Friday, 7 December 2018

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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2 comments:

  1. Roz7 December 2018 at 17:22

    Thanks for this! Bley's a personal fave of mine

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  2. Anonymous9 December 2018 at 00:39

    Nice seeing this being shared. I have followed Carla ever since a new-found friend (at 16; I'm 60 now), gave me vinyl copies of Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra (on which she does some arrangements and plays piano); and Ornette Coleman's Science Fiction. This was his attempt at prying me away from my obsession with Stockhausen's music lol.

    Tony ^v^

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