Thanks for that tribute to Carla Bley. The Jimmy Giuffre 3 (Fusion) did wonderfully evocative versions of two lovely Carla Bley tunes - 'Jesus Maria' and 'In The Mornings Out There'. RIP
Waking up to this wonderful tribute to Carla has warmed up my heavy heart. When I was in college, I heard Escalator in a bar in Baltimore and have been captivated by her and inspired by her in that heavyweight-female-role-model kind of way that shapes your view of what’s possible. I love her Duets with Steve. And Musique Mechanique. And Genuine Tong Funeral. Okay, I’ll stop. But I absolutely had to say thank you for this. My hubby and I love your channel. From across the pond, Laura
Carla Bley certainly deserved this great obituary. An amazing artist. Well done Andy. She made the Fictitious Sports album with Nick Mason from PF. She was not afraid to make brave choices! R.I.P. Carla.
Hi. Just watch your video posted as a tribute to the great Carla Bley. I am a big fan of her music and find really interesting that you mention about more than a female leader of a big band, but a a great composer and writing specifically for the musicians with her at the time throughout her prolific career. You mention a piece of music video from her, and I relate it to dvd titled “Live in Montreal” released n 2002 that shows a concert from July 1983. Only this one has Victor Lewis on drums. Anyways. I enjoyed your tribute to one of my favorite Jazz musicians. God bless her.
Thanks for this tribute to a brilliant composer and bandleader. Oddly, just the other day I was listening to an interview with Steve Swallow from a few years ago. At one point there's a knock at the door and Swallow says "Oh I think Carla Bley is here." RIP.
In a quartet of musicians and close friends of mine, we played "Utviklingssang" almost every Thursday evening - two of them died last year. Now I'm sitting here crying. 😢
Thank you. You in no way overestimate her importance. She is as important as Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Frank Zappa and Philip Glass, a few of my other heroes. I met her at a weekend symposium on new music in NY. John Cage, Charles Wuorinen, Frederick Rzewski and Allen Ginsburg were also there. For the last day concert, she performed Cage's Piano Concerto during a thunderstorm that was echoing off the mountains...pure magic. Later that evening at the campsite a raccoon came between my buddy and I to steal a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Ha! Ha! I had two bags. I believe she at one point auditioned for the Zappa Band, but was declined because she was too good. She made a book of arrangements of Christmas Carols that was published by My Weekly Reader, somewhat of a rarity now. Nick Mason made an album of her compositions, Fictitious Sports with Robert Wyatt as main vocalist. I played Escalator so much I had to buy a second LP and later the CD. A record store owner used to bring me boxes of discs to peruse, Escalator was in one of them when it was still new. I wrote a synopsis and commentary on the work as part of a presentation of it on WWUH radio's opera programming in the 80's. She was an amazing human being (who hated to sing). She will always be important to me. Thank you again for this wonderful tribute.
Thank you so very VERY much for this fine "tribute" to a true giant of (especially) 60s and 70s jazz. Like many here, my first introduction was via that masterpiece, ‘Escalator Over the Hill’. A few years later I found a much earlier collection of her tunes entitled ‘A Genuine Tong Funeral’ (1968), another masterpiece for those unfamiliar, by the proto-fusion Gary Burton Quintet (then featuring Larry Coryell on guitar), and soon thereafter even more music so penned, this time in the ECM mold. ‘Dreams So Real’ (1975), again by the Gary Burton Quintet was (and still is) an evening favorite (especially the ‘B’ side), though the group had changed quite a bit, and included some then unknown kid with the hair on #2 guitar name 'o Pat Metheny. You simply couldn't go wrong with anything she did, and the musicians she managed to gather around her were legends as well. If there’s a heaven . . . well, they better watch out. She’s seriously gonna rearrange the drapes around there.
@@barryparris91 That was an absolutely stunning era for virtually all things ECM. The output around that time was simply breathtaking, and I ended up buying (and delighting in!) so many damn records I had to keep a close eye on my bank account. 😂 However, for a real treat for any lovers of Dreams So Real, do a search here for a little 26.35 min. piece of video entitled ‘Steve Swallow and Carla Bley remember recording “Dreams So Real”’. This is a WONDERFUL conversation about that record, and really worthy of your time. 👍✨
Agreed. They lost their way for a while in the '80s with too much synth jazz and instrument technology, but returned to that acoustic sound in the '90s. The early releases were the best though. @@barryparris91
Just found out about this great loss after returning from a vacation. I heard Rawalpindi Blues from Escalator over the Hill on the radio (in Germany) in the early 70s and eventually got the triple album (and later the CD version). Mind-blowing indeed. Thanks for your very thoughtful and moving tribute!
