String Master

Regina Carter coaxes an array of sounds and emotions from her violin at Berklee's Black History Month kickoff event.

By Rob Hochschild
(February 13, 2001)

Regina Carter's career has been as filled with surprises as the improvisations that fly from her violin. After studying classical music for all of her life, she became a staple of the Detroit jazz scene in the mid-1980s. She later played electric violin in the all-female fusion group, Straight Ahead. When she arrived in New York, she took her talents further afield, playing sessions with Mary J. Blige, the Black Rock Coalition, and the String Trio of New York. In recent years, Carter has established herself as an important leader and voice on her instrument in the world of acoustic jazz.

And when Carter presented the annual Warrick L. Carter Distinguished Lecture in the David Friend Recital Hall this month, both her teaching and playing revealed how valuable an open musical mind can be.

"It's all music. Categories are not important," said Carter after performing "Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise." "Music reflects the times."

Taking breaths between phrases like a horn player, Carter plays the violin with a vocabulary that seems to reflect all the periods of her career. Her solo on 'Softly' at times possessed the sound of a human voice, then darted in other directions as she slammed the bow on the strings, plucked single note lines, or scratched a gentle fermata.

"I don't just think of it as a violin," said Carter. "I listen to other instruments, and when I put away the (electronic) effects, I learned how to get the natural sounds out of the instrument."

Carter started playing violin at four, studied at conservatories in Boston and Detroit, and continues to take lessons. She is studying theory by mail with Beverly, Mass.-based improvisation guru Charlie Banacos. "I'm too busy to practice much, but I'm trying to learn things I missed when I was younger," said Carter, who played for seven years before she learned how to read music.

On recent tours, Carter has expanded her work as an educator to teach not just musicians but general audiences as well. She believes her afternoon workshops help music fans better understand the music and help attract new listeners.

Regina Carter answered several students' questions during her hour-long lecture.
Photo by Justin Knight

Such efforts to spread information about music may be, in part, a reaction to the way record companies viewed Carter early in her career. She said record executives told her they didn't think they could succeed at marketing a band led by a violinist, a position she never accepted as truth.

"I figure if we can sell Pet Rocks in this country, why can't we sell jazz?"

After a pensive rendition of the Billie Holiday ballad, "Don't Explain," Carter offered a parting sentiment that summed up her point of view in more ways than one:

"Keep on spreading the music."

Sponsored by the Office of the President, Regina Carter's Warrick L. Carter Distinguished Lecture on February 1 was the kickoff event for Berklee's Black History Month Music Celebration 2001. Previous lecturers have included BET President Robert Johnson and Sociologist Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot.