![]() ![]() Now sure, Carly Bley is capable of arch irony, playful and deadly at the same time, and I get that hipsters have killed irony for the masses, but it wasn't always so. Carla Bley brings Carla Bley to the table, nobody else. How can you get more real than that? The interviews over the decades are just as much like that as are the records. I've never heard a Carla Bley record where it sounds like she's not aware of what choices she's making, the reasons seh'd making them, and what it means that she's making them. Real? In what sense? I really don't get that. I always feel like Threadgill is being real with the audience and the performance Bley, much less so. And maybe I was wrong to imply that Bley's approach is somehow less personal, but I do maintain that there's an overriding dispassion and distance in so much of Bley's work that the remove begins to feel like a decision rather than an accident. I think it's up for debate whether these issues are merely a matter of choosing the "right" sidemen or something intrinsic to the music itself. When working with more recalcitrant players-like a Motian or Andrew Cyrille-the edges start showing, but it's almost in spite of the charts rather than because of them. The solos are relentlessly professional, the harmonies perfectly balanced and articulated, the timekeeping precise and unobtrusive. But-and this is important, at least to me-there's a kind of stiltedness when Bley mixes into the 6/8 thing that is just impossible to ignore. And the Threadgill example is and isn't paradigmatic Threadgill, since it's less inflected than a lot of the Sextett stuff. It was a beauty of a piece topping off one hour of precious music.In all fairness, there's a lot of harmonic meat in the second example that might be considered archetypal Bley (that nebulous-sounding descending octave line in the horns, for one). ![]() ![]() With the luxuriant ballad “ Lawns” directing its touching melody straight to our hearts, the concert couldn’t have come to a better close. Sheppard and Bley were particularly inspired in their respective statements. No mistakes were perceptible.Īlthough the enchanting Eastern flavors of “ Vashkar”, one of Bley’s oldest tunes, got everyone in high spirits, it was the immediately recognizable melody and swinging steps of “ Ups and Downs” that knocked out the crowd. She found quite interesting that Donald Trump had first noticed the beautiful telephones when he first entered the oval office, rounding off the explanation with: ‘ this is a new piece, and if we make mistakes it’s because of him!’. The other new composition, “ Beautiful Telephones” featured the emotionally charged pianism of Bley, who elucidated the audience about the title. At this time, Sheppard had switched the tenor for the soprano sax. The last part, “ And Then One Day”, brings the sensuality of the tango into the room and the trio glides in a breezy 4/4 cruise mode. The middle parts, “ On” and “ And On”, are perfectly identifiable with Bley’s compositional style, oscillating between the sparse and the fluid while following an evolving nature that involves a nice touch of humor and sensitivity. Swallow plays the melody on a higher register, alternating a few bars with Sheppard, who occasionally establishes unisons with the bassist. The first part of the tune shares the same title as the full-length composition, leaning on a 12-bar blues set in motion on the lower octaves of Bley’s keyboard. Moreover, they presented a couple of brand new pieces, and it was exactly with one of them, the long, four-part “ Life Goes On”, that they started off the second set of the night. This was a rare opportunity to see Bley playing live some of her catchier tunes, whose sophistication and authenticity remain untouchable. ![]() The comforting, cultivated atmosphere of Jazz Standard was elevated on Wednesday night by the presence of the sensational trio of pianist Carla Bley, her husband, bassist Steve Swallow, and English saxophonist and longtime associate Andy Sheppard. ![]()
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