Thanks for the tribute; she was indeed great. I left a rather long, rambling post in here yesterday but somehow it disappeared...sigh, oh well. I won't try to rewrite it in full. However, along with all the other fine Carla Bley albums everyone in here is talking about, I'd like to recommend one more,. It's called "Fleur Carnivore", a live recording of her 14 piece band from 1988. It's not nearly as "out there" as Escalator Over the Hill" or "Tropic Appetites". It has five exquisitely written and arranged compositions with some great solos played by folks like Lew Soloff (trumpet) and Andy Sheppard (saxophones) who were both frequent members of her bands for many years. RIP Ms. Bley
I knew the name Carla Bley from Melody Maker, which I used to buy for the rock album and gig reviews (I have not previously enjoyed the jazzier end). When her death was announced it prompted me, belatedly, to explore some of her music and I started with the wonderful 'Lawns'. I've now secured a vinyl copy of 'Escalator Over the Hill' (identical to yours) and I'll be honest, it is a work in progress for me, but I'm sure I'll get there, much in the way I now have with Terry Riley, Gong and Ivor Cutler - not all jazz I know, but all at the experimental end of the spectrum in the light of which I'm now bathing. Thanks for this heartfelt tribute which includes reference to some more music for me to discover.
Thanks so much, Andy. We love it when you just shoot from the hip and put the videos out there while the impulse is fresh. As far as the mainstream media, you might be gratified to know that here in the States both the New York Times and the Washington Post published lengthy, substantial obituaries for Carla, hopefully sending people scurrying to go find out more.
Thank you. Must revisit her music. Had that 3piece tango on tape. (and other tracks) Saw her band mid eighties, rooftop North Sea Jazz festival The Hague, very memorable.
Thanks Andy, for a great tribute to a great musician. Hearing the 'Escalator' (while washing the dishes at a friend's house when I was 20 or so) changed my life and my conception of music. It still has me in tears regularly - either because of Gato Barbieri's saxophone screaming like a woman (pushing the boundaries of the feasible, very moving and shocking) or the heavenly voice of a young Linda Ronstadt - and it did again this morning in the car after hearing about Carla's passing. I saw her a few years ago in my country with Steve Swallow and Andy Sheppard and felt really blessed (sorry for gushing). 'Dinner Music' is another favourite but there's too many to mention. I've always felt that if we can get McLaughlin, Bruce, Ronstadt, Cherry, Motian and so many others together on a co-operative project, we are not yet lost, there's still hope in dark times. That's her wonderful legacy of humour and hope. 'Birds grow in the sky' indeed. Cheers!
I have Carla's Tropic Appetites 1974 record. She was leading an octet of elite instrumentalists and she had Julie Tippets (Driscoll) on lead vocal. Five of the tracks are vocal pieces that Carla composed the vocal melodies and band arrangements for interpreting Paul Hanes poems about his trip to Cambodia. Julie was a perfect choice. These are my favorite vocal pieces, ever. Julie's vocal for these Carla melodies are beautiful, just incredible.
Thank you Andy. I Just want to add Michael Mantler's Happles child and other inscrutable stories The darkest prog album ever made. Line up. Carla Bley Steve Swallow Jack De Jonette Robert Wyatt Terje Rypdal
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Wow That would be great Andy. This album is like a horror movie, it gives me angst but I like it. As you proberbly allready have recognised there are some crazy vocal sounds on some of the tracks, thats from Pink Floyds Ummagumma.
My intro to Carla was when I saw her play in Reykjavik in 83 with the Charlie Haden Liberation Orchestra and they were doing the pieces from the Fantastic album "Ballad of the Fallen" - that concert was one of the most memorable I've ever been to, loved the music and it was so well orchestrated by her.
Carla was great! For some reason I have been thinking a lot about her lately, and I think she's one of the true pioneers of fusion. I loved the JCOA/WATT label and her work with a variety of artists from both the rock, jazz and classical worlds. The Jazz Composers Orchestra record is a masterpiece.
She took the great Escalator Over The Hill. RIP . In the 70 I used to listen to this album almost on a daily base. It was so divers and so long and always enlightening , I only needed one record per day.
RIP, Maestra Condolences to the great Steve Swallow and to Karen Mantler. I know you can't possibly get to "everything" in 25 minutes, but also wanted to mention, speaking of bass players, the "Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra" records, which Carla composed the majority of. Much more minor, but because this channel is this channel, Carla wrote the music on 'Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports' Perhaps most minor of all -- or not, depending on your perspective -- since you said such great things about D. Sharpe.... the title track to her album "I Hate to Sing' features D. Sharpe, singing as someone Carla forced into singing, about how much he hates to sing. Thanks for doing this, Andy. First I heard of it was from the great guitarist, Nels Cline, on Instagram. Nels wrote, also, my favorite paragraph about the passing of Jeff Beck, when that happened, and the only article on the passing of Tom Verlaine which did not make me cringe; and also a really lovely reminiscence of (surprisingly to me!) George Winston (!) I'll stop now rather than type random associations about her for my own 25 minutes... so glad you did it, and said it straightforwardly -- she was a GIANT.
Carla also toured with Jack Bruce shortly after Cream disbanded. Bruce had Graham Bond, Mike Mandel and Carla Bley as keyboard players in various post-Cream bands.
I discovered her decades ago through Musique Mécanique, which is still my favorite album, what with the whole band playing a skipping record. What a genius.
I used to have Escalator and a few other Bleys years ago and loved them....what I found unique about her music was her embrace of messiness...a cross between big band and circus music. And then to see a right turn into such beautiful ballads like the wonderful lawns.
Carla Bley! Truly an iconic and “original” musician! “Escalator Over the Hill” blew my mind when I first heard it! I hope it will do the same for anyone else!
