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John Wallace Carter was born on September 24, 1929 in Fort Worth, Texas and attended I.M. Terrell High School, and played music with schoolmates Ornette Coleman and Charles Moffett in the 1940s. Earning a Bachelor of Arts from Lincoln University in Jefferson, Missouri in 1949 and a Master of Arts from the University of Colorado in 1956. He also studied at the North Texas State and University of California at Los Angeles, California.

From 1961, Carter was based mainly on the West Coast. There he met Bobby Bradford in 1965, with whom he subsequently worked on a number of projects, notably the New Jazz Art Ensemble. He also played with Hampton Hawes and Harold Land. In the 1970s Carter became well known on the basis of his solo concerts.

At the New Jazz Festival Moers in 1979, he and the German clarinet player Theo Jörgensmann performed for three days. Carter received complimentary reviews and wide recognition from around the world. He and Jörgensmann met again in 1984, and played the Berlin JazzFest, both as a soloist and in duo.

Between 1982 and 1990, John composed and recorded Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music. It was a five album set that focused on African Americans and their history, and was acclaimed by jazz critics as containing some of the best releases of the 1980s.

He recorded seventeen albums as a leader and thirteen albums with Tim Berne, Clarinet Summit, Vinny Golia, Richard Grossman, John Lindberg, James Newton and Horace Tapscott. Carter planned a clarinet quartet with Perry Robinson, Jörgensmann and Eckard Koltermann was planned for 1991, but it never came to fruition.

Clarinetist, saxophonist, and flutist John Carter passed away from a non-malignant tumor on March 31, 1991. Later that year he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.

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