Flames and honey: Sax virtuoso James Carter energizes Michigan JazzFest

Growing up in Detroit, saxophonist James Carter loved when his mom played records by great jazz vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan, but it wasn’t so much the singers that grabbed him. He was fascinated by that magic moment, after the first verse, when the horn player picked up the horn and brought the yang to the yin, the wind to the water, the water to the Scotch.

“Not to take anything away from the vocalists, but it was the sound of that instrument,” Carter said. “I found out later it was the saxophone.”

Now Carter, 54, is one of the most virtuosic, volcanic and expressive musicians alive — a master of every form of saxophone in existence, from bass to soprano. He plans to bring what he calls a “sonic discussion” to Michigan JazzFest Saturday (Aug. 5), aided by a stellar ensemble and a special guest vocalist, Detroit blues and jazz legend Lady Champagne.

Carter and Lady Champagne have known each other since they were both in high school in Detroit.

“I know her from the old neighborhood, the northwest side,” Carter said. “The old Montgomery Ward, that neck of the woods, Grand River and Greenfield. We go back a smidge.”

When Carter picks up the horn, almost anything might come out, from flames to honey. In a blistering performance of “The Sky Is Crying,” posted recently on YouTube, he follows Lady Champagne’s bluesy vocals by picking up a soprano sax, climbing into a banshee-high register and speaking in tongues like a man possessed.

Carter swims freely through the ever-branching rivers of jazz history, from Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis and far beyond, into the avant-garde and back around to blues, swing and traditional forms.

“It’s all natural,” Carter said. “I look at it as different facets of the music instead of saying there’s this camp and that camp. It’s about what comes naturally, what I still need to work on and what I can make happen.”

“James can play anything he wants to,” Lady Champagne enthused. “He feels the vibe. If you’ve just heard him on recordings, you’ve never really heard him act up on his instrument. He does different noises. He can pop it like, ‘Pop, pop, pop.’ He just punches it in.”

Carter’s first mentor in Detroit, saxophonist Donald Washington, taught him that every jazz artist, even bebop innovator Charlie “Bird” Parker, is “part of a continuum.”

“Bird didn’t just spring out of nowhere,” Carter said. “He came in listening to popular tunes of the day and had another way of hearing them.”

As a teenager, Carter was already playing bass and contrabass clarinet, tenor and alto sax and flute. He became the youngest faculty member at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake and toured Scandinavia as part of an international jazz band at 16.

By 1988, he already had his feet in both the traditional and avant-garde worlds. After a stint with traditionalist Wynton Marsalis, Carter filled in as a member of Lester Bowie’s band when the avant-garde trumpeter visited the Detroit Institute of Arts. Carter was invited to join Bowie’s quintet, later the New York Organ Ensemble, in New York City, and the rest is jazz history.

In New York, Carter romped through a wild range of gigs, from avant-garde reedman Julius Hemphill’s saxophone sextet to vocalist Betty Carter’s and Marsalis’ more straight-ahead bands.

Carter’s own albums, beginning in 1995 with “The Real Quietstorm,” overflowed with virtuosic energy and astonishing range. He relished taking unexpected turns, releasing two re-imaginings of guitarist Django Reinhardt’s music — one of them with electric instruments — and a recording with classical soprano Kathleen Battle.

Along the way, he has taken care to study and absorb the work of often overlooked musicians, like early-20th-century trumpeters Jabbo Smith and George Mitchell.

“They had what Louis Armstrong had, but Louis had the machine behind him to promote it, and they were basically in his shadow,” Carter said.

This year, Carter immersed himself in the music of tenor saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, a versatile musician who straddled the swing era, modernist trends and the soul-jazz heyday of the 1960s — much like Carter himself.

On the centennial of Davis’ birth, Carter flew to Las Vegas to visit Davis’ gravesite and meet his family. He even practiced his horn in the room where Davis practiced.

“I stepped into his room and immediately saw a picture of Ben Webster,” Carter said.

The late Webster, a volcanic saxophone legend who rocked Duke Ellington’s greatest band, is a hero to Carter as well. He even played Webster in Robert Altman’s 1996 film, “Kansas City.”  

True to his philosophy that music and life are an indivisible whole, Carter studied the minutiae of Davis’ musical development, including his phase as “Dr. Jazz,” and came to admire the diverse artistic talents of his brothers and sisters.

“Some people tried to analyze him, transcribe his solos, but they got discouraged and said, ‘Why am I doing this?’” Carter said. “You couldn’t put any logic to it because Jaws was a free spirit. He played what he played.”

The resulting CD, “Looking at Lock,” will include new compositions along with bold makeovers of tunes Davis created or made famous.

Carter loves to track an old tune as it skips over the lake of time — and he’s got a mean throwing arm of his own. In the 1960s, Davis took a 1920s chestnut, “How Am I to Know,” and swung it hard. Carter skips that stone a bit further.

“One particular twist in the rehearsal caused me to turn it into a disco tune,” he said.

He worked even more surprising alchemy with “Tickle Toe,” a blistering bebop burner Davis recorded with his frequent sparring partner, Johnny Griffin.

“We do it in Indian raga style,” Carter said with a barely perceptible twinkle in his voice.

Carter will bring that same anything-goes spirit to JazzFest Saturday, aided by an ensemble of musicians he’s played with for years — drummer Alexander White, keyboardist Gerard Gibbs and bassist Ralphe Armstrong.

“It’s like old times with us,” Carter said. “We just call the tunes in the air and make it happen. It’s all about cohesion. Anything we throw out there, we’re going to discuss it properly — not only to our delight, but the delight of those who are listening.”

Michigan JazzFest: James Carter Quartet with special guest Lady Champagne

Saturday, Aug. 5

7:30 p.m.

South Turner Stage

Turner Street, Old Town micharts.org/jazzfest-about