Carla Bley - C or D/S or D?

have you seen the cover of the new emily haines album, marcello?

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-792756-1159304909.jpeg

have you read the extensive review of the new emily haines album which i posted on my blog six months ago, alex?

not yet. is it that old? anyways i always try to save the good things for later...

shit, now i realise that i know that album. at least parts of it. i hadn't seen the cover though. this is a rare case where the internet made me focus on the music without being distracted by images.

Actually I posted that review eight months ago - doesn't time fly etc.

Since this pathetic fucking retarded system won't let me link TO MY OWN BLOG go to CoM, look up Oct 2006 archives, why should I do all the work...

sorry for the hiccup when (re)loading this thread. i guess that is the discogs website telling me that i shouldn't try to link to their album cover images...

maybe the system knows it is your site, marcello. and it doesn't allow shameless self-promotion. but i as a third party can link there. ;-)

I fucking LOVE Carla Bley.

Faves are:
-Escalator Over The Hill
-Music Mechanique
-her compositions on some of the early paul bley LPs (esp the "Closer" LP on ESP.)

Just listening to Escalator Over The Hill again today and it really smokes my bacon.

EOTH is awesome, my favorite opening of a jazz album next to saint & the sinner lady

I love Carla Bley

She just turned 82

I just played a show with the guys from 0ingo B0ingo and Slugg0 told me Carla and Ann3tte Peac0ck hated each other back in the day

Another heart-stopping thread revive.

Fuck you!
S - Tropic Appetites, Dinner Music, Musique Mecanique and Social Studies. That Michael Mantler album with Robert Wyatt and Edward Gorey lyrics is off the hook too.

... in the sense that I thought she was dead, you lunatic.

haha sorry. happy bday CB!

I posted a Morricone song yesterday and ppl got mad cux they thought he was dead. I gotta calm down.

just off to revive the Sonny Rollins thread:p

She did some awesome arrangements on Haden's The Ballad of The Fallen as well.

Gary Burton, "Genuine Tong Funeral"

Searching that out now

I discovered Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports this year and it's up there with my favorites of hers.

Inspired by Downtown Music Gallery's enewsletter LP sale, I checked several listed albums featuring Bley, sale list and comments here: Rolling Jazz Thread 2018, little bit here too: Robert Wyatt: Classic or Dud?

Spotify has a bunch more.

Or some more, at least.

Gary Burton, "Genuine Tong Funeral"

― Poisoned by Johan's pea soup. (Tom D.), Thursday, 24 May 2018 18:28 (thirty-eight minutes ago) Permalink

Gary Burton Quartet's "Dreams So Real" as well

such dedication to a hairdo.

this is really good by the way. if you want something more current.

https://www.discogs.com/Carla-Bley-Andy-Sheppard-Steve-Swallow-Andando-El-Tiempo/master/1037191

also best birth name: Lovella May Borg

I get pathetically teary when I play Silence (off The Ballad of the Fallen), to me it's a profoundly sad and moving piece of music and it also makes me think of people who are gone for some reason. But anyway, basically Carla Bley is definitely classic and I should catch up on some of her newer stuff.

► Pre-order Carla Bley Trio: ‘Life Goes On’ and listen to the title track here: https://t.co/MRioVypy9p

A striking album of new music from Carla Bley, whose trio with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow is now in its 25th year. pic.twitter.com/QNLqRjY2Y0

— ECM Records (@ECMRecords) January 10, 2020

https://ethaniverson.com/interview-with-carla-bley/

great interview, thanks for posting

this is something, re: don cherry on escalator:

CB: It was a miracle because he didn’t have any music. And even the words, when he says the syllables again and again and again, those were words from Escalator. Again it was one of the main songs, and he didn’t even know that. Everything was mystical like that with Don. He was from a different planet, definitely, god.

really getting into Life Goes On now. i think it's just gorgeous.

that interview with her posted just upthread is so fun! man what an awesome person she seems like.

She’s a treasure.

another new interview with TheQuietus up yesterday https://thequietus.com/articles/29717-carla-bley-interview

still listen to her last album a lot, it was quite a timely move releasing Life Goes On just before all the lockdowns started.

