THE ART OF FOUR: RON CARTER, BILLY COBHAM, JAMES WILLIAMS, DONALD HARRISON
FRIDAY 13 JULY 2001 • JAN STEEN ZAAL • The Hague, The Netherlands
Ron Carter (born May 4, 1937) is an American double bassist. After completing high school, Carter won a scholarship to the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he earned a bachelor's degree in music in 1959. Two years later, he graduated with a master's degree in double bass from the Manhattan School of Music. During this period, he acted as a freelance musician for artists such as Eric Dolphy, Jaki Byard, Randy Weston, Wes Montgomery, and Bobby Timmons. He also accompanied Cannonball Adderley on his European tour. In 1961 he recorded a number of albums with Eric Dolphy and Mal Waldron. From 1963 he was a member of the Miles Davis band for five years, which also included Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams. In 1968 he was replaced by Dave Holland. Afterwards, Carter worked with a variety of artists, such as James Brown and A Tribe Called Quest, and appeared on more than 2,200 albums. Billy Cobham (born May 16, 1944 in Colón, Panama) is a Panamani-American drummer. At the end of the sixties he started as a jazz drummer with Horace Silver and Miles Davis, among others. In the seventies he became world famous as the drummer of guitarist John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra. The fusion and jazz rock that this band played, gave Cobham ample opportunity to develop a drumming style with influences of rock and funk, which was very innovative at the time. During performances, his solos were a concert in themselves and his drum kit was often so extensive that he had to stand up every now and then to be able to play it. After this he played with a large number of well-known musicians, including Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Count Basie. He also worked with the Grateful Dead. Cobham has also recorded a large number of solo albums, on which he often comes to the fore more as a composer than as an instrumentalist. The album Spectrum with guitarist Tommy Bolin is a standard work for every lover of jazz rock music. In the 2019 ranking of the 100 best drummers in the history of pop music published by Rolling Stone magazine, Billy Cobham was awarded 45th place. James Williams (March 8, 1951 – July 20, 2004) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, producer, and music teacher. James Williams became interested in soul and gospel music at the age of 13 at the beginning of his piano playing and played the organ in a Baptist church. He studied music theory at Memphis State University, met again Mulgrew Miller, who had played in the same church, and Donald Brown, who persuaded him to focus on the piano. He has already played with George Coleman, Thad Jones and Richard Davis. Like Harold Mabern, he was an admirer of Phineas Newborn. From 1972 to 1977, he taught at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and played with Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson, and Art Farmer.
It wasn't until the age of 26 that he played with Milt Jackson, Sonny Stitt and Louis Hayes. From 1977 he played for four years and ten records as a pianist in Art Blakey's legendary band Jazz Messengers with soloists such as Wynton Marsalis and Bobby Watson, Billy Pierce and Charles Fambrough and performed his own compositions. In 1984 he moved to Brooklyn, where he worked as an orchestra leader (Contemporary Piano Ensemble) and producer. There he played with Bobby Hutcherson and Buddy Tate, among others. Since 1999 he has led the jazz studies section of William Paterson University in Wayne (succeeding Rufus Reid). With his own band Intensive Care Unit, Williams referred directly to the Gospel Politics of Aretha Franklin and Curtis Mayfield and the Soul Groove of former Blakey pianist Bobby Timmons. He was happy to take on challenges as a pianist and producer of albums and events. He recorded solo albums with renowned jazz musicians Art Blakey, Ray Brown and Elvin Jones, formed and produced the Contemporary Piano Ensemble and sought unusual line-ups.
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