I had come across the sheet music for a piece called “The Lost Chord”, by Sir Arthur Bliss when I was a child. When my agent in Europe asked me what the group would be called, the answer came to me instantly: The Lost Chords. The obvious move was to add Billy Drummond, who had already played drums with 4 x 4 and the big band, to the trio. Playing duets with Steve Swallow was too hard, and Steve and I had already toured and recorded as a trio with Andy Sheppard. It was time to do something with a small group.
Compelling Carla Bley themes with great playing.Īfter “Looking for America”, an album for big band that had taken three years to write, I had to look for a new project. Sheppard paces the story superbly, expanding his solos gradually from short, staccato figures to sweeping Rollins-like long lines. He quietly whispers behind Shepard’s long, tremulous tenor tones and Swallow’s purring bass on Tropical Depression – tightly riding the cymbals on the inquisitive, slightly puzzled-sounding Red, dramatic on the more abstract, suite-like title track.
He is exclamatory and insistent on Hip Hop, its theme built out of blippy accents against the percussion, with Bley getting gospelly on it. … Billy Drummond plays superbly throughout. In fact, this album frequently recalls the later Monk quartet recordings in its elliptical approaches to melody, the interdependence of casually scattered melodic fragments and rhythm, and the interplay of the piano and playful sax. Now she sounds completely at home with it, in a cryptically witty, stripped-down, Thelonious Monk-like way. The songs Bley has chosen may have such iconic significance as to be tied to a specific time of year, but the arrangements and playing are so good that Carla's Christmas Carols transcends the season for which it's intended an album that will also bring more than a little welcome cool to the heat of the summer.When the trio was born, Bley was catapulted into the unfamiliar role of piano soloist rather than composer/arranger. Most Christmas albums are only good for a limited time each year. There's room for swing, too, but in a 5/4 fashion during Schlosser and trombonist Adrian Mears' solos on "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlement part one," where Bley rhythmically references Paul Desmond's iconic "Take Five." "part two" is initially darker, Satie-like in the simplicity of Bley's piano before Swallow enters and brings back the swing for a solo from Bley that's indicative, as ever, of implicit taste that transcends virtuosic concerns. The majority of the tunes are relatively brief (under six minutes), and the arrangements are taut, but Bley does leave room for soloing throughout, albeit well- integrated into her detailed charts. There's no mistaking the "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire" melody of "The Christmas Song" but, while avoiding any "jazzin' up Christmas" schtick, Bley makes this an unequivocally jazz album, as flugelhornist Axel Schlosser lays down some bop-inflected lines during his solo. Still, this is Carla Bley, one of the great arrangers of the past half century, and her arrangements manage to tread the fine line between veracity and expansive, personal interpretation.
While others look for obscure Christmas tunes to lend themselves identity, Bley's choices are as conventional as they come"The Christmas Song," "Ring Christmas Bells," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," and "Jingle Bells" are but four of the twelve tunes that are so familiar as to be nearly Jungian. Swallow, always a masterful improviser with eyes and ears on a song's melody, solos here with tender lyricism and a soft, cushiony tone as, gradually, the music turns Phrygian. Bley's arrangement is feather-delicate, as individual instruments move to the forefront only briefly, all supported by her spare but definitive accompaniment. "Away in a Manger" is equally touching, with a chimes melody leading to Swallow's familiar theme.
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Yet, as it nears its end, a series of cascading lines gradually coalesce to an augury, jazz-centric harmonic close. Accompanied by longtime partner, bassist Steve Swallow, and the German Partyka Brass Quintet, Bley's contrapuntal arrangement of the opening "O Tannenbaum" begins literally and beautifully if ever there was music to evoke images of sitting in a comfortable chair by the fire, on a cold, snowy winter's night, this is it. Carla's Christmas Carols? For many, the idea of their favorite jazz artist releasing an album of seasonal songs usually smells of crass commercialism or pure pandering, but leave it to pianist/composer/arranger Carla Bley to produce an album that's as reverentially in the spirit of the season as it gets, while being musically deep enough to fit within her substantial discography with complete relevance.Īnd it is reverential.
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