I can't remember who it was but a music reviewer in my university's paper, the Western Gazette, was a Carla Bley fan. I got into her music thanks to them. Sextet is still one of my favorite albums. I'll be blasting it today. Thanks Carla, RIP
Talking about the difference between objective and subjective greatest albums, her 'I Hate To Sing' is in my personal top ten jazz albums of all time. The whole band sounds like they are having so much fun, and the music is so loose and simple on the surface, but so precise and genius on a deep listen. The other one I come back to is 'Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports' which is a Carla Bley album (with a story I don't feel qualified to tell behind the name).
Terry Adams, of NRBQ fame, played on a couple of Carla's records, European tour 1977 and Musique Mechanique. This shows the range of musicians that Carla pulled from for her music.
I can recall as a youngish man trying to play her song "Chicken 🐔" . It was a real tough egg 🥚 to crack. Also I can't help it but I keep thinking about that tune her daughter Karen wrote titled. . . "People Die". ( with lyrics such as, 🎶 "it's a fact, once ur born there's no turning back" 🎶 ). But all in all a very moving & informative tribute. ( I only wish u could've played a couple of her cuts. I know, I know. . . Copyrights. 💽 R.I.P. Carla -
I had the Pleasure to Co-Promote a Concert of her Big Band as Co-Curator 1988 at the International Jazz Festival Zürich. A Loss for us all. She had big and well deserved Success as Bandleader, Composer and Arranger. One of my „Best Musicians Ever“.
Thank you for doing this! She really does come out of that Ellington-Gil Evans-Mingus kind of thing…composing for specific musicians. And her body of work is immense.
To be fair, it isn't 'control' that Carla had.. it was in the air for that generation of players around her that was 'collective and cooperative' Jazz is collective after all.. Many of them were well established players for years before they worked with her. Paul Bley was obviously the first to play her compositions and encourage her. For me she is the final link of a dichotomy that has only been resolved recently. Her music, the trombone parts etc.. you mentioned, were, in my opnion influnced by Europeans like Weill/Brecht who were themselves influnced by the travelling, mostly black jazzmen who toured Europe from the 1920's onwards. Carla, particularly on Escalator completes the circle where some of the pieces, especially the quirky vocal parts, would not be out of place in the Weill/Brecht songbook. Only recently, a german collecter bequeathed his enormous collection of recordings to an American institute with totally unheard-of jazz bands from that era. The BBC World Service played several last year. Some groups travelled as far as Bolshivik Russia in the late 1920's. I have no idea how or when Carla picked up these influances, but they are there to be heard. Thanks for this piece Andy.. She really was unequalled in her position.
I bought _Escalator Over The Hill_ here in the UK when it came out. It got played a lot 🙂 I loved John's guitar! Annette Peacock is one of my favourite artists too, she made a couple of LPs with Paul Bley too. Check out the YT video,- Annette Peacock - Unsung Heroine. Thanks Andy, I'd probably not have heard about Carla.
Carla was a wonderfully creative, out of the box compuser. I am a huge admirer of her unparalelled genius. On a side note, Andy, could you please recommend a TH-cam chanel devoted specifically to jazz album reviews?
Fictitious Sports has to be the most driving and rocking album that she's done and for sure one of her best. Robert Wyatt has been one of my all time top favorites since Soft Machine and I have just about everything he's done or been on and for me F.S is possibly his best.
Great stuff Andy; this is what we like. Your knowledge in this field is phenomenal! I'll be honest, I have given Escalator Over the Hill a listen but I'll need to give it more time. A bit of a challenge on first listen...
Wonderful and passionate tribute Andy. You raise so many interesting points too. I don't think the 'feminine' in jazz is irrelevant though (I know that's not quite what you're saying either). The great female jazz singers are the proof. I need to check out more of Carla as I've never really focused on her music. Couple of albums and that's it. I've never checked out Escalator, but now I will. Many thanks.
One should also mention Carla's collaborations with Charlie Haden - fantastic records 1969 Carla Bley & Paul Haines - Escalator Over the Hill 1969 Charlie Haden - Liberation Music Orchestra 1982 Charlie Haden - Ballad of the Fallen 1990 Charlie Haden - Dream Keeper 2005 Charlie Haden - Not in Our Name
I didn’t know too much about Carla Bley. I was quite impressed by Escalator Over the Hill though. Monumental piece of work. When you mentioned an old performance you videotaped, it reminded me of a performance on PBS and it was Twyla Tharp’s, ‘The Catherine Wheel.’ I had looked for it before many years ago and failed to find it. But I just took a look again and it is available on YT.
Never understood why Carla was so ignored. Got the boxed 3 lp set when it was finally released after it had already become a legendary recording. Then got into jazz late 70s so bought anything ecm so got to Carla via Haden with Jarrett on ecm
Thanks Andy. Thanks to a good friend's dad we knew Escalator as teens when it came out. A good intro to Carla for the faint of heart would be Gary Burton's Dreams So Real album with Metheny Swallow Moses Goodrick
Thank you for this obituary. I do have one mild objection: classical writers write for specific players all the time. Overtly, by name, and write for that musician's strengths and styles. Sometimes the musicians ask for pieces from specific writers. It's not just by generic all for generic all.
