Gavin Walker
Aug 20, 2008, 09:49 PM
Carla Bley(born Carla Borg) was born in Oakland, California on May 11, 1938. Her history in the music is well documented and complex as well. She is a fine pianist, organist and synthesizer player but is better known as a composer and bandleader. Her father was a pianist and gave young Carla lessons as soon as she could walk. Other than that she has had no formal training. She became interested in Jazz and moved to New York when she was 17. She was familiar with the music of Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, people who she said, "had only a few notes but chose them well". While working as a waitress in a Jazz club she met her first husband, Canadian pianist Paul Bley. They headed West to Los Angeles where Bley formed a fine quartet with Dave Pike(vibes), Charlie Haden(bass) and drummer Lenny McBrowne. Later Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry took Pike's place and Billy Higgins took over on drums. Carla was there and absorbed all of this incredible music. As an aside, there is a great picture of young Carla with Dave Pike and Paul Bley alongside actor/singer Don Francks, altoist Dave Quarin, who booked the original Cellar as well as bassist/manager Ken Hole........taken outside the rear door of the club in 1957/58. Check out LINKS on the home page of www. vancouverjazz.com on the right hand side and click onto 'The History of The Original Jazz Cellar' and scroll down "The Story" link to see this picture. Carla began composing and wrote some fine pieces for George Russell's fine short-lived group which we'll hear during the show as a mini-Feature. This marked a real beginning for her wonderful talents and her quirky and original music. Clarinettist Jimmy Giuffre and trumpeter Art Farmer also featured her compositions.
Carla Bley evolved as a composer, instrumentalist, band leader and all-around musical iconoclast through a second marriage to trumpeter/bandleader Michael Mantler where she further developed her skills and began to record under her own name on their "Watt" label. Her first major long work was "A Genuine Tong Funeral" with the Gary Burton Quartet augmented by Jimmy Knepper, Gato Barbieri, Steve Lacy and others, recorded for RCA. She said "that's when my life really started, I stopped being part of the stream I was in and struck out as a protest to that stream." From there she composed "Escalator Over The Hill" with Mantler and arranged all of the music on Charlie Haden's "Liberation Music Orchestra" and composed some of it as well. There is much more but after a split with Mantler, Carla and electric bass genius, Steve Swallow have emerged as a very musical couple not only performing with Carla's band but working as a duo as well.
The Feature album comes from the early 1980's and is called 'Social Studies" and is one of her most interesting as she does some simply amazing things with a nonet. The group includes her husband at the time, Mike Mantler on trumpet plus the great Steve Swallow on electric bass and some fine, intense alto and soprano work by Carlos Ward. She uses tuba, euphonium, and her main man, Gary Valente on trombone plus Tony Dagradi on tenor. Carla plays piano and organ and as usual her compositions involve Jazz disciplines and also draw from European cabaret music and other sources including Duke Ellington and Mingus.......they are evocative, sad, funny as hell and sardonic and they swing when required. Carla is truly her own voice and "Social Studies" will be the Feature a bit after 11pm.
We'll have a mini-Feature at 10 or shortly after of some early Bley compositions with Russell and Giuffre as an added perspective. Join me for the full show starting at 9pm.........hope to see you then.
Carla Bley evolved as a composer, instrumentalist, band leader and all-around musical iconoclast through a second marriage to trumpeter/bandleader Michael Mantler where she further developed her skills and began to record under her own name on their "Watt" label. Her first major long work was "A Genuine Tong Funeral" with the Gary Burton Quartet augmented by Jimmy Knepper, Gato Barbieri, Steve Lacy and others, recorded for RCA. She said "that's when my life really started, I stopped being part of the stream I was in and struck out as a protest to that stream." From there she composed "Escalator Over The Hill" with Mantler and arranged all of the music on Charlie Haden's "Liberation Music Orchestra" and composed some of it as well. There is much more but after a split with Mantler, Carla and electric bass genius, Steve Swallow have emerged as a very musical couple not only performing with Carla's band but working as a duo as well.
The Feature album comes from the early 1980's and is called 'Social Studies" and is one of her most interesting as she does some simply amazing things with a nonet. The group includes her husband at the time, Mike Mantler on trumpet plus the great Steve Swallow on electric bass and some fine, intense alto and soprano work by Carlos Ward. She uses tuba, euphonium, and her main man, Gary Valente on trombone plus Tony Dagradi on tenor. Carla plays piano and organ and as usual her compositions involve Jazz disciplines and also draw from European cabaret music and other sources including Duke Ellington and Mingus.......they are evocative, sad, funny as hell and sardonic and they swing when required. Carla is truly her own voice and "Social Studies" will be the Feature a bit after 11pm.
We'll have a mini-Feature at 10 or shortly after of some early Bley compositions with Russell and Giuffre as an added perspective. Join me for the full show starting at 9pm.........hope to see you then.