JAZZ SPOTLIGHT

JAMES CARTER, “Jurassic Classics” ( DIW/Columbia )***

JAMES CARTER, “The Real Quietstorm” ( Atlantic )***

Let’s put it as directly as possible. James Carter has the potential to be the most influential jazz saxophonist of the decade. “Potential,” because his talent at this early point in his career--he is 25--is so dynamic that it is exploding in all directions at the moment, sometimes shouting when it could be whispering, occasionally taking easy paths rather than roads less traveled.

But those caveats aside, the playing on these two albums, recorded within a seven-month span between April and October, 1994, is the work of an artist who almost literally reaches out and demands to be heard.

The earlier date, “Jurassic Classics,” is a raging firestorm of activity, an album that both challenges and identifies him with his saxophone predecessors in a program that contains such powerful jazz standards as Thelonious Monk’s “Epistrophy,” John Coltrane’s “Equinox,” Clifford Brown’s “Sandu” and Sonny Rollins’ “Oleo.”

Carter’s tenor soloing on “Take the ‘A’ Train” takes a pre-Coltrane tour across the brusque, muscular styles associated with Don Byas, Ben Webster and Illinois Jacquet--a honking, screeching testimony to an era when tenor players were expected to bring an audience to their feet. And Carter does precisely that.

His soprano on “Out of Nowhere” follows suit, spinning out nonstop, multi-noted flurries and wildly passionate squeals. Other solos cover a similar gamut: slipping and sliding alto saxophone on Monk’s “Ask Me Now”; a driving tenor set of double-time, bar-walking blues choruses on “Sandu”; a high-speed, race- course romp through “Oleo.”

“The Real Quietstorm” is a more laid-back album, devoted primarily to ballads, but no less lacking in emotional intensity or historical references. Carter’s warm-toned rendering of “ ‘Round Midnight” includes a subtle bow to Harry Carney in a long note held for 12 bars via the circular breathing technique frequently used by Carney. His “1944 Stomp” soprano solo is a paean to Sidney Bechet and Byas, and the smooth alto lines on “The Intimacy of My Woman’s Eyes” recall the strutting qualities of Johnny Hodges.

Going even farther afield, Carter adds a gut-bucket bass clarinet on “Deep Throat Blues” and a bass flute on “A Ballad for a Doll.”

Amazing playing, all of it, made more remarkable by the fact that Carter moves from one instrument to another with ease, establishing a unique voice on each--a considerable accomplishment. Equally impressively, his historical references serve not as models for mimicry but as foundations from which to explore his own boundless, still evolving creativity.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four (excellent).