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I get it, but I'm not sure there's a good difference (which you can shrug and say "it is", of course). Anyway, I like the obituary, and I was very distressed at her death (the only one that will distress me as much will be by Henry Threadgill's death), so thank you.
I just read an interview with Carla Bley on the Internet, here are the passages that shocked me. I understand why I never liked his music! What an odious and childish woman!!! -------------------------------------------------- --------- Duke Ellington I never liked Duke Ellington. I thought he was stealing music from Billy Strayhorn, basically. But other than that, I didn't like his style of playing or talking to people, very mannered. Later I found out that even before Billy Strayhorn started writing music for the band, there was some good music out there. I didn't know it at the time, so later I cleared him of his 'crime'. I bought a book about him, and I don't even read it, I can't really get into it. I do not care. John Coltrane, Bird and other bebop musicians I didn't like a lot of musicians at first. I didn't like John Coltrane. I didn't like the sound of it. I didn't like how easy it was to play. All those notes were stupid. I hated Charlie Parker and Bud Powell. Too many notes. I couldn't understand JJ Johnson. I couldn't understand how anyone could play diatonic and rhythmically exact, I just couldn't understand that kind of playing. I didn't like any of the bebop players! I remember Elvin Jones was another one of those guys. He would be playing at a club and I would have to get up and go out. Dewey Redman Dewey Redman, he was so funny. He was the funniest guy. And yet, when he played, it wasn't funny, so I didn't really enjoy his playing as much as his company. But I hired him because he made me laugh. behavior on stage We played a festival in the south of France. The crowd started throwing fruit at us, and my drummer got a tomato in the face. He went backstage and swore he would not return to the stage. I finally convinced him to come back. And he finally did it because I asked him. At the end of the concert I brought the promoter on stage - he thought I wanted to thank him - and I poured a bottle of Coke over his head. To take revenge. Don Cherry He was a person who was horrified by me in general. Embarrassed, probably, to be in my group. We once had a food fight. We were in a restaurant in Zurich, and the whole group threw food on each other's faces for fun. It was the big band, so it was about 20 people throwing food at each other. And Don Cherry was mortified. Steve Slagle Yes, he was my boyfriend for three years. We had a personal relationship, that’s why he got the gig. [Laughs]. But being my boyfriend was the only reason he was in the group.
I love Carla Bley and her music but with figures like Wayne Shorter, Andrew Hill, Herbie Nichols, Charles Mingus etc it's a bit too much to call her the greatest composer of the last sixty years.
None of those are composers in the same sense that Bley was. Mingus was but he was at his peak before then, Herbie Nichols died sixty years ago, I would say Bley is equal to Hill and Shorter at least
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Both Hill and Shorter had their extended compositions (both have even written a opera, even if the one of Hill is unreleased and I'm not sure if Iphigenia has been released), if that's what you're saying. Than again, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Carla Bley and I think myself she is one of the great modern jazz composers.(I was listening to her again a lot actually in the last months, especially the work for others (Jimmy Giuffre, Paul Bley, Gary Burton, George Russell etc), where to me she did some of her best works (while I think Escalator may be slightly overrated onestly... I guess it's her more well known work because is super ambitious and there are all kind of things in there and a mindblowing cast of musicians) and that stuff is great. But I would definitely put guys like Shorter and Hill above even if their output was limited to normal head-improvisation-head kind of tunes.
Thanks for that tribute to Carla Bley. The Jimmy Giuffre 3 (Fusion) did wonderfully evocative versions of two lovely Carla Bley tunes - 'Jesus Maria' and 'In The Mornings Out There'. RIP
Thank you Andy for this obituary, Carla Bley music will live for ever, I saw 2 times in concert in Paris, it was out of this world RIP Carla ❤
Waking up to this wonderful tribute to Carla has warmed up my heavy heart. When I was in college, I heard Escalator in a bar in Baltimore and have been captivated by her and inspired by her in that heavyweight-female-role-model kind of way that shapes your view of what’s possible. I love her Duets with Steve. And Musique Mechanique. And Genuine Tong Funeral. Okay, I’ll stop. But I absolutely had to say thank you for this. My hubby and I love your channel. From across the pond, Laura
Carla Bley certainly deserved this great obituary. An amazing artist. Well done Andy. She made the Fictitious Sports album with Nick Mason from PF. She was not afraid to make brave choices! R.I.P. Carla.
Hi. Just watch your video posted as a tribute to the great Carla Bley. I am a big fan of her music and find really interesting that you mention about more than a female leader of a big band, but a a great composer and writing specifically for the musicians with her at the time throughout her prolific career.
You mention a piece of music video from her, and I relate it to dvd titled “Live in Montreal” released n 2002 that shows a concert from July 1983. Only this one has Victor Lewis on drums. Anyways. I enjoyed your tribute to one of my favorite Jazz musicians.
God bless her.
Thanks for this tribute to a brilliant composer and bandleader. Oddly, just the other day I was listening to an interview with Steve Swallow from a few years ago. At one point there's a knock at the door and Swallow says "Oh I think Carla Bley is here."
RIP.
