Consumer Guide Album

James Carter: Conversin' With the Elders [Atlantic, 1996]
Say his Wynton Marsalis side provides technique, ambition, maybe focus. Plus, OK, respect for his elders--for sure he's not mocking or upstaging Buddy Tate and Sweets Edison. But it's his Lester Bowie side that inclines him to adore their melodiousness, and their melodies. It's his Bowie side that covers a march by elder Anthony Braxton, consorts with Coltrane via elder Hamiet Bluiett, revs his own waltz into a flag-waver and reduces it to a cartoon. It's his Bowie side that covers the Lester Bowie reggae, defining the grooveful, comic, demotic tone of everything that follows. A jazz album, absolutely. But one any rock and roller who can abide a saxophone could love. A