SFJAZZ At Home fund: https://www.sfjazz.org/support/donations/at-home-fund/Support our mission of bringing SFJAZZ to the world.

Ron Carter is, quite simply, the face of the bass. A towering figure who has defined the instrument’s evolving role in jazz for more than six decades, he was already a creative force on the roiling early ‘60s scene when he joined Miles Davis in 1962, the first piece of what became the trumpeter’s second great quintet.

Anchoring that epochal band would have secured his spot in history, but that’s just one, albeit extraordinary, chapter in a singularly prolific career. With more than 2,300 albums to his credit, the 1998 NEA Jazz Master holds the Guinness World Record as jazz’s most recorded bassist. But whether he’s a sideman or a leader, it’s the consummate quality of his work across a vast array of musical settings that makes Carter a legend.

He last appeared at SFJAZZ in a stunning 2023 duo recital with trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. For this rare San Francisco appearance, he introduces the Bay Area to his Foursight quartet with pianist Renee Rosnes, much missed since her years as a founding member of the SFJAZZ Collective, powerhouse saxophonist Jimmy Green, and drummer Payton Crossley, who’s toured and recorded with Carter since the late 1990s.