In a quartet of musicians and close friends of mine, we played "Utviklingssang" almost every Thursday evening - two of them died last year. Now I'm sitting here crying. 😢
Thank you Andy, great report, great obituary.
Thank you. You in no way overestimate her importance. She is as important as Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Frank Zappa and Philip Glass, a few of my other heroes. I met her at a weekend symposium on new music in NY. John Cage, Charles Wuorinen, Frederick Rzewski and Allen Ginsburg were also there. For the last day concert, she performed Cage's Piano Concerto during a thunderstorm that was echoing off the mountains...pure magic. Later that evening at the campsite a raccoon came between my buddy and I to steal a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Ha! Ha! I had two bags. I believe she at one point auditioned for the Zappa Band, but was declined because she was too good. She made a book of arrangements of Christmas Carols that was published by My Weekly Reader, somewhat of a rarity now. Nick Mason made an album of her compositions, Fictitious Sports with Robert Wyatt as main vocalist. I played Escalator so much I had to buy a second LP and later the CD. A record store owner used to bring me boxes of discs to peruse, Escalator was in one of them when it was still new. I wrote a synopsis and commentary on the work as part of a presentation of it on WWUH radio's opera programming in the 80's. She was an amazing human being (who hated to sing). She will always be important to me. Thank you again for this wonderful tribute.
RIP Carla Bley. Musique Mecanique is a favorite.
Thank you so very VERY much for this fine "tribute" to a true giant of (especially) 60s and 70s jazz. Like many here, my first introduction was via that masterpiece, ‘Escalator Over the Hill’. A few years later I found a much earlier collection of her tunes entitled ‘A Genuine Tong Funeral’ (1968), another masterpiece for those unfamiliar, by the proto-fusion Gary Burton Quintet (then featuring Larry Coryell on guitar), and soon thereafter even more music so penned, this time in the ECM mold. ‘Dreams So Real’ (1975), again by the Gary Burton Quintet was (and still is) an evening favorite (especially the ‘B’ side), though the group had changed quite a bit, and included some then unknown kid with the hair on #2 guitar name 'o Pat Metheny. You simply couldn't go wrong with anything she did, and the musicians she managed to gather around her were legends as well. If there’s a heaven . . . well, they better watch out. She’s seriously gonna rearrange the drapes around there.
Dreams So Real is one of my all time favorite albums. I've heard it hundreds of times and I never get tired of it.
@@barryparris91 That was an absolutely stunning era for virtually all things ECM. The output around that time was simply breathtaking, and I ended up buying (and delighting in!) so many damn records I had to keep a close eye on my bank account. 😂 However, for a real treat for any lovers of Dreams So Real, do a search here for a little 26.35 min. piece of video entitled ‘Steve Swallow and Carla Bley remember recording “Dreams So Real”’. This is a WONDERFUL conversation about that record, and really worthy of your time. 👍✨
@@abbazabbadoI completely agree. In those days, I was buying ECM releases just about every week and almost every one was incredible.
Agreed. They lost their way for a while in the '80s with too much synth jazz and instrument technology, but returned to that acoustic sound in the '90s. The early releases were the best though. @@barryparris91
Just found out about this great loss after returning from a vacation. I heard Rawalpindi Blues from Escalator over the Hill on the radio (in Germany) in the early 70s
and eventually got the triple album (and later the CD version). Mind-blowing indeed. Thanks for your very thoughtful and moving tribute!
Thanks for the tribute; she was indeed great. I left a rather long, rambling post in here yesterday but somehow it disappeared...sigh, oh well. I won't try to rewrite it in full. However, along with all the other fine Carla Bley albums everyone in here is talking about, I'd like to recommend one more,. It's called "Fleur Carnivore", a live recording of her 14 piece band from 1988. It's not nearly as "out there" as Escalator Over the Hill" or "Tropic Appetites". It has five exquisitely written and arranged compositions with some great solos played by folks like Lew Soloff (trumpet) and Andy Sheppard (saxophones) who were both frequent members of her bands for many years.
RIP Ms. Bley
I knew the name Carla Bley from Melody Maker, which I used to buy for the rock album and gig reviews (I have not previously enjoyed the jazzier end). When her death was announced it prompted me, belatedly, to explore some of her music and I started with the wonderful 'Lawns'. I've now secured a vinyl copy of 'Escalator Over the Hill' (identical to yours) and I'll be honest, it is a work in progress for me, but I'm sure I'll get there, much in the way I now have with Terry Riley, Gong and Ivor Cutler - not all jazz I know, but all at the experimental end of the spectrum in the light of which I'm now bathing. Thanks for this heartfelt tribute which includes reference to some more music for me to discover.
Thanks so much, Andy. We love it when you just shoot from the hip and put the videos out there while the impulse is fresh. As far as the mainstream media, you might be gratified to know that here in the States both the New York Times and the Washington Post published lengthy, substantial obituaries for Carla, hopefully sending people scurrying to go find out more.
Thank you. Must revisit her music. Had that 3piece tango on tape. (and other tracks)
Saw her band mid eighties, rooftop North Sea Jazz festival The Hague, very memorable.
