Artist: Ron Carter

Ronald Levin Carter is an American jazz double bassist. His appearances on 2,221 recording sessions make him the most-recorded jazz bassist in history.  He has won three Grammy awards, and is also a cellist who has recorded numerous times on that instrument.

Some of his studio albums as a leader include: Blues Farm (1973), All Blues (1973),  Spanish Blue (1974),  Anything Goes (1975), Yellow & Green (1976),  Pastels (1976),  Piccolo (1977),  Third Plane (1977),  Peg Leg (1978), A Song for You (1978), Etudes  (1982), The Golden Striker  (2003), Dear Miles  (2006), and Ron Carter's Great Big Band (2011).

He earned a B.A. in music from the Eastman School of Music (1959), and a master's degree in music from the Manhattan School of Music (1961). 

Carter's first jobs as a jazz musician were playing bass with Chico Hamilton in 1959, followed by freelance work with Jaki Byard, Cannonball Adderley, Randy Weston, Bobby Timmons, and Thelonious Monk. One of his first recorded appearances was on Hamilton alumnus Eric Dolphy's Out There, recorded on August 15, 1960, and featuring George Duvivier on bass, Roy Haynes on drums, and Carter on cello. The album's advanced harmonies and concepts were in step with the third stream movement. In early October 1960, Carter recorded How Time Passes with Don Ellis, and on June 20, 1961, he recorded Where?, his first album as a leader, featuring  Dolphy on alto sax, flute, and bass clarinet; Mal Waldron on piano; Charlie Persip on drums; and Duvivier playing basslines on tracks where Carter played cello.

Carter was a member of the second Miles Davis Quintet in the mid 1960s, which also included Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and drummer Tony Williams. Carter joined Davis's group in 1963, appearing on the album Seven Steps to Heaven, and the follow-up E.S.P., the latter being the first album to feature only the full quintet. Carter was also a sideman on many Blue Note recordings of the era, playing with Sam Rivers, Freddie Hubbard, Duke Pearson, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Hill, Horace Silver, and others. He also played on soul-pop star Roberta Flack's album First Take.

After leaving Davis, Carter was for several years a mainstay of CTI Records, making albums under his own name and also appearing on many of the label's records with a diverse range of other musicians. Notable musical partnerships in the 1970s and 1980s included Joe Henderson, Houston Person, Hank Jones, Gabor Szabo and Cedar Walton. During the 1970s he was a member of the New York Jazz Quartet.

In 1987, Carter won a Grammy for "an instrumental composition for the film" Round Midnight.In 1994, he won another Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Group for a tribute album to Miles Davis.