With fastidious attention to Bley's diverse compositions over the last fifty years spanning critical moments in jazz and experimental music history, Amy C. Mid-tempo funk, like the one on the title track, imagines the influence of fusion not entirely dapping itself into the weird overly technical era of the ‘80s but using that freedom to tone it back, keep it mellow. Through every track we hear Carla lace all sorts of burning synthetic atmosphere that just screams: “take this to the satin sheets”.About the BookThis is the first comprehensive treatment of the remarkable music and influence of Carla Bley, a highly innovative American jazz composer, pianist, organist, band leader, and activist. Quiet storm jams like Steve Swallow’s silky bassline-dominated “Pretend You’re In Love” all strike at gorgeous urban music far from the icy lands of Europe. Night-glo would treat us to musicians like Hiram Bullock, Paul McCandless, John Clark and a few others not known at all for such suave work (although Hiram would grow into that nicely) to do exactly that: let loose, go slow, and get sexy. In the summer of 1985, Carla and Steve became more than just musical partners but romantic ones. Here though, they’d go even softer, really squeeze all that joy and slow-build out of “love”. Here we’d get to hear Carla thoroughly examine this opposite side of herself using the same crew and ideas hinted at then. Just a year before she had signaled on 1983’s Heavy Heart that her excursion into soulful latin jazz wasn’t some left field thing. Much like Maki Asakawa’s Nothing At All To Lose or Ulla’s nocturnal joint, the five songs Carla wrote for Night-glo are just permeating with love, seduction, and sex. “Pretend You’re In Love” by Carla Bley (with Steve Swallow) from Night-glo Whether it was her work with the pioneering Jazz Composers Guild, Don Cherry, Paul Bley, Gary Burton, Nick Mason and countless, many others (I could go on forever doing this) there was always something genuinely inviting about her take on whatever jazz music she was turning inside out. Numerous, infinitely numerous, is her trailblazing work as a composer, pianist, and songwriter. Blazing the world of modern and experimental music with her iconic visage and chops.
Carla bley free#
You see, I feel that Carla might have been on the same wavelength when she created Night-glo with her longtime music and romantic partner Steve Swallow.Ī true giant of the free jazz movement, one wonders how American jazz music would have evolved if one Lovella May Borg hadn’t travelled from Oakland to NYC.
With this in mind, Carla Bley’s Night-glo seems like the most appropriate album to kick off this temporary phase of FOND/SOUND. Maybe in the future such stories will be shorter or the music a bit more scattershot, but for this moment in time, you’re getting exactly more of what I have no bones in enjoying. Yet, I still feel the need to share things with you. After a long moment in time, I’ve finally found a degree of it to do other things that vie just as much for my attention. Lately, it’s been getting harder to carve out time to write for this blog.
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