Thanks Andy, for a great tribute to a great musician. Hearing the 'Escalator' (while washing the dishes at a friend's house when I was 20 or so) changed my life and my conception of music. It still has me in tears regularly - either because of Gato Barbieri's saxophone screaming like a woman (pushing the boundaries of the feasible, very moving and shocking) or the heavenly voice of a young Linda Ronstadt - and it did again this morning in the car after hearing about Carla's passing. I saw her a few years ago in my country with Steve Swallow and Andy Sheppard and felt really blessed (sorry for gushing). 'Dinner Music' is another favourite but there's too many to mention. I've always felt that if we can get McLaughlin, Bruce, Ronstadt, Cherry, Motian and so many others together on a co-operative project, we are not yet lost, there's still hope in dark times. That's her wonderful legacy of humour and hope. 'Birds grow in the sky' indeed. Cheers!
If anyone was ever touched by glory it’s Carla for bringing us Lawns.
It makes me cry, and I don’t cry easy.
I've been dreading this obituary. 'Escalator' is the soundtrack of my early musical life. Thank you Carla.
I have Carla's Tropic Appetites 1974 record. She was leading an octet of elite instrumentalists and she had Julie Tippets (Driscoll) on lead vocal. Five of the tracks are vocal pieces that Carla composed the vocal melodies and band arrangements for interpreting Paul Hanes poems about his trip to Cambodia. Julie was a perfect choice. These are my favorite vocal pieces, ever. Julie's vocal for these Carla melodies are beautiful, just incredible.
Caucasian Bird Riffles is a heartbreaking song.
Yes, it is almost a follow up to Escalator
A great Artist WILL BE MISSED. So long, Ms. Bley.
Thank you Andy.
I Just want to add
Michael Mantler's Happles child and other inscrutable stories
The darkest prog album ever made.
Line up.
Carla Bley
Steve Swallow
Jack De Jonette
Robert Wyatt
Terje Rypdal
Listening now...I think you are right, I might do a video on this called 'The darkest prog album ever made.'
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Wow
That would be great Andy.
This album is like a horror movie, it gives me angst but I like it.
As you proberbly allready have
recognised there are some crazy vocal
sounds on some of the tracks, thats from Pink Floyds Ummagumma.
thanks for that great review
My pleasure!
My intro to Carla was when I saw her play in Reykjavik in 83 with the Charlie Haden Liberation Orchestra and they were doing the pieces from the Fantastic album "Ballad of the Fallen" - that concert was one of the most memorable I've ever been to, loved the music and it was so well orchestrated by her.
Carla was great! For some reason I have been thinking a lot about her lately, and I think she's one of the true pioneers of fusion.
I loved the JCOA/WATT label and her work with a variety of artists from both the rock, jazz and classical worlds. The Jazz Composers Orchestra record is a masterpiece.
She took the great Escalator Over The Hill. RIP .
In the 70 I used to listen to this album almost on a daily base. It was so divers and so long and always enlightening , I only needed one record per day.
RIP, Maestra
Condolences to the great Steve Swallow and to Karen Mantler.
I know you can't possibly get to "everything" in 25 minutes, but also wanted to mention, speaking of bass players, the "Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra" records, which Carla composed the majority of. Much more minor, but because this channel is this channel, Carla wrote the music on 'Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports'
Perhaps most minor of all -- or not, depending on your perspective -- since you said such great things about D. Sharpe.... the title track to her album "I Hate to Sing' features D. Sharpe, singing as someone Carla forced into singing, about how much he hates to sing.
Thanks for doing this, Andy. First I heard of it was from the great guitarist, Nels Cline, on Instagram. Nels wrote, also, my favorite paragraph about the passing of Jeff Beck, when that happened, and the only article on the passing of Tom Verlaine which did not make me cringe; and also a really lovely reminiscence of (surprisingly to me!) George Winston (!)
I'll stop now rather than type random associations about her for my own 25 minutes... so glad you did it, and said it straightforwardly -- she was a GIANT.
The recent trio albums on ECM are wonderful and the Gary Burton "Dreams So Real" with a young Pat Metheny has long been a favourite. RIP.
The trio with Steve Swallow and Andy Sheppard is very special. Great music.
Carla's Christmas Carols is a great CD for the holidays - wonderful brass arrangements and an update on her own "Jesus Maria". RIP great one!
RIP Carla ❤❤❤🙏
Carla also toured with Jack Bruce shortly after Cream disbanded. Bruce had Graham Bond, Mike Mandel and Carla Bley as keyboard players in various post-Cream bands.
I discovered her decades ago through Musique Mécanique, which is still my favorite album, what with the whole band playing a skipping record. What a genius.
I used to have Escalator and a few other Bleys years ago and loved them....what I found unique about her music was her embrace of messiness...a cross between big band and circus music. And then to see a right turn into such beautiful ballads like the wonderful lawns.
Carla Bley! Truly an iconic and “original” musician!
“Escalator Over the Hill” blew my mind when I first heard it! I hope it will do the same for anyone else!
First heard her on Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports album. So glad I did.
