Recall This as a Springboard

Tonight we have a guest in town.  The man from Ferndale Michigan, who has played with nearly every jazz luminary since he first appeared on the scene in 1960, will be playing tonight in rainy Beijing.  Ron Carter is seventy-nine years old and tonight we’ll go see him give life to the enormous double bass, one more time.  

Ron Carter has appeared in over twenty-two hundred albums.  I had his first album “Where?” on the other night:  Sultry Mal Waldron on piano, the ferocious Charles Persip on drums, the unmistakable Eric Dolphy on alto and flute.  Ron is thumping away now in the other room.

My wife had it in mind to go see some jazz for her birthday, which I willingly obliged.  There was nothing on the night of the big day but this appearance leapt out as a must see.  I don’t know that my girls will get it.  But maybe some day, if they become jazz fans, they’ll recall this as a springboard memory: someone who played with everyone that they saw while they could.

Back to Beijing’s new Blue Note to take this in.  Like the Blue Note in New York they’ll take their pound of flesh from us.  But this what you do when you live in a proper city.  And I’ve complained about all the limitations of Beijing, over and over.  Go out and support the arts.  Go out and support someone who still has what it takes to work a room at seventy-nine.  I’ll let you know how he goes and what he makes of the crowd here in Peking.