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Ron Carter brings The New Jazz Trio, Foursight Quartet, Great Big Band, and Duo with Bill Charlap to Birdland for his annual October residency…

NEA Jazz Master and bass virtuoso Ron Carter returns to Birdland Jazz Club, the Jazz Corner of the World, this October for his annual residency. This month-long residency will kick off on Tuesday, October 1 and run through October 26, and will comprise 40 performances over four weeks. 

Renowned for his unmatched talent, Ron Carter stands as one of jazz’s most inventive and prolific bassists. With a staggering discography boasting over 2,000 albums, Carter is certified as the most recorded bass player in the history of recorded music. Honored with the prestigious 1998 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship, Carter’s collaborative footprint spans an astonishing spectrum of musical genres, with performances and recordings alongside an eclectic array of artists. 

The first week, October 1-5, spotlights Ron Carter’s New Jazz Trio. Following the untimely passing of the great Russell Malone this summer, Carter has assembled a new ensemble, which will be making its debut at Birdland. Featuring Carter alongside pianist Donald Vega, the New Jazz Trio features NEA Jazz Master saxophonist Donald Harrison. Harrison and Carter have played and recorded together many times over the past decades and the bandleader is happy to welcome Harrison to the bandstand in this new format. “We’ll be finding the notes there with Russell Malone in our hearts,” Carter shared in a statement. 

The second week, October 8-12, will feature Carter’s Foursight Quartet, featuring an outstanding lineup of contemporary jazz luminaries including Jimmy Greene on saxophone, Renee Rosnes on piano, and Payton Crossley on drums. Based in Connecticut, Jimmy Greene stands as one of his generation’s most admired saxophonists, with an extensive catalog of recordings and a rich history as a sideman for luminaries such as Horace Silver and Freddie Hubbard. Similarly, Vancouver-born pianist Renee Rosnes has forged an illustrious career marked by her collaborations with jazz legends like Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter. Her tenure with the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, the SFJAZZ Collective and her groundbreaking group Artemis have solidified her place in the jazz pantheon. Drummer Payton Crossley, who entered the jazz scene as a young prodigy, trained under drum great Alan Dawson, before joining the revered pianist Ahmad Jamal. This great quartet has drawn universal praise. “For all its tastefulness, the Foursight Quartet are not risk averse players, and in their collegiality, they can thrillingly mix up fast playing on the slows and slow playing on the fasts, and dive between tempos between walking bops and luminous and lovely ballad playing with complete assurance,” said UK Jazz News of the group’s performance in London last year. 

Carter’s Great Big Band takes the stage during week three, October 15-19. The large ensemble, which The New Yorker said “swings mightily”,  is always a major highlight of the Birdland residency. Like previous years, the program will likely pull from Carter’s previously released big band albums including Ron Carter’s Big Band (Sunnyside, 2011), Ron Carter and the WDR Big Band’s My Personal Songbook (In+Out Records, 2014), and the GRAMMY-nominated Remembering Bob Freedman (2021) by Ron Carter & The Jazzaar Festival Big Band.

To close out the week, October 22-26, Carter will join forces with piano phenom Bill Charlap for a series of duo performances. Charlap, who graced the most recent issue of DownBeat Magazine and has just released a highly praised new album on Blue Note, And Then Again, joins the maestro for a series of intimate and inventive performances, ending the week on a particularly touching note. 

Every Thursday performance at 7pm will be streamed exclusively at veeps.com/birdland.

There is no better place to be than Birdland Jazz Club this October. Join this living legend for four incredible weeks of music that are not to be missed. 

Ron Carter is at Birdland Jazz Club October 1-5, 8-12, 15-19, and 22-26. On Tuesday through Thursday, sets begin at 7:00 and 9:30 PM, and on Friday and Saturday, at 8:30 and 10:30. Tickets start at $30, and there is a $20 minimum. 

See Ron Carter’s full Birdland schedule for October 2024 at birdlandjazz.com/calendar/.