Live At Baker's Keyboard Lounge
Long past the flashy-phenom stage, James Carter still has a tendency to showboat, to pile on styles and extreme effects--lipping, tonguing, screeching, shrieking---and to play six different reed instruments when one or two would do. But it's hard to argue for moderation. When he pulls out the stops, as he does often onLive at Baker's Keyboard Lounge, he's the most electrifying young jazz musician going. In refusing to button himself up the way so many of his career-minded contemporaries do, he's also one of the most likable. Recorded in 2001 in his hometown of Detroit, with a cast of local players, this is a freewheeling, consistently enjoyable set that manages to pull its multitude of elements into a satisfying whole. The guest door swings freely: Carter joinsDavid Murrayon a coruscating twin-tenor treatment ofEddie Harris's "Freedom Jazz Dance," backs 91-year-old Chicago legend Franz Jackson on the standard "I Can't Get Started" (to which Jackson lends his craggy voice), and joins forces with those saxists and another Windy City great,Johnny Griffin, for a spirited tenor ensemble on "Foot Pattin'." Carter, who also weighs in on soprano and baritone, doesn't have to solo to lift the proceedings, as witnessed by the burning organ, hard-charging scat choir, and mentholated,Roland Kirk-like unison saxes onJimmy Forrest's "Soul Street."--Lloyd Sachs