Jazz Articles about Carla Bley

About Carla Bley

Radio & Podcasts

Famous Jazz Mothers And Their Young

by Mary Foster Conklin
June 22, 2019

The Mothers Day broadcast included new releases from Molly Hammer, Mary Stallings, Vivian Sessoms and Lisa Maxwell, with birthday shout outs to Carla Bley in the first hour, Mary Lou Williams in the second hour, plus vocalists Judi Silvano, John Proulx, Barb Jungr and trumpeter Nadje Noordhuis, among others, plus cuts from some famous jazz mothers and their musical offspring. Playlist Champian Fulton “Blues Etude" from The Stylings of Champian (Champian Records) 00:00 Molly Hammer “New Blowtop Blues" ...

Live Review

Carla Bley's Trio at the Jazz Standard

by Akinfe Fatou
April 21, 2019

Carla Bley's Trio Jazz Standard New York, NY March 19, 2019 Carla Bley is extraordinary, savvy, and enigmatic. The Guggenheim Fellow (1972), German Jazz Trophy winner ("A Life of Jazz"—2009), 5-time GRAMMY-nominee and NEA Jazz Master (2015) was joined by her spouse Steve Swallow on electric bass and Andy Sheppard on saxophone at the Jazz Standard for an evening of transfigurations, reinvigorated ensembles, and recherche improvisations underscored by fascinating idiosyncracies. A renowned bandleader, ...

Live Review

Carla Bley Trio at Dazzle

by Geoff Anderson
April 3, 2019

Carla Bley Trio Dazzle Denver, CO March 24, 2019 At age 82, Carla Bley has been around. But not everywhere. Remarkably, her two nights at Dazzle last weekend marked her first appearances in Colorado as a performer. Still, the depth and scope of her past music-making is unmatched by most musicians on the scene today. She thinks of herself primarily as a composer and in that role has written for big band, ...

Live Review

Carla Bley Trio at Dazzle Jazz

by Tyran Grillo
March 30, 2019

Carla Bley Trio Dazzle Jazz Denver, CO March 24, 2019Pianist Carla Bley drew an equilateral triangle with electric bassist Steve Swallow and saxophonist Andy Sheppard at Dazzle Jazz in Denver. The trio showed the true meaning of democracy, unafraid to temper every glint of brightness with a hint of shadow. As within a handcrafted watch, each gear and spring worked in concert: remove one part and the whole mechanism would cease to keep time. Yet ...

Live Review

Carla Bley Trio all'Auditorium Arvedi di Cremona

by Vincenzo Roggero
June 6, 2017

Carla Bley Trio Cremona Jazz 2017 Auditorium Giovanni Arvedi 27.05.2017 Conclusione di gran classe per la terza edizione di Cremona Jazz. Avvolta dalle sinuose forme lignee dell'Auditorium e supportata dalla strepitosa acustica, Carla Bley e il suo trio hanno dato vita ad un'esibizione di grande intensità emotiva, nella quale il carisma della leader ha giocato un ruolo sicuramente importante alla pari delle sue meravigliose composizioni e all'empatia esibita con i partner di lunga data. Le ...

Live Review

Like A Jazz Machine 2017

by Ian Patterson
June 4, 2017

Like A Jazz Machine Centre Culturel Regionel Opderschmelz Dudelange, Luxembourg May 25-28, 2017 Size, as Like A Jazz Machine knows, isn't everything. The audience in the Centre Culturel Regionel Opderschmelz amounts to just four seated rows downstairs, with a small standing section to the rear, and ten rows of seats upstairs. Yet this intimate setting is the arena for an international jazz program that would be the envy of much bigger towns ...

Album Review

Charlie Haden / Liberation Music Orchestra: Time/Life:Songs For The Whales And Other Beings

Read "Time/Life:Songs For The Whales And Other Beings" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
May 17, 2017

Formed by bassist Charlie Haden in 1969 to protest America's war in Vietnam/Indochina, the Liberation Music Orchestra has reconvened roughly every ten years to record musical protest in the face of major injustices. Time/Life: Song for the Whales and Other Beings was inspired by concern at global ecological destruction, and to that end the music has a pervasive melancholy colored by the LMO's signature lyricism, and broken up by stirring collective and individual passages. The LMO's personnel has ...