85 today, I think

this is so cool. courtesy the algorithm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79vIUP78EsE

Gary Burton, "Genuine Tong Funeral"

― Poisoned by Johan's pea soup. (Tom D.), Thursday, May 24, 2018 1:28 PM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is such an amazing record! i love her compositions.

another favorite composition, via igor S. one assumes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiydA9t8UZw

OMG WHAT AN INTERVIEW! Thanks and Merry Christmas yall!

Oof bumping this scared me for a moment.

Ditto.

never revive threads about old people

enjoyed this as well

oops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKxACz7B0IM

oops.

📹

kew rhone should be on its way to me courtesy of the Reccommended records sale

did some looking around and noticed that CB called stravisnky her "favorite composer at this point in my life" in a recent interview with the jazz times. also found this:

the essence of The Rite of Spring seems to be prefigured in its opening bassoon melody – indeed, its first eight unaccompanied notes. More than a hundred years after it was written, that indelible, immediately recognizable phrase is all that’s necessary to evoke a broad canvas of colors, movement, emotions. Which is why so many jazz artists have used it, either as the thematic foundation of a new piece, a symbolic reference, or a fragrant wisp of high culture. Paul Desmond’s “Sacre Blues,” Ornette Coleman’s “Sleep Talk,” Carla Bley’s “And Now the Queen,” and Peter Erskine/Marty Krystall/Buell Neidlinger’s “I Go(rs) Blue(s)” quickly come to mind; the list goes on.

so i don't think i'm imagining it.

Jon Anderson sings that melody unaccompanied on Yessongs.

and Carla Bley started working on Escalator after hearing Sgt. Pepper.

― Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Sunday, 2 February 2025 bookmarkflaglink

Yeah makes sense.

I think I wasn't hearing the songs when I first heard the record ten or more years ago. I was into improvisation so much it must've blocked me (even if I loved The White Album then) (which is the only Beatles rec I really love apart from the red/blue comps)

and Carla Bley started working on Escalator after hearing Sgt. Pepper.

― Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Sunday, 2 February 2025 bookmarkflaglink

Shutting my ears and going LA LA LA LA.

Speaking of Hapless Child etc.:

No doubt I've said this in 20 other threads, but his work with the Carla Bley/Mike Mantler nexus is generally superb - Mantler's The Hapless Child (prog-goth-isolationist adaptation of Edward Gorey poems) is tremendous, as is Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports, released under Mason's name but really a C Bley record.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, July 13, 2005

from Rolling Jazz---I mostly listened to these because of Wyatt (and Coyne):

Michael Mantler:
The Hapless Child
Watt/4
words by Edward Gorey
(from 'Amphigorey')

Robert Wyatt (voice)
Terje Rypdal (guitar)
Carla Bley (piano, clavinet, synthesizer)
Steve Swallow (bass)
Jack DeJohnette (drums)

recorded July 1975 through January 1976
Willow, NY, and England
A whirlwind right out of the gate, and I knew from later all-instrumental versions how strong some of these frameworks would be---did not expect the excellent and unusual studio effects on some of Wyatt's vocal turns---but eventually, when the words are more upfront, can seem overly emphatic---Gorey's dank little narratives work better with his spare, black white & grey drawings or etchings or whatever they be. Also, c'mon, it's Gorey---think I'll go on to the settings of Beckett and Pinter.

― dow, Thursday, May 17, 2018 9:18 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That is, the *overall* effect, the ensemble onslaught, not primarily Wyatt's vocals, can seem overly emphatic here.

― dow, Thursday, May 17, 2018 9:21 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Mantler again: Silence(1976)---the overemphasis here is confined to some of MM's heavier handling of Pinter's words, and Chris Spedding's often repeated use of sustain etc., drawing a note out and curving it around 'til it's a needle in my earphones ---but it can hurt so good, and the voices are strong and distinctive, Carla Bley holding her on with Kevin Coyne and Robert Wyatt---and sometimes everybody follows Wyatt's dustdevil percussion, without ever missing their cues (it's a play with a small cast/combo, compressed, maybe condensed, into a single LP's worth of songs).