I can't remember who it was but a music reviewer in my university's paper, the Western Gazette, was a Carla Bley fan. I got into her music thanks to them. Sextet is still one of my favorite albums. I'll be blasting it today. Thanks Carla, RIP
Talking about the difference between objective and subjective greatest albums, her 'I Hate To Sing' is in my personal top ten jazz albums of all time. The whole band sounds like they are having so much fun, and the music is so loose and simple on the surface, but so precise and genius on a deep listen. The other one I come back to is 'Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports' which is a Carla Bley album (with a story I don't feel qualified to tell behind the name).
Carla has the most unique voice in jazz. Her Big Band Theory has left me with tears many times.
Many thanks, Andy. Well said
I have covered my own arrangement of her tune Lawns since around 2008. I was so saddened to hear this news. 😞
Terry Adams, of NRBQ fame, played on a couple of Carla's records, European tour 1977 and Musique Mechanique. This shows the range of musicians that Carla pulled from for her music.
Well said.
I can recall as a youngish man trying to play her song "Chicken 🐔" . It was a real tough egg 🥚 to crack. Also I can't help it but I keep thinking about that tune her daughter Karen wrote titled. . . "People Die". ( with lyrics such as, 🎶 "it's a fact, once ur born there's no turning back" 🎶 ). But all in all a very moving & informative tribute. ( I only wish u could've played a couple of her cuts. I know, I know. . . Copyrights. 💽
R.I.P. Carla -
I had the Pleasure to Co-Promote a Concert of her Big Band as Co-Curator 1988 at the International Jazz Festival Zürich. A Loss for us all. She had big and well deserved Success as Bandleader, Composer and Arranger. One of my „Best Musicians Ever“.
Thank you for doing this! She really does come out of that Ellington-Gil Evans-Mingus kind of thing…composing for specific musicians. And her body of work is immense.
Another phenomenal composer and arranger is Maria Schneider. She deserves all the praise that we can garner.
I am familiar with her work in the 80s starting with Social Studies, the Mantler-Swallow-Bullock-etc bands.
Great musician!
To be fair, it isn't 'control' that Carla had.. it was in the air for that generation of players around her that was 'collective and cooperative' Jazz is collective after all..
Many of them were well established players for years before they worked with her.
Paul Bley was obviously the first to play her compositions and encourage her.
For me she is the final link of a dichotomy that has only been resolved recently. Her music, the trombone parts etc.. you mentioned, were, in my opnion influnced by Europeans like Weill/Brecht who were themselves influnced by the travelling, mostly black jazzmen who toured Europe from the 1920's onwards. Carla, particularly on Escalator completes the circle where some of the pieces, especially the quirky vocal parts, would not be out of place in the Weill/Brecht songbook. Only recently, a german collecter bequeathed his enormous collection of recordings to an American institute with totally unheard-of jazz bands from that era. The BBC World Service played several last year. Some groups travelled as far as Bolshivik Russia in the late 1920's. I have no idea how or when Carla picked up these influances, but they are there to be heard.
Thanks for this piece Andy..
She really was unequalled in her position.
RIP Carla Bley. I got an idea of her music through Social Studies. By the way the Drummer D. Sharpe shook me! Who's that? Great music.
Very sad news
So many beautiful compositions...
Night Glo is a superb album
I bought _Escalator Over The Hill_ here in the UK when it came out. It got played a lot 🙂 I loved John's guitar! Annette Peacock is one of my favourite artists too, she made a couple of LPs with Paul Bley too. Check out the YT video,- Annette Peacock - Unsung Heroine.
Thanks Andy, I'd probably not have heard about Carla.
Carla was a wonderfully creative, out of the box compuser. I am a huge admirer of her unparalelled genius. On a side note, Andy, could you please recommend a TH-cam chanel devoted specifically to jazz album reviews?
Fictitious Sports has to be the most driving and rocking album that she's done and for sure one of her best. Robert Wyatt has been one of my all time top favorites since Soft Machine and I have just about everything he's done or been on and for me F.S is possibly his best.
“Hot River” is one of my favorites (especially Chris Spedding’s solo at the end)
Great stuff Andy; this is what we like.
Your knowledge in this field is phenomenal!
I'll be honest, I have given Escalator Over the Hill a listen but I'll need to give it more time. A bit of a challenge on first listen...
Wonderful and passionate tribute Andy. You raise so many interesting points too. I don't think the 'feminine' in jazz is irrelevant though (I know that's not quite what you're saying either). The great female jazz singers are the proof. I need to check out more of Carla as I've never really focused on her music. Couple of albums and that's it. I've never checked out Escalator, but now I will. Many thanks.
One should also mention Carla's collaborations with Charlie Haden - fantastic records
1969 Carla Bley & Paul Haines - Escalator Over the Hill
1969 Charlie Haden - Liberation Music Orchestra
1982 Charlie Haden - Ballad of the Fallen
1990 Charlie Haden - Dream Keeper
2005 Charlie Haden - Not in Our Name
Not only a great composer/musician she was also a hottie.
I didn’t know too much about Carla Bley. I was quite impressed by Escalator Over the Hill though. Monumental piece of work. When you mentioned an old performance you videotaped, it reminded me of a performance on PBS and it was Twyla Tharp’s, ‘The Catherine Wheel.’ I had looked for it before many years ago and failed to find it. But I just took a look again and it is available on YT.
