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Karen Mantler: Business is Bad
by Hrayr Attarian
Composer/singer/multi-instrumentalist Karen Mantler's fifth release as a leader, Business is Bad, is a set of nine intimate sketches of everyday life. Delivered in Mantler's unique musical style, the pieces range from the whimsical “My Magic Pencil" to the elegiac “Surviving You" and everything in-between. Mantler does not so much sing these engaging soliloquies as she does hum them to herself. On “Catch as Catch Can," she laments the plight of the homeless and the hungry with plenty of ...
read moreKaren Mantler: Business is Bad
by John Kelman
It's been nearly two decades since Karen Mantler last released an album under her own name on the XtraWATT label belonging to her similarly coifed mother, pianist/composer Carla Bley, but she's been anything but idle. Work on Bley albums like Appearing Nightly (Watt, 2008), recordings by father Michael Mantler like Folly Seeing All This (ECM, 1993), and sessions with fellow singer/songwriter Robert Wyatt have dovetailed with the singer/pianist/harmonicist's collaborations with the Golden Palominos and Hal Wilner, as well as her ...
read moreThe Swallow Quintet: Into the Woodwork
by John Kelman
In the press sheet for Steve Swallow's Into the Woodwork, the award-winning electric bassist is quoted, saying: “Good humor before and after the red light goes on is very important. Music-making should be fun, after all." Those fortunate enough to see Swallow with Steve Kuhn and Joey Baron this past summer--including a memorable stop at the 2013 TD Ottawa Jazz Festival--experienced this ethos first-hand, as smiles and outright laughter defined a performance that was, indeed, great fun, but just as ...
read moreCarla Bley: Carla's Christmas Carols
by John Kelman
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. And it is reverential. Accompanied by longtime partner, bassist Steve Swallow, and the German Partyka ...
read moreCarla Bley: The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu
by Jim Santella
Founded in 2003, Carla Bley's quartet The Lost Chords interprets her music with emotional depth and superior musicianship. By adding guest trumpeter Paolo Fresu for this session, she has stumbled on a formula that emphasizes camaraderie and spirit-sharing. The five artists fuse well together through blues, ballads, lyrical arias and the occasional ruckus. Far from predictable, Bley's music engulfs the band as if in a cozy den with fireplace and library, where the walls are covered with tapestries that tell ...
read moreCarla Bley: The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu
by Martin Gladu
Is Carla Bley a Naive artist? The commercial exploitation of her works notwithstanding, one finds, in the simplicity and recurrence of themes; progressions and forms; and idiosyncratic style--as well as in the peculiar ponderous feel to much of her compositions, self-trained, instinctive approach to music-making and libertarian personality--many of the same features found in Naive artistry.While the unicity and originality of her music and longevity in a particularly tough milieu are to be applauded, broader audiences remain somewhat ...
read moreCarla Bley: The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu
by Budd Kopman
On The Lost Chords Meet Paolo Fresu, Carla Bley has composed music for her quartet, plus the outstanding Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu that is just about the ideal mixture of beauty and intellect. It is almost scandalous to write about a recording and give away its secrets to the unsuspecting listener who, in an ideal world, would enjoy the point of the music much more by just putting it in the player and listening. To be sure, ...
read moreCarla Bley: The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu
by John Kelman
Once Carla Bley finds musicians she likes, she sticks with them. Bassist Steve Swallow, also Bley's life partner, dates back with the pianist/composer/bandleader to Musique Mecanique (WATT, 1979). Saxophonist Andy Sheppard first appeared on Bley's classic Fleur Carnivore (WATT, 1989). She's recorded with both on the trio Songs with Legs (WATT, 1995), but it was on The Lost Chords (WATT, 2004), with relative newcomer Billy Drummond on drums, that they best gelled as a small ensemble.
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Steve Swallow with Robert Creeley: So There
by Nenad Georgievski
Steve Swallow goes for a varied approach on So There, combining string quartets, piano and bass, all of this inspired by the poetry of Robert Creeley, one of the most important American poets. This is his second release inspired by Creeley's poetry; in 1980 Swallow and Kuhn (and vocalist Sheila Jordan) released Home on ECM. So There is mostly a quiet and thoughtful affair, and the performances feature close interplay between Swallow and pianist Joachim Kuhn, with ...
read moreSteve Swallow with Robert Creeley: So There
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Steve Swallow with Robert CreeleySo ThereXtraWatt/ECM2006 Bassist Steve Swallow has been meditating on the poetry of the late Robert Creeley (1926-2005) for a long time. In 1980, Swallow and pianist Steve Kuhn released an album of song settings of Creeley's poems with vocalist Sheila Jordan (Home, ECM). After a quarter century, Swallow feels prepared to take up the collaboration again.For So There, Creeley recorded a selection of ...
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