― dow, Friday, May 18, 2018 6:10 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The text itself may grow on me, but so far doesn't seem up to several Pinter plays I'm more familiar with, though Mantler can highlight the weak spots in his literary sources, maybe by blurring some of the plot points.

― dow, Friday, May 18, 2018

― dow, Sunday, May 20, 2018 4:14 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Pretty sure I would have bought these in the 70s if had come across them (was mailorderphobic, opp extreme in 80s), and as a Wyatt fan would have been fairly satisfied.

― dow, Sunday, May 20, 2018 4:18 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

never even heard of these, thanks.

― akm, Sunday, May 20, 2018 4:58 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

wowowow this rules!!

― kurt schwitterz, Monday, May 21, 2018 3:11 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

That "Playa de Formentor" clip; wow, just wow! Thanks so much for that.

― stirmonster, Monday, May 21, 2018 4:34 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Some atrocious acting from young Robert there, he looks at the camera, the last thing you should do as an extra. Daevid is good though.

― Poisoned by Johan's pea soup. (Tom D.), Monday, May 21, 2018 6:25 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yup, Daevid is good. Incredible seeing him so young with it all ahead of him.

― stirmonster, Monday, May 21, 2018

from Robert Wyatt: Classic or Dud? (can't get the link to post)

Bley is always good on those, best I recall---maybe she knows better than the other performers how to anticipate and work with her colleague from way back/-ex (Mantler)(he eventually took his albs off his site, last time I checked. but they're worth looking for, esp by Carla headz).

that description makes me want to give it another go

An interesting way into the record, if you can find it, is a documentary shot during the recording sessions that really manages to capture the scope and breadth of vision of the project. There seem to be individual scenes or outtakes online but I think the full length film is elusive. I may have seen the film before I heard the record and for awhile the audio recording was playing catch-up in my perception with the images I had seen beforehand.

I missed a really cheap copy of the Escalator CD a couple of months ago because i was trying to decide what else to pick up from the seller. So left it unpurchased in my basket while I had to do other things. & it got bought. So bummer still need it.
Have meant to pick it up for years. Had it in my head that there was a second version reworking the material that needed to be avoided and the original bought. Not seeing a reference to that so wondering if I was reading about tours reworking the material years after the fact mid 90s and mid 00ies I think. Was thinking they had pulled a Zappa with the recordings around the time and edited in new playing to a release though or something along the lines.

Anyway hoping to pick up a few of hers.

An interesting way into the record, if you can find it, is a documentary shot during the recording sessions that really manages to capture the scope and breadth of vision of the project. There seem to be individual scenes or outtakes online but I think the full length film is elusive. I may have seen the film before I heard the record and for awhile the audio recording was playing catch-up in my perception with the images I had seen beforehand.

Would love to see this, will try and seek out.

Just went to Apple Music to stream this and the app sent me to a page of resources for help on topics including bullying, addiction & substance abuse and suicide & self-harm. Not sure if this is an album-specific thing or if all my recent streaming has been troubling the algorithm.

??!

It's never happened to me before! And this wasn't the first record I've searched on Apple Music today...

Steve Gebhardt's 1970 Escalator Over The Hill film finally available in full. I've seen some clips of this before, but this is the motherlode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-aSKKWz_QM

Never knew about this!

omg

Thanks Stew

Whoa yeah thanks

Credit to David Mittelman/Observations of Deviance on Bluesky for spotting it.

Have showed the clips in class before - love the kaleidoscopic shots of Jeanne Lee in full flow - so I'm super excited to watch this later.

If I didn't know what Michael Mantler looked like I might be wondering what John Sebastian was doing hanging about at a Carla Bley recording session.

Steve Gebhardt's 1970 Escalator Over The Hill film finally available in full. I've seen some clips of this before, but this is the motherlode.

― Composition 40b (Stew)

i just happened to run across this yesterday! really delighted at the serendipity. a friend was talking to me about metric and it had never crossed my mind that paul haines was emily's dad. i'd seen clips on gebhardt's channel, it's nice to see the whole thing.