Carla Bley - Escalator Over The Hill (1971)

A jazz-rock/Weill-esque opera/Indian-influenced avant-garde behemoth, complete on three LPs and later two CDs, four years in the making, from Carla Bley (composer), Paul Haines (librettist), and a cast of dozens of voices and musicians.  So much has been written about EOTH over the years that it's difficult to think what to add.  Perhaps the hundred-odd minutes of inspired insanity contained in this major labour of love are best just jumped straight in to, so here goes.

The thirteen-minute overture sits nicely alongside Bley's other work of the era in its dramatic, portentous sweep.  Then a swirl of "phantom" voices, tape effects and organ introduce the first characters, with Warhol star Viva acting as narrator throughout.  As an 'opera' (or rather, "chronotransduction"), Haines' text is so void of narrative logic it might as well be Einstein On The Beach - all that can be gleaned from the libretto is that it loosely concerns the inhabitants of a dilapidated hotel.  These include a couple named Ginger and David, who are voiced at certain points by a pre-solo fame Linda Ronstadt, and the singer from Manfred Mann who I grew up knowing as Uncle Jack.  Other voices include the musicians, such as Don Preston and Jack Bruce, as well as Bley/Mantler's daughter Karen Mantler making her debut on record, then about five years old.

The musical pieces then vary in length from under a minute to several, taking in more mind-blowing big band arrangements, small-group explosions with stinging lead guitar (check out John McLaughlin on Businessmen), gloomy piano with free-jazz skronk attacks, and more.  Eventually, the music reaches its absolute summit in the stretch corresponding to the third LP in the original box set.  A.I.R. (All India Radio) would soon be covered by Jan Garbarek among others; here it is in its original version.  The epic Rawalpindi Blues takes in more McLaughlin brilliance amid a coming together of the "Traveling Band" and the "Hotel Band", and if that wasn't enough, it gets a just-as-good nine minute coda.  One more short piece leads in to the stunning finale, which after eight and a half minutes (on record) ran into a lock-groove - on CD, this loop of humming drone plays out for nearly 19 minutes, then has a final snippet of calliope music as a 'hidden track'.  In a way, this is the ideal ending to a truly unique musical experience.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

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Carla Bley at SGTG:

A Genuine Tong Funeral

The Jazz Composer's Orchestra

Fleur Carnivore

Appearing Nightly

Trios

Gary Burton Quartet With Orchestra - A Genuine Tong Funeral (composed by Carla Bley) (1968)

Some classic Carla Bley this Friday and next, starting with "A dark opera without words... based on emotions towards death - from the most irreverent to those of deepest loss", as she described it.  Written between 1964 and 1967, Bley expanded the work with sections specifically for vibraphone quartet when Gary Burton expressed an interest in it.  Thus the final version came together as this enjoyably strange record, with members of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra supporting Burton's quartet.

With 15 tracks, several under a minute long, A Genuine Tong Funeral is a great insight into Bley's versatility as a composer as far back as the mid-60s.  The dirge-like themes that might be expected for such a weighty concept are just as likely to be sitting alongside jaunty, upbeat passages, or the occasional full-on blast of free jazz skronk towards the end.  Burton proves to be the ideal musician to front the project, giving its spindly complexity an accessible cool.  ECM's Dreams So Real from the following decade might be the deserved classic of 'Burton Plays Bley', but this ambitious little oddity is just as worthy of recommendation in its own right.

 

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Gary Burton plays Carla Bley at SGTG:

Dreams So Real

Gary Burton at SGTG:

Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett

Fluid Rustle (Eberhard Weber)

Lyric Suite For Sextet (with Chick Corea) 

Carla Bley at SGTG:

The Jazz Composer's Orchestra

Fleur Carnivore

Appearing Nightly

Trios 

Carla Bley, Andy Sheppard & Steve Swallow - Trios (2013)

With the release of Trios, legendary jazz composer Carla Bley finally moved over from Watt, the ECM-distributed label that had released her music for decades, to the Manfred mothership.  This first appearance on ECM tied in with the re-establishment of the Bley-Sheppard-Swallow trio, whose last album in this format had been Songs With Legs in 1994.  They've since released a further two albums.

