Carter’s first jobs as a jazz musician were playing bass with Chico Hamilton in 1959, followed by free-lance work with Jaki Byard, Cannonball Adderley, Randy Weston, Bobby Timmons, and Thelonious Monk. One of his first recorded appearances was on Hamilton alumnus Eric Dolphy’s Out There, recorded on August 15, 1960, and featuring George Duvivier on bass, Roy Haynes on drums, and Carter on cello. The album’s advanced harmonies and concepts were in step with the third stream movement. In early October 1960, Carter recorded How Time Passes with Don Ellis, and on June 20, 1961, he recorded Where?, his first album as a leader, featuring Dolphy on alto sax, flute, and bass clarinet, Mal Waldron on piano, Charlie Persip on drums, and Duvivier playing bass lines on tracks where Carter played cello.

Carter came to fame via the second Miles Davis Quintet in the mid 1960s, which also included Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and drummer Tony Williams. Carter joined Davis’s group in 1963, appearing on the album Seven Steps to Heaven and the follow-up E.S.P., the latter being the first album to feature only the full quintet. It also featured three of Carter’s compositions (the only time he contributed compositions to Davis’s group). He stayed with Davis until 1968 (when he was replaced by Dave Holland), and participated in a couple of studio sessions with Davis in 1969 and 1970. Although he played electric bass occasionally during this era of early jazz-rock fusion, he has subsequently stopped playing that instrument, and in the 2000s plays only double bass.

After leaving Davis, Carter was for several years a mainstay of CTI Records, making albums under his own name and also appearing on many of the label’s records with a diverse range of other musicians. Notable musical partnerships in the 1970s and 1980s included Joe Henderson, Houston Person, Hank Jones, Gabor Szabo and Cedar Walton. During the 1970s he was a member of the New York Jazz Quartet. In 1986, Carter played double bass on “Big Man on Mulberry Street” on Billy Joel’s album The Bridge.

In 1987, Carter won a Grammy for “an instrumental composition for the film” Round Midnight. In 1994, he won another Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Group for a tribute album to Miles Davis. He appears on the alternative hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest’s influential album The Low End Theory on a track called “Verses from the Abstract”. He appeared as a member of the jazz combo the Classical Jazz Quartet. In 1994, Carter appeared on the Red Hot Organization’s compilation album, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool. The album, meant to raise awareness and funds in support of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the African-American community, was heralded as “Album of the Year” by TIME. In 2001, Carter collaborated with Black Star and John Patton to record “Money Jungle” for the Red Hot Organization’s compilation album, Red Hot + Indigo, a tribute to Duke Ellington.

Carter is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Music Department of City College of New York, having taught there for 20 years, and received an honorary Doctorate from the Berklee College of Music in Spring 2005. He joined the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York City in 2008, teaching bass in the school’s Jazz Studies program. Carter made an appearance in Robert Altman’s 1996 film, Kansas City. The end credits feature him and fellow bassist Christian McBride duetting on “Solitude”.

Carter appeared as himself in an episode of the HBO series Treme entitled “What Is New Orleans”. His authorized biography, Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes, ( ISBN 978-0989982511) by Dan Ouellette, was published by ArtistShare in 2008.

In 2010 Carter was honored with France’s premier cultural award, the medallion and title of Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Carter was elected to the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 2012.