JAZZ REVIEW : Carter Octet at Institute

There was a certain appropriateness to the appearance of the John Carter Octet at the first concert in the Southern California Institute of Architecture’s new music series Saturday night in Santa Monica.

Carter and SCI-ARC share vigorously contemporary views of their respective creative disciplines, and the iconoclastic sounds of the Octet sounded perfectly at home in the warehouse high-tech environment of the school’s main building.

The program consisted of six extended selections from Carter’s “Castles of Ghana” Suite. While the clarinetist is a firm advocate of unfettered improvisation, “Castles” was a through-composed piece rich with fascinating textures and colors. Acerbic dissonances, leaping melodies and brooding bass ostinatos dominated the work. A series of passionate “free” improvisations--most notably those by Carter, saxophonist Charles Owens, cornetist Bobby Bradford and bassist Roberto Miranda--circled through and around the composed sections.