Ron Carter Ron Carter, one of the greatest bassists in jazz history, was born on this day in 1937. WBGO is celebrating by playing his music on the air throughout the day, and there s certainly no shortage to choose from. But given that today also happens to be International Star Wars Day, it seems only appropriate to shout out a curio in his discography: Empire Jazz, released in 1980 on the RSO label. How much of an anomaly was this album in Carter s career? Put it this way: I had never heard of it until this morning, when I posted another jazz story for Star Wars Day, and had a friendly exchange on Twitter with Zachary, a sci-fi connoisseur who runs a blog called Doomsdayer. He wondered why I didn t plug