James Carter, on any one of his many saxophones, is the embodiment of more history than he’s lived in a brilliant young career in music.
Slim, strikingly tailored and handsome, he is at 30 the proudest of the young peacocks in jazz. He may be the most talked about new saxophonist since Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane in the sixties — for an individual sound that can be graceful or groovy and emotionally loaded.
He is also a collector of saxophones and master of many of them… and he is an authoritative historian of the practitioners on each one: the bass saxophone that the Belgian inventor Adolph Sax loved most; the baritone sax of Gerry Mulligan and Duke Ellington’s Harry Carney; the tenor sax of Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry, the alto of Charlie Parker and Eric Dolphy, the soprano saxophone of Sidney Bechet and Johnny Hodges.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
James Carter, saxophonist.