Betty Carter -- All That Jazz -- The Jazz Diva Nurtures The Best And Brightest Of The Next Musical Generation

To see Carter

Betty Carter and her Quartet play at Jazz Alley, 2033 Sixth Ave., tonight at 8 and 9:30 p.m., and Friday and Saturday at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. For reservations, call 441-9729.

The singer strides without fanfare onto the Jazz Alley stage. She's wearing a long, loose, rust-colored dress, and little make-up on her round, open face. It's an unusually youthful and animated face for a woman of 65. Grinning wide, she bows briskly to an enthusiastic audience full of new and longtime admirers. And then, with a nod to her four young colleagues on the bandstand, Betty Carter gets right down to business.

That business is singing like no one else ever sang before, and surely like no one else ever will again.

The warm caramel sounds that pour out of Carter's broad, elastic mouth are sometimes quirky, often dissonant, but always precisely wrought, unique variations on standard tunes you thought you knew - "September Song," "East of the Sun," "Long Ago and Far Away." But she transforms them into compositions uniquely her own.

Carter, who is performing at Jazz Alley through Saturday, is one of the few remaining divas from that halcyon jazz era that produced Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughn. But she is nothing if not up-to-the-minute.

Colleagues and critics used to call her Betty Bebop, back in the days when she began doing with her agile voice what improvisational wizards "Bird" (Charlie Parker) and "Diz" (Dizzy Gillespie) were doing with their furious horns.

Now a more apt nickname might be Professor Betty, in deference to the tutelage Carter has given to scores of the best and brightest young jazz players. In jazz circles it's common knowledge that if you're good enough to be plucked out of youthful obscurity and taken on the road with the exacting Carter, you're probably good enough to be a headliner someday.

That is just what happened to, among others, the splendid young pianists Jacky Terrasson, Cyrus Chestnut, Benny Green and John Hicks. They all used their apprenticeship with Carter as a springboard to fronting their own combos, and securing record contracts.

Carter's band may be the most elite finishing school in jazz these days, but her fostering of new talent doesn't stop there. Relaxing in the comfortable Eastlake condo where Jazz Alley quarters its artists, Carter takes a break from watching the O.J. Simpson trial ("He's guilty, of course!"), to chat about her dual role as musician and mentor.

"I have this program called Jazz Ahead that's been going now for four years," explains the singer, who is wearing her "off duty" uniform of black pants, loose white shirt, and bare feet.

"These kids from all over the country send me their tapes, and I hear about them through college jazz programs and at jazz educators' conventions. We choose the best kids we can find and bring them to New York each year for a big concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It's a big thrill for them, a great educational experience."

Carter is not shy about harvesting the best of this very young crop - most are in their teens and early 20s - for her own combo. On this jaunt to Seattle she's brought four Jazz Ahead alumni: pianist Xavier Davis, drummer Will Terrill, bassist Matt Hughes, and a very gifted tenor saxophonist named Mark Shim. He's 21, but hardly looks old enough to qualify for a driver's license.

"Working with Betty is a really good learning experience," says Shim, who has been with the Carter band all of three weeks. "You learn a lot musically, and also about how to keep people interested in the music. She's demanding of her musicians, but if she sees you're really interested and serious she's also very encouraging."

For Carter, the payoff is mutual.

"These guys keep me young," she says, with customary bluntness. "Their energy and enthusiasm makes me feel light and youthful. Why would I want four guys my own age behind me?"

What she provides in return, the singer asserts, is a rare chance for a jazz player to have a gig night after night for months on end.

"We've got a number of good young instrumentalists, but we don't have the venues for them to hone their craft. We're losing our jazz stations, like KJAZ in San Francisco, and our clubs. And the kind of jazz you see on TV is just historical stuff. It can teach people something about the great artists of the past, but it's not about making the music fun now. And this music is fun!"

Carter worries that without constant exposure and opportunities to play, new jazz artists "won't develop into individuals.

"Individualism is everything with this music. You're never gonna be Duke Ellington, or Billie Holiday, or Charlie Parker. But if these kids are just listening to the old masters, and don't have a chance to do their own thing, they won't develop their own styles."

Carter credits years of eclectic "on the job training" for making her the singer she is today. Raised in Flint, Mich., she began singing jazz as a teenager and landed a job singing in vibraphonist Lionel Hampton's big band at age 18.

"There were several singers in the band but I was the improviser," she recalls. "I didn't like it at the time, because I wanted to do more melodic things. I realize now that it really trained my ear."

Like Ella Fitgerald, Anita O'Day, Vaughn and others, Carter became known as a major exponent of "scat" - a wordless, highly rhythmic form of vocal improvising. If anything, she was the most experimental and risk-seeking among them.

"It takes a certain personality to be a scat singer," she says. "You gotta have an attitude. You have to invent things that aren't just nonsense, but make sense musically."

Carter has taken a lot of heat from fellow musicians for distorting the melodies of songs. She responds: "My feeling is that the melody of a song has been done and is gonna be done forever. It's not going anywhere! One reason I like working with younger players is that they don't have any hang-ups about trying new things."

Carter has been another kind of pioneer in the music business as well. In the early 1970s, when she was a divorced mother of two teenage sons, Carter continued to tour but her recording career hit a slump. When no label would sign her, she took the then-daring step of making four albums on her own label, Bet-Car Records, and distributing them independently.

Eventually the big companies "rediscovered" her. (Her latest release, "Feed the Fire," came out last year on Verve). But Carter's gumption and enterprise inspired many other women jazz artists to create their own recordings.

"It was radical at the time," she admits, "but I didn't think of it that way. You know, I was just full of energy and wanted to get on with it."

Onstage, Carter also gets on with it - in the same exuberant but no-nonsense fashion. Her rapport with her fine young band - especially sax player Shim - is visible and voluble. And after being held in her enveloping vocal spell for an hour or so, you understand better the title of one of Carter's recent records: "It's Not About the Melody."

It's about the uncompromising and generous artistry.