Zero Point with Daniel Carter at Cafe Oto, London E8

4/5

THE SOARING multi-instrumentalism of Daniel Carter, born in Williamsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1944, found a London landfall in Dalston this week with the other much younger members of the quartet Zero Point, guitarist Marius Duboule, bassist Michael Bates and drummer Deric Dickens.

This potent meeting of generations, an amalgam of free musical talents, is jelled by the artistry of the veteran Carter, playing only alto sax and piano this time round.

A singularly modest and reticent virtuoso, Carter’s long life in music has never sought leadership or limelight bravado.

Yet, when you listen to the power and beauty of his notes, you know immediately the extent and originality of his sonic stature, forged over the years with some of the music’s most innovative creators, from William Parker to Roy Campbell and Matthew Shipp to Denis Charles.

As soon as he begins to blow, the breath-laden sounds, buoyant and lyrical, and instant, fluid melodies stream from his horn. Above Dickens’s sprightly drums and Bates’s earthen bass, they grow into a rhapsodic climax then settle back to softness as Duboule’s plectrum picks out its scissoring lines.

Before the performance, I ask Carter which instrument he most enjoys playing — saxophone, flute, piano or trumpet? “I love them all,” he says. “It’s like asking a percussionist which drum in his drum set he likes most. He has the same feeling for them all — every drum, every cymbal. He loves and needs them all in unity.”

That’s clear when he goes to the piano and caresses its keys gently as Deboule’s guitar takes a solo, then he returns to his alto sax, increasing its pace and raising its pitch with some tumbling cadences. What a sound!