heard in a jazz club. Although four cellos playing in a harmonized ensemble would seem to be a guaranteed formula for audio mud, Carter’s thoughtful scoring carefully exploited the instruments’ wide range of timbres. He occasionally used them in tight, riff-like phrases to provide crisp accompanying accents for his solos, then opened up the harmonic floodgates to unleash rich, dark-toned chording.

Combining the complex textures of a cello quartet with the vigorous swing of five jazz musicians--including some far-reaching percussion sounds--is no small accomplishment. And Carter is to be praised for insisting, at considerable personal financial expense, upon maintaining such a singular group.

If nothing else, his playing, his composing and his leadership add up to an emphatic message that the 59-year-old Carter--at a time when much of the attention is going to the young jazz lions--is still a force to be reckoned with.

* Ron Carter Nonet at Catalina Bar & Grill through Sunday. 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., (213) 466-2210. $14 cover tonight and Sunday, $17 cover Friday and Saturday, with two-drink minimum. Carter performs two shows nightly, at 8:30 and 10:30.