Ron Carter Library Chartography
Ron Carter Library Chartography Ron Carter Bass with Miles Davis
Ron Carter Library Chartography (Japanese)

Chartography - Reinvented Transcriptions

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From Herbie Hancock:  "Every aspiring jazz musician should get this book! What an amazing approach to showing what’s “under the hood” of the choices the members of a jazz band make while playing the same tune every night over several years. How those choices evolve as the members become more familiar with and trust each other as the years go by affects the chances they take in exploring new territory too. Ron’s Chartography book sheds light on the developmental process of the band and it’s members from several standpoints in a way that I’ve never before seen explained or visually depicted. His example is from his own bass playing accompanying the melody of one tune over several years but gives you a birds-eye view that applies to the interaction of all the musicians in the band. This shows musicians of any instrument how its done. This is the heart of jazz and the spirit of playing in the sandbox, which is the most fun. Congratulations, Ron!!" 


Ron Carter, the icon of walking jazz bass lines, has now re-invented the way transcriptions are written.  The method is called "Chartography" (often misspelled as Cartography)and musicians will be in awe of how much they can learn when studying this completely new innovation.

This is the first book that explains ALL the factors that go into what has made the greatest bass lines in history so great. And that is CONTEXT.  

This Ron Carter book transcribes several choruses from 5 performances of Autumn Leaves, as played by Miles Davis' Second Quartet, during 1963-1967.   

It shows you the original changes and then how they evolved over time. 

By looking at how a bass line evolved over multiple choruses and performances, you will understand that a one-chorus transcription cannot help a bass player find out how that bass line was actually built. much less how to write one like it himself.

There are QR codes to recordings of those performances so you can hear how the other musicians reacted to changes in the bass line.

The five performances of Autumn Leaves include:

  • Monterey Jazz Festival 9/20/1963
  • Miles in Berlin 9/25/1964
  • Stadthalle Sindelfingen 10/8/1964
  • Plugged Nickel 12/23/1965
  • Rotterdam 10/30/1967

"A single, one-chorus transcription of a bass line you admire cannot help you learn to do it yourself.  But if you understand all the elements and the context that went into creating it, you can up your game and learn to write bass lines like the ones that inspired you."  --Ron Carter

"This book is the first of its kind that actually follows the bass line development of a specific song that shows the  string bass genius of Ron Carter.  Every bass teacher and every bass player must have this magnificent book". -- Wayne Shorter

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