John Carter & Bobby Bradford – Self Determination Music (Flying Dutchman, 1970)

John Carter (as, cl); Bobby Bradford (tr); Tom Williamson (b); Henry Franklin (b); Bruz Freeman (d)

Recorded in 1970

Reissued on BGP/Ace in Europe in 2015.

At the end of the 1960s, producer Bob Thiele left ABC/Impulse and started his own label, Flying Dutchman.  Looking for unsigned talent to showcase on his newly-launched label, Thiele traveled to California.  Having worked with John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, and Marion Brown, Thiele was open to working with avant-garde artists.  As a result of the trip, Thiele signed Los Angeles-based free jazz musicians John Carter and Bobby Bradford to a deal.  Self Determination Music was the duo's second LP for the label.  [Incidentally, Thiele also signed Horace Tapscott during the same California trip, resulting in Tapscott's one-and-only Flying Dutchman LP, The Giant is Awakened (1969).]

Both John Carter and Bobby Bradford grew up in Texas, and both played with free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman as young people. Before moving to California, Carter played with Coleman while they were in high school in Fort Worth.  And before Bradford was drafted into the military in the late-50s, he was playing in Coleman's Quartet.  Don Cherry was his replacement.  So this music owes something to Coleman's melodic, blues-based free jazz.  But I think that influence can easily be overstated.

The duo's sound is thoughtful and deliberate, rather than forceful.  Even though the music is "free," it isn't fiery or anarchic.  In fact, there's a sense of tart melancholy that hangs over much of it. This is especially true of John Carter's affecting composition, "Loneliness," which is perhaps the album's strongest cut.  Another distinguishing aspect of this music is the fact that it features two bassists.  So, at times, Carter's and Bradford's instruments dart between, around, and through a dense thicket of rhythms laid down by Williamson, Franklin and Freeman.

On Self Determination Music, Carter's primary instrument is the alto saxophone.  Later, he focused almost exclusively on the clarinet, and his playing became even more distinctive.

More John Carter
Carter's most lasting legacy will almost certainly be his five-disc magnum opus, "Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music."  Carter made these recordings in the 1980s, so they fall outside the scope of this survey.  But the albums are so full of convention-defying, personal, and humane music that I feel compelled to share them:

• Dauwhe (Black Saint, 1982)
• Castles of Ghana (Gramavision, 1985)
• Dance of the Love Ghosts (Gramavision, 1987)
• Fields (Gramavision, 1988)
• Shadows on a Wall (Gramavision, 1989)

Gramavision no longer exists, so you've got to search to find these records.  But they're out there, and they're well worth looking for.  I'd recommend starting with Castles of Ghana.  It's desert-island music for this listener, the most impressive music Carter ever made.