You’ve got four bars of C minor and nothing on the lead sheet but the chord. It could easily sound like mush, which is the tendency when we play the same chord for bar after bar. Ron Carter turns those four bars into two clean two-bar phrases, and if you’re looking up Ron Carter bass lines to find out how, that’s where I’d start.
Quick answer
His bass lines are organized in two-bar phrases, separated by cadences from beat four to beat one, by half step, whole step or five-one. On “The Intrepid Fox” he changes register so the second phrase echoes the first. And he chooses the notes that make the line feel like it’s moving, sometimes even a flat nine on a dominant chord.
I studied at Juilliard for upright bass, and that’s where I got to meet and work with the great Ron Carter. A lot of what I teach about walking with the 1-3-5-7 I got from Mr. Carter, so this page pulls it together, with the Ron Carter lessons and transcriptions in the library.
How does Ron Carter build a two-bar phrase?
His opening line on Freddie Hubbard’s “The Intrepid Fox,” from Red Clay, is organized in two-bar phrases, and that’s typical of all of his bass lines. The first phrase literally goes walk down, walk up. Then the B on beat four of the second bar works as a cadence. It’s the third of a G7, so he’s actually playing a G7 there, even though there’s no G7 on the lead sheet and he isn’t playing a G.
The phrases are separated by cadences from beat four to beat one, resolving by half step, by whole step or by five-one, and he does it at every point in the line. That’s why it’s so clear. You can do the same thing. If you’ve got four bars of one chord, create an imaginary five. Pretend the second half of the second bar is a G7, and the third bar will feel like you’ve completed a thought.
I’ve taken a few lessons with Mr. Carter, and I know this is exactly what he thinks about. He didn’t invent it. He just mastered it.
How does Ron Carter use register and open strings?
On “The Intrepid Fox,” he plays his second phrase an octave higher than his first. He’s not worried that four bars in half position would get monotonous. He’s doing it so the second phrase echoes the first. Later he uses an open string to change register and jump across the fingerboard. That idea is why I wrote The New Simandl, which revolves around using the open string to change register or move across the fingerboard.
Listen to where he puts the beat, too. On Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil, Elvin Jones plays way on the backside of the beat, and to make it swing to the highest extent, Ron plays on the very front of the beat on that recording. It’s not just the compositions. The feeling that rhythm section gets when they play together is what makes it one of the greatest albums of all time.
The best bass players can feel entire forms and not just two bars at a time. They feel full forms. That’s why Ron Carter’s bass lines sound like compositions.
Cole Davis
What does Ron Carter mean by a better order of notes?
There’s an interview in the New York Times where Ron Carter says all he’s trying to do is find a better order of notes than he did yesterday. Walking a bass line isn’t necessarily about the notes themselves. It’s about the order of notes. We stick to the one, three, five, seven and change the order. When Ron Carter says every note counts, that’s what he’s referring to, because the placement of each note has an effect on the chord.
That 1-3-5-7 is the foundation of Walking Basslines on Upright Bass: From the Beginning, the same process Ron Carter taught me at Juilliard. He didn’t invent the idea of making a beautiful bass line from the 1-3-5-7. The concept actually comes from Israel Crosby. But it was really Ron Carter who showed an entire generation of jazz bass players how to do it in a really advanced and unique way.
Which walking licks come from Ron Carter?
In my walking drills, two come straight from him, and he used a third one all the time. Try them over an F blues today:
- One, nine, five, nine. You’ll have a tough time finding a Ron Carter bass line where he doesn’t play it. The nine lands on beats two and four, and the lick leads you right back to where you started, so try it in bar three and land back on the F.
- One, five, one, flat five. One of my favorites. It creates spacing, so your bass line can breathe.
- One, flat two, two, flat two. It comes from Paul Chambers, and Ron Carter later used it all the time. Use it when you’ve got more than one bar of the same chord.
The most important thing in any walking bass line is actually movement, not clarity. When you think about a Ron Carter bass line, it’s clear, but the most important thing is that it moves. Sometimes you’ll hear him play a flat nine on a dominant chord. That’s not the clearest note, but it’s the one that makes the line feel like it’s moving. The Passion Dance lesson in the transcription library takes that further: over one long chord, he plays the chord itself about 40 percent of the time and spends the rest creating movement. If walking still feels new, start with my guide to walking bass lines.
Records to start with
- Red Clay (Freddie Hubbard). “The Intrepid Fox,” with the opening line I break down.
- Speak No Evil (Wayne Shorter). Ron on the very front of the beat, with Elvin Jones on the backside.
- Miles Davis’s second quintet. With Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams. In an interview, Herbie Hancock talks about how the band would get lost, but Ron Carter always knew where one was.
- Black Sheep, “The Choice Is Yours.” The version with the sampled Ron Carter bass line was remixed and added to A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing after the original LP release.
Ron Carter lessons and transcriptions
- Ron Carter: The Intrepid Fox. His opening line on “The Intrepid Fox,” and the two-bar playbook behind every phrase.
- Ron Carter: Passion Dance. How to play bar after bar of the same chord without sounding boring.
- Ron Carter x Black Sheep: The Choice Is Yours. The bass line from “The Choice Is Yours,” the one you heard in car commercials and sports broadcasts.
- Walking Basslines on Upright Bass: From the Beginning. The 1-3-5-7 method, the same process Ron Carter taught me at Juilliard, in five lessons.
- Walking on Electric Bass: Part 2. For electric players: the licks Ron Carter passed down, worked through an F blues and “Autumn Leaves.”
- The New Simandl. My rewrite of the Simandl method, refingered around the open strings so you can move across the bass.
Take four bars of one chord tonight, put a cadence at the end of every two, and move the second phrase up an octave. That’s the playbook, and once you know it, you’ll listen for it every time you hear Ron Carter.
Go deeper
Walking Basslines on Upright Bass: From the Beginning
A 5-lesson upright method built on the 1-3-5-7, the same process Ron Carter taught Cole at Juilliard.
FAQ
What is the Ron Carter 1-9-5-9 lick?
It’s one, nine, five, nine, and you’ll have a tough time finding a Ron Carter bass line where he doesn’t play it. The nine is on beats two and four, which is where it’s most effective, and the lick leads you right back to where you started. It’s really great for just sitting on a chord.
Does Ron Carter play ahead of the beat?
On Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil, he does. Elvin Jones plays way on the backside of the beat, and to make it swing to the highest extent, Ron plays on the very front of the beat on that recording. It’s not just the compositions. The feeling that rhythm section gets when they play together is what makes it one of the greatest albums of all time.
What did Ron Carter bring to Miles Davis’s second quintet?
There’s an interview with Herbie Hancock where he talks about how the band would get lost all the time. But Ron Carter always knew where one was, so that enabled everyone to get lost. Everyone felt like the bass player had it, so they could play whatever they wanted, and it was fine.
Was Ron Carter sampled in hip-hop?
Yes. Black Sheep’s “The Choice Is Yours” uses a sampled Ron Carter bass line, the one I grew up hearing in car commercials and sports broadcasts. That version was remixed and added to A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing after the original LP release. Ron Carter’s bass lines sound like compositions, and his open solos are unbelievable, which is why he was sampled so frequently in hip-hop.
How do I walk four bars of one chord like Ron Carter?
Create an imaginary five. Over C minor, pretend the second half of the second bar is a G7, and the third bar will feel like a cadence, like you’ve completed a thought. Then answer that two-bar phrase with another one, and change the register so the second phrase echoes the first.