Trios offered no great surprises in the tracklist, being a Thelonious Monk-like revisitation of earlier compositions.  But like Monk, this just underlines how durable and outstanding Bley's iconoclastic body of work as a writer is.  The three lengthy suites here, with two shorter tracks upfront, might largely date back to the 80s, but they're cast afresh here as gorgeous immersions in sumptuous chamber jazz.  The simple palette of Bley's piano, Swallow's nimble bass guitar and Sheppard's breathy sax make for nothing short of a masterpiece that lets the strength of the writing and playing stand centre stage, and is a delight to return to over and over.

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Carla Bley at SGTG:

The Jazz Composers Orchestra

Fleur Carnivore

Appearing Nightly

The Jazz Composer's Orchestra - s/t (1968)

A fearsome, brutal armoured tank of an album (a double album, even) from the pen of Michael Mantler, and performed by a cast of dozens of musicians topped by the cream of late 60s free jazz as listed on the cover.  This 73-minute beast contains six tracks of tightly-controlled chaos, climaxing in a 33-minute 'concerto' fronted by legendary percussive pianist Cecil Taylor.  So if last Friday's jazz entry was a melodic, accessible session, this one, well, not so much.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be approached with the same enthusiasm, as the rewards are rich.  Jazz Composer's Orchestra kicks off with 14 minutes of Communications 8, in which ominous drones and no less than five double-bass players form the backdrop for solos by Don Cherry and Gato Barbieri.  Communications 9 then plays in with dissonant strings to set the stage for Larry Coryell's guitar blowout - whether he'd been listening to the then-new Velvet Underground album, particularly Lou Reed's performance on I Heard Her Call My Name, is an open question; Coryell certainly gives any avant-rock pioneer a run for their money here.

On the next lengthy stretch, things calm down a bit, particularly in Steve Swallow's lengthy bass intro.  Communications 10 reminds me of Mingus a bit in its writing; the soloist this time is trombonist Roswell Rudd.  It's almost time for the main event, but first a brief prelude, or Preview.  And who better to give the final-act overture than Pharoah Sanders at his most unhinged?  He's certainly a memorable palate-cleanser, as Carla Bley vacates the piano stool to let Cecil Taylor play out the two-part finale.  Mantler fires up the orchestra to full blast, and Taylor lets rip in his unique style - kinda want to write more, but this one just has to heard to be believed.  A massive (in every sense of the word) double-album that will simply blow your head off every time you give it the chance.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Michael Mantler & Don Preston - Alien
Carla Bley - Fleur Carnivore
Carla Bley - Appearing Nightly

Carla Bley - Fleur Carnivore (1989)

"The Big Carla Bley Band" were captured here during three nights in Copenhagen, November 1988, and writing, arrangement and spirited performances were top-flight as always.  The achingly soulful title track that kicks off proceedings was a commission to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Duke Ellington's passing, and The Eternal Waiting Of Canute transports the Norse/English king to more gently lilting Latin shores than the title might suggest.

Another highlight is the 17-minute, three-part suite The Girl Who Cried Champagne.  IIRC (from an interview following a trio remake about six years ago), Steve Swallow would present Bley with a bottle of fizz whenever she finished a composition, and fancying a drink, she lied about this one being complete before it was.  Anyway, this whole set is champagne-worthy, and well worthy of its general recognition as one of Bley's very best releases.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Appearing Nightly

Carla Bley And Her Remarkable Big Band - Appearing Nightly (2008)

Following on from the first SGTG post of Michael Mantler's music last week, how about some Carla Bley?  Well, this isn't the first time music penned by Carla has featured here - that was Dreams So Real - but it is the first time the fringed genius herself and her own band have been posted.  Daughter Karen Mantler (on organ) and longtime bassist Steve Swallow are just two of the "Remarkable!" big band here.

Appearing Nightly is a live album recorded at the New Morning club in Paris in July 2006, and starts with three commissions - the opening pair, Greasy Gravy and Awful Coffee, were commissioned by the Jazz Orchestra of Sardinia, and the spectacular suite that follows, Appearing Nightly At The Black Orchid, was written for the Monterey Jazz Festival.  Throughout, Bley pays tribute to the big band traditions of Ellington and Mingus whilst putting her own idiosyncratic stamp on everything.  Closing out the show are Someone To Watch (another Bley composition, but it does end with a sly quote from Someone To Watch Over Me), and a lovely rendition of Ray Noble's I Hadn't Had Anyone Till You.  Remarkable stuff from the first note to the last.

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