Ron Carter’s Quiet Authority: Foursight Finds Soul in “Strange Times” at SFJAZZ
Ron Carter’s Foursight Quartet. Photo: Steve Roby
Ron Carter picked up the microphone after a 50-minute opener that never paused for introductions, smiled, and deadpanned, “Thank you and goodnight.” A beat later, he added, “I am boss of the microphone,” then waved his long starched cuffs toward the band to take a real bow. It was a small joke, but it told you everything. This evening would be about leadership that isn’t loud—about time, taste, and the craft of saying exactly what needs to be said and no more.
The Foursight Quartet—Renee Rosnes on piano, Jimmy Greene on tenor saxophone, and Payton Crossley on drums—was making a rare appearance in San Francisco at Miner Auditorium. Carter, now 88, carries a résumé that runs from Miles Davis’ second great quintet to more than 2,300 recording credits and a Guinness World Records citation as the most-recorded jazz bassist. But the point of the night wasn’t numbers; it was how he uses that history to shape a room’s expectations and turn four musicians into one mind.
The theme of the concert emerged early: editing as art. Carter dedicated “Cut and Paste” to those who once worked with paper and glue, but the idea applied to everything the band played. Each tune felt like a layout meeting. Melodies were placed, trimmed, and rearranged so the story would read cleanly. Solos didn’t sprawl; they clarified.
“These are strange times right now, and music can help the soul if you find the right people to help bring the soul to light. Tonight, Renee, Payton, and Jimmy are the right people to carry the soul to light.”
Foursight opened with “Mr. Bow Tie,” a suite of shifting grooves and keys stitched together without announcements. The people on stage wore dark suits and white lapel flowers; the music wore the same uniform—elegant, unified, and purposeful. Rosnes set an initial path, Greene entered with a held note that rippled into a samba-tinged release, and the audience answered with hoots. When Greene finished, Carter gave a two-handed flourish that was both the conductor’s cue and the mentor’s approval. Crossley’s transitions—sticks to brushes to fingertips—were small master classes in motion control; the cymbals at the end sounded like a door quietly shut, not slammed.
Only then did Carter properly greet the house. “What a great time it is to have this music and to have people here watching us enjoy earning a living.” The line drew laughs, but his next one landed deeper: “These are strange times right now, and music can help the soul if you find the right people to help bring the soul to light.” He looked toward Greene, Rosnes, and Crossley, “Tonight…are the right people.” The evening kept proving him right.
Ron Carter and Payton Crossley. Photo Steve Roby
He introduced the following piece by saying, “Most of our songs have a story, except this one,” and then made a walking bass line that suggested a story anyway. Greene and Rosnes shadowed his figures in parallel before the tenor circled up the scale, and the piano answered with a run that felt sprung from the same sentence. The fade-out to solo bass closed like a parenthesis; Carter’s “Thank you, times three” was the period.
“My Funny Valentine” was the night’s most revealing chapter. Everyone knew the melody as soon as Rosnes brushed it into the room, and the audience chuckled at the recognition. Carter’s answer—left hand high, right hand low—told another truth: that a standard isn’t a museum piece but a set of choices. He let specific notes hang like questions, then replied to them with harmonics or short tremors of rhythm. Rosnes moved from hush to ripples to a careful landing of the theme. Crossley’s cymbal was barely there; that was the point. When it ended, Rosnes stood to bow, and no one could blame her.
“Cut and Paste” came with bebop bite and newsroom speed. Greene punctuated phrases like headlines; Rosnes became a lightning typesetter, right hand setting italics, left hand locking columns into place. Crossley dotted the lines with rimshots that read like copy-desk marks. And then—full stop. It was the most accurate ending of the night, because typesetters and bassists alike know when the layout is done right.
Ron Carter. Photo: Steve Roby
The soul of Carter’s leadership was fully revealed on “You Are My Sunshine.” He began with four declarative notes—thesis, revision, and reframing. Only after reshaping the material did he let the famous tune shine through. Midway, he folded in a classical turn, then walked it into a boogie-woogie stroll, making American memory sound continuous rather than divided. Overtone chimes, right-hand strums, sliding left-hand accents—none of it felt showy. It felt like a craftsman taking apart a toy to show a child the gears. San Franciscans are not quick to leap to their feet; here, they did. Carter put a hand over his heart, then teased the crowd—“And then I wrote…”—letting the laugh clear the air before the close.
Throughout, the leader kept reminding everyone what the evening meant to him. “We try to play our brains out every night…you are very fortunate to see this band when they are firing on all five cylinders,” he said with a mischievous grin, adding that there was “some special shit going on here right now.” In most hands, that line would sound like a boast. In his, it sounded like a witness statement—competence verifying joy.
The rapport within Foursight deserves its own paragraph. Rosnes, long admired here from her SFJAZZ Collective tenure, provided a musician’s kind of glamour: poise, clarity, and a readiness to pivot. Greene, whom Carter has praised for “an old-timer’s concept of form,” played with a centered tone that never turned hard to make its point; the grain of his sound carried the emotion. Crossley put as much care into a whispering brush pattern as some drummers give to an overhand crash, and the music benefited from that proportion. And Carter—the bassist who changed what the instrument could be and how often it could be recorded—did what he’s always done best: he listened harder than anyone else and made everyone else sound more themselves.
“You and the Night and the Music” finished the set with a nod to the leader’s own discography; he has returned to the tune across decades, from The Bass and I to Foursight – The Complete Stockholm Tapes. Greene took the first ride, Crossley answered in light strokes, and the whole group moved as a single body around the theme. When the house stood again, Carter draped a colorful scarf over his shoulders and bowed, palms together, a sly coda to a night about elegance without stiffness.
Photo: Steve Roby
At the lobby merch booth, 100% silk crepe de chine pocket squares embroidered with Ron Carter’s name read like a footnote, not a hard sell. The real product was the lesson the concert had delivered: swing is a matter of proportion; beauty is a matter of decisions; leadership is a matter of listening.
Carter told the crowd before the finale, “We leave you feeling better at least!” That’s the promise jazz has offered since his Detroit upbringing, since the Miles road years, since the countless studio dates—music that orders chaos without denying it. As he shuffled off, tugging himself playfully by that scarf, the thought lingered that he was still editing the air, one measured phrase at a time.
If the future of this tradition belongs to the musicians who treat every tune like a story worth telling and revising, Ron Carter is still writing the manual. The next bassist who wants to learn how to lead without shouting will keep studying nights like this one.
Setlist: “Mr. Bow Tie,” “Flamenco Sketches,” “My Funny Valentine,” “Cut and Paste,” “You Are My Sunshine,” “You and the Night and the Music.”
