Double Bass Ron Carter's Cartography

[lurk]

I just got this. It's pricy, so I thought I'd give a review in case anyone is pondering. It's transcriptions of RC's basslines on Autumn Leaves on the 1st 4 or 5 choruses from live performances with Miles and the quintet in chronological order from '63 - '67. The transcriptions have some color coded stuff to show when he's using sub. changes, rhythmic superimpositions, etc. There are QR thingys that you can scan to get youtubes of the recordings with what sounds to me like enhanced bass tweaking. The idea is that you are supposed to see how the tune evolved. The basslines are, of course, fabulous. Most of us will never be in a band where everyone listens and responds to us like this group did, so if we play some of the stuff Ron did, we will be met with scowls or confusion. There are places where for years I thought Ron was simply out of tune and played very sharp. He's not God, and like most of us, had trouble hearing himself with the acoustics and no amp setup of the '60s. In those situations most of us will play sharp. In this book, these are notated as, for example, Ab pedals and as substitutions - out of the box ideas, where I'd bet he meant to play low Gs. There are a couple of instances where there are slight discrepancies in what's written and what I hear. I found a few places where the band seems to be groping for exactly what the tempo is, which, frankly, is refreshing and heartening to me. So, is it worth it? Yes. There's nothing like it and you will get as much out of it as you put into it. There is no band in existence that plays as well as this one. Magical music.