Carla Bley is a class of her own, in my opinion she was the jazz twin of Frank Zappa.
RIP Carla. The Lord is Listenin’ to Ya, Hallelujah.
Prove it
@@rinahall : I can’t since I’m an atheist.
♥
Never understood why Carla was so ignored. Got the boxed 3 lp set when it was finally released after it had already become a legendary recording. Then got into jazz late 70s so bought anything ecm so got to Carla via Haden with Jarrett on ecm
Thanks Andy. Thanks to a good friend's dad we knew Escalator as teens when it came out. A good intro to Carla for the faint of heart would be Gary Burton's Dreams So Real album with Metheny Swallow Moses Goodrick
Carla Bley - the girl who cried champagne - RIP.
I have Dinner Music and Musique Mechanique in my library. Among others...
I think you must inform Netflix about that
🙏❤️🌎🌍🌏🌿🕊🎵🎶🎵💫✨️💫
Damn, I didn't know she died.
🥺😥😭
Thank you for this obituary. I do have one mild objection: classical writers write for specific players all the time. Overtly, by name, and write for that musician's strengths and styles. Sometimes the musicians ask for pieces from specific writers. It's not just by generic all for generic all.
But this usually for featured soloists. I'm talking about arrangement.
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I get it, but I'm not sure there's a good difference (which you can shrug and say "it is", of course). Anyway, I like the obituary, and I was very distressed at her death (the only one that will distress me as much will be by Henry Threadgill's death), so thank you.
I just read an interview with Carla Bley on the Internet, here are the passages that shocked me. I understand why I never liked his music! What an odious and childish woman!!!
-------------------------------------------------- ---------
Duke Ellington
I never liked Duke Ellington. I thought he was stealing music from Billy Strayhorn, basically. But other than that, I didn't like his style of playing or talking to people, very mannered. Later I found out that even before Billy Strayhorn started writing music for the band, there was some good music out there. I didn't know it at the time, so later I cleared him of his 'crime'. I bought a book about him, and I don't even read it, I can't really get into it. I do not care.
John Coltrane, Bird and other bebop musicians
I didn't like a lot of musicians at first. I didn't like John Coltrane. I didn't like the sound of it. I didn't like how easy it was to play. All those notes were stupid. I hated Charlie Parker and Bud Powell. Too many notes. I couldn't understand JJ Johnson. I couldn't understand how anyone could play diatonic and rhythmically exact, I just couldn't understand that kind of playing. I didn't like any of the bebop players! I remember Elvin Jones was another one of those guys. He would be playing at a club and I would have to get up and go out.
Dewey Redman
Dewey Redman, he was so funny. He was the funniest guy. And yet, when he played, it wasn't funny, so I didn't really enjoy his playing as much as his company. But I hired him because he made me laugh.
behavior on stage
We played a festival in the south of France. The crowd started throwing fruit at us, and my drummer got a tomato in the face. He went backstage and swore he would not return to the stage. I finally convinced him to come back. And he finally did it because I asked him. At the end of the concert I brought the promoter on stage - he thought I wanted to thank him - and I poured a bottle of Coke over his head. To take revenge.
Don Cherry
He was a person who was horrified by me in general. Embarrassed, probably, to be in my group. We once had a food fight. We were in a restaurant in Zurich, and the whole group threw food on each other's faces for fun. It was the big band, so it was about 20 people throwing food at each other. And Don Cherry was mortified.
Steve Slagle
Yes, he was my boyfriend for three years. We had a personal relationship, that’s why he got the gig. [Laughs]. But being my boyfriend was the only reason he was in the group.
Missing her already.
Do you have The Ballad of the Fallen? Charie Haden and Carla Bley on ecm
Carla Bley. Oh no. Rest In Peace.
Huge loss! Gonna be playing some "Fancy Chamber Music" today, Sad!!
I've got Tropic Appetites.
Carla Bley unique indeed. Blessings.
Her daughter's albums ain't half as good but they are fun and i listen to them much more frequently!
😔
Ah. I Didn't know she had passed until right now.
Eddy Anwards
🥲,
if we are all the same, why have identity
who needs permission just to be?
I love Carla Bley and her music but with figures like Wayne Shorter, Andrew Hill, Herbie Nichols, Charles Mingus etc it's a bit too much to call her the greatest composer of the last sixty years.
None of those are composers in the same sense that Bley was. Mingus was but he was at his peak before then, Herbie Nichols died sixty years ago, I would say Bley is equal to Hill and Shorter at least
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Both Hill and Shorter had their extended compositions (both have even written a opera, even if the one of Hill is unreleased and I'm not sure if Iphigenia has been released), if that's what you're saying. Than again, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Carla Bley and I think myself she is one of the great modern jazz composers.(I was listening to her again a lot actually in the last months, especially the work for others (Jimmy Giuffre, Paul Bley, Gary Burton, George Russell etc), where to me she did some of her best works (while I think Escalator may be slightly overrated onestly... I guess it's her more well known work because is super ambitious and there are all kind of things in there and a mindblowing cast of musicians) and that stuff is great. But I would definitely put guys like Shorter and Hill above even if their output was limited to normal head-improvisation-head kind of tunes.
Well said.