"Escalator Over The Hill" by The New School Studio Orchestra and Vocal Ensemble

The New School Studio Orchestra and Vocal Ensemble
The Tishman Auditorium at The New School
"Escalator Over The Hill"
New York, NY
May 2, 2025

Ask greying jazz-rock fans about long-lost projects they never saw live and Escalator Over The Hill by Carla Bley is likely to come up. Released as a triple album in 1971, Bley's wonky operatic creation —"A chronotransduction," in her lingo—has barely been performed, save for a 1998 tour of Europe.

Despite being written by an American and recorded in New York, the piece had never been presented at all in the United States—until this month. Bley's magnum opus made its North American debut last Friday at The New School in New York.

Performed by an ensemble of 35 musicians and singers—all of whom, save for a few faculty members, were students born decades after the release of "Escalator"—the concert was a scrupulously careful reincarnation of a cornerstone composition from the era when jazz, rock and opera were first fused.

Not that the Bley masterwork shares a lot artistically—other than innovation and fearlessness—with the breakthrough musical fusions that preceded it by a year or two. "Escalator" lacks the story structures, however opaque, of the first rock operas, Tommy by The Who and "SF Sorrow." by The Pretty Things.' (The piece's lyrics are by poet Paul Haines, and Bley wrote of them: "The possible meaning of the words didn't matter to me. I just thought they were strange and wonderful.") And the piece is less loud and cacophonous than the '60s and '70s jazz-rock projects of Miles Davis.

True, "Escalator" incorporates rock instrumentation, including a few passages dominated by electric guitar, which was played on the record by John McLaughlin—a jazz-rock trailblazer in his own right, having played on those groundbreaking Davis fusion albums. But Bley's piece, at least in its New School performance, was primarily a composition for brass and voices.

Bley's writing and arranging for brass exudes unique voicings and rich textures. Quite distinct from the sound of American big band jazz—especially in that time—Bley's influence as a composer and arranger is heard mostly in European big bands that followed the release of "Escalator," like Amsterdam's brilliant, like-minded Willem Breuker Kollektief, formed in 1974,

The eclectic musicality of "Escalator" —including its penchant for three-four time with a circusy, oom-pah-pah feel—is joined to a sly sense of humor and off-beat theatricality. The Mannes ensemble nailed Bley's off-beat brass sound; that's an especially impressive feat for musicians presumably schooled more in the mainstream American artistry of Duke Ellington than the "out" big band sounds of Bley and Sun Ra.

The note-perfect ensemble work was interspersed with fine solos. Most visible was Alan Acosta, a Mannes senior whose fine soprano sax and flute excursions marked a young player to watch.

As challenging as Bley's dense arrangements are, the piece's idiosyncratic vocal passages, many too short and singular to be dubbed as "songs," are at least as perilous to tackle. Here again, both the ensemble work, from 11 voices with an on-stage ensemble conductor, and the solo singing were everything long-time "Escalator" riders could have hoped for.

The original recording featured, in the lead roles of Jack and Ginger, two of the best and most distinctive popular-music singers of the era: Jack Bruce, who had recently launched a post-Cream solo career, and a nascent Linda Ronstadt, then more of a cult country-rock artist than a pop star.

Smartly, both New School performers chose to largely emulate the recorded performances, while adding some of themselves to the mix. Andrew Sweeney (a.k.a. Jack) wonderfully replicated Bruce's (forgive the pun) creamy tenor and trademark slow vibrato. Laura Iniesta Mingot was astonishing at channeling Ronstadt's gorgeous, twanging bray. (The two even adorably—and deliberately, Sweeney confirmed afterwards —donned period-appropriate garb, Sweeney wearing a '70ish loose shirt and vest and Mingot a hippyish dress with matching headband.)

Presenting a cherished '70s cult album in its U.S. performance debut was a highwire act of artistic bravery, yet the New School ensemble triumphed over the odds. The conducting aside—by Keller Coker instrumentally, and Aubrey Johnson vocally—the faculty contributions to the performance were minimal: Steve Cardenas played bursts of fiery lead guitar; Dirk Freymuth, with period appropriateness, twanged an electric sitar; Matt Wilson tapped tambourines and cymbals; and Arturo O'Farrill played piano for a part of the proceedings.

This was very much a student performance, then, even if its stellar standard forced you to frequently—and delightedly—remind yourself of that improbable fact.

True to Bley's spirit, there was even a dash of theater to the evening. The ensemble entered and exited one-by-one, each hanging up or putting on their coats from stands as they did so. The only downside to the gesture was that it precluded their return as a group for what would surely have been a long and well-deserved ovation.

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