Gary Burton Quartet With Orchestra - A Genuine Tong Funeral (composed by Carla Bley) (1968)

Some classic Carla Bley this Friday and next, starting with "A dark opera without words... based on emotions towards death - from the most irreverent to those of deepest loss", as she described it.  Written between 1964 and 1967, Bley expanded the work with sections specifically for vibraphone quartet when Gary Burton expressed an interest in it.  Thus the final version came together as this enjoyably strange record, with members of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra supporting Burton's quartet.

With 15 tracks, several under a minute long, A Genuine Tong Funeral is a great insight into Bley's versatility as a composer as far back as the mid-60s.  The dirge-like themes that might be expected for such a weighty concept are just as likely to be sitting alongside jaunty, upbeat passages, or the occasional full-on blast of free jazz skronk towards the end.  Burton proves to be the ideal musician to front the project, giving its spindly complexity an accessible cool.  ECM's Dreams So Real from the following decade might be the deserved classic of 'Burton Plays Bley', but this ambitious little oddity is just as worthy of recommendation in its own right.

 

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Gary Burton plays Carla Bley at SGTG:

Dreams So Real

Gary Burton at SGTG:

Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett

Fluid Rustle (Eberhard Weber)

Lyric Suite For Sextet (with Chick Corea) 

Carla Bley at SGTG:

The Jazz Composer's Orchestra

Fleur Carnivore

Appearing Nightly

Trios 

The Jazz Composer's Orchestra - s/t (1968)

A fearsome, brutal armoured tank of an album (a double album, even) from the pen of Michael Mantler, and performed by a cast of dozens of musicians topped by the cream of late 60s free jazz as listed on the cover.  This 73-minute beast contains six tracks of tightly-controlled chaos, climaxing in a 33-minute 'concerto' fronted by legendary percussive pianist Cecil Taylor.  So if last Friday's jazz entry was a melodic, accessible session, this one, well, not so much.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be approached with the same enthusiasm, as the rewards are rich.  Jazz Composer's Orchestra kicks off with 14 minutes of Communications 8, in which ominous drones and no less than five double-bass players form the backdrop for solos by Don Cherry and Gato Barbieri.  Communications 9 then plays in with dissonant strings to set the stage for Larry Coryell's guitar blowout - whether he'd been listening to the then-new Velvet Underground album, particularly Lou Reed's performance on I Heard Her Call My Name, is an open question; Coryell certainly gives any avant-rock pioneer a run for their money here.

On the next lengthy stretch, things calm down a bit, particularly in Steve Swallow's lengthy bass intro.  Communications 10 reminds me of Mingus a bit in its writing; the soloist this time is trombonist Roswell Rudd.  It's almost time for the main event, but first a brief prelude, or Preview.  And who better to give the final-act overture than Pharoah Sanders at his most unhinged?  He's certainly a memorable palate-cleanser, as Carla Bley vacates the piano stool to let Cecil Taylor play out the two-part finale.  Mantler fires up the orchestra to full blast, and Taylor lets rip in his unique style - kinda want to write more, but this one just has to heard to be believed.  A massive (in every sense of the word) double-album that will simply blow your head off every time you give it the chance.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Michael Mantler & Don Preston - Alien
Carla Bley - Fleur Carnivore
Carla Bley - Appearing Nightly