"Clarinetist Carter and cornetist Bradford collaborated from their first meeting in 1964 until Carter's untimely passing in 1991. Their partnership was the most significant one for each man in his adult professional life, and these simpatico exchanges are a testament to that fact. While the audio quality of this material is not always optimal, the musical attributes compensate for these shortcomings. Carter and Bradford were two mature, individual voices on their respective instruments who were in their prime (as Bradford still is). They essayed original material exclusively because they saw no need to interpret other people's music. Carter's clarinet could fluidly snake up and down the registers in the blink of an eye, while Bradford favoured linear statements. They anticipated each other as brilliantly as they followed their own muses: While the lead voice played staccato, the support went legato. Carter and Bradford played all the ramifications of the Texas blues on these two discs with warmth, lyricism, drive, melancholy, mirth, and shouting rambunctiousness."
KIRK SILSBEE - JAZZIZ 1997
"Here the pair take themes from their quartet repertoire and reduce the music down to its essence - freely phrased melodic lines that intertwine, support and inspire. They incorporate extended techniques as casually as breathing, all the while retaining a commitment to song, whether traditional swing (Woodman's Hall Blues), pastoral delicacy (Petals), or angular counterpoint (Tandem). Bradford's trumpet is a liquid, lyrical joy, darting and weaving with aplomb, while Carter, a reed master and model for younger players like Don Byron and Ben Goldberg, solos with slippery, serpentine abandon, his tone as lush as velvet, dangerous as barbed wire, or evebescent as a cloud. Together, their richly textured filigree and flights of fantasy are breathtaking. There's better sound on TANDEM 1, but both discs are musically exhilarating."
ART LANGE - PULSE! 1997
"The two find an ideal balance between composed and improvised elements. Few musicians in improvised music have played together as much as the two and the interplay and dialogue are at a sublime level. Accompaniment is a rare talent among jazz wind players and it's responsible for much of the success of this music, and easy give-and-take that has the two exchanging lines and roles and even timbres. Lovely, too, is the way Carter uses register contrasts and near-electronic sounds to extend the dialogue."
STUART BROOMER - CODA 1997 |