Results for "carla bley"

Article: Out and About: The Super Fans

Meet Tom Kohn

by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
March 2, 2020

Like many of our Jazz Super Fans, Tom Kohn's passion for music started when he was a teen, with a job in a record store and a penchant for acquiring albums that would impress even the most dedicated adult collectors. He grew up into a music business day job but, after suffering a life-changing event, he ...

Article: Radio & Podcasts

I Sing Just to Know I'm Alive - Happy Birthday to Nina Simone

by Mary Foster Conklin
March 2, 2020

This week we focus on new releases from pianist Jen Allen, vocalists Rosemary Loar, Simone Kopmajer, Casey Abrams and Ian Shaw, plus birthday shout outs to Nina Simone in the first hour (who also has a new single out), flutists Nicole Mitchell and Mayu Saeki, vocalists Nancy Wilson, Anne Phillips, Kellye Gray and Shirley Crabbe, violinist ...

Article: Radio & Podcasts

New albums from Carla Bley, Lisa Hilton, Mark Godfrey, Nutria and Oded Tzur.

by Bob Osborne
February 27, 2020

There is a striking album of new music from pianist/composer Carla Bley, whose trio with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow is now in its 25th year. Individual associations among the players go back much further: bassist Swallow first recorded music by Carla in 1961. Bley's distinctive piano, with its hints of Monk and Satie, is beautifully ...

Article: Radio & Podcasts

I Gotta Swing - Celebrating Blanche Calloway and Her Joy Boys

by Mary Foster Conklin
February 24, 2020

This week's broadcast includes new releases from Danish sax/flute/clarinetist Sarah Elgeti, flutist Elsa Nilsson, vocalists Lizzie Thomas and Chanda Rule, pianists Lynne Arriale and Carla Bley plus the Kenny Barron / Dave Holland Trio with birthday shout outs to Blanche Calloway (sister of Cab Calloway, pictured), Dena DeRose, Sharel Cassity, Marsha Heydt, Kenny Rankin and Melissa ...

Article: Radio & Podcasts

Leïla Olivesi, Charles Lloyd, Paul Bryan, Kirk Knuffke and Other New Releases

by Ludovico Granvassu
February 19, 2020

Here is the second part of this week's exploration of new releases [for the first part click here] by Kirk Knuffke and Paul Bryan as well as upcoming Blue Note albums by Charles Lloyd, and South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini. To top off Mondo Jazz's 100th episode, a celebration of Federico Fellini's centennial through his soundtrack ...

Article: Album Review

Carla Bley: Life Goes On

by Mike Jurkovic
February 12, 2020

After decades of illuminating and revealing work, reveling in and breaking free of shadows, it is those same shadows that still inspire and inform Carla Bley. Which perhaps explains why the title track of Life Goes On rolls in on the 12-bar like a music obsessed, post-bop cigarette girl absorbing Count Basie at Birdland in the ...

Article: Album Review

Carla Bley / Andy Sheppard / Steve Swallow: Life Goes On

by Karl Ackermann
February 7, 2020

Coming off a recent illness, the legendary composer-pianist Carla Bley has her sense of humor and political instincts intact on Life Goes On. The trio album with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bassist Steve Swallow completes a trilogy which began with Trios in 2013 but the three have been recording together since 1994 with their first album ...

Video

Life Goes On

Featuring the music of Carla Bley
Duration: 6:00
February 7, 2020

A striking album of new music from pianist/composer Carla Bley, whose trio with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow is now in its 25th year. Individual associations among the players go back much further: bassist Swallow first recorded music by Carla in 1961. So when Bley says “Life Goes On”, a lot of life is alluded to. The album, realized in the Auditorio Stelio Molo Studio in Lugano in May 2019, with Manfred Eicher producing, takes the form of three suites. The title piece begins as a stoical blues, at first melancholic then hopeful. “Beautiful Telephones”, inspired by a US president’s first observation on entering the Oval Office, has plenty of Bley’s dark wit. And “Copycat” explores the notion of call-and-response in fresh ways as the improvisers continue each other’s thoughts. Throughout, Carla’s distinctive piano, with its hints of Monk and Satie, is beautifully framed by Swallow’s eloquent, elegant bass guitar and Sheppard’s yearning saxes. This trio has a unique collective sound, reflecting – as The Telegraph recently noted – “musical mastery of a rare order”.   

Musician

Carla Bley

Born: May 11, 1938

Carla Bley was born in Oakland, California in 1936. Her father Emil Borg, a piano teacher and church organist, began giving her music lessons when she was three years old and she was soon playing at church functions. But her musical education ended at the age of eight. Her formal education stopped entirely when she dropped out of high school after completing the tenth grade.

During her adolescence Carla was drawn to jazz and moved to New York City to be closer to the musicians she admired. She resumed her musical education by working as a cigarette girl at the notorious Birdland jazz club, where she was able to hear the greatest jazz musicians of the day. She met pianist Paul Bley and eventually relocated to Los Angeles, where Paul and his quartet had a steady gig at the Hillcrest Club. She began to write music. When saxophonist Ornette Coleman came on the scene in the mid-fifties, Paul Bley immediately hired him and Carla was exposed nightly to ‘free’ playing, a powerful influence that was to affect her writing for many years.

Article: Album Review

Carla Bley: Life Goes On

by Dan McClenaghan
February 4, 2020

Pianist / composer Carla Bley is an inspiring woman. Pianist Paul Bley was inspired to marry her, and record a full album of her compositions: Barrage (ESP-Disk, 1965), in addition to including four of her originals on Open, To Love (ECM Records, 1973). George Russell included her “Bent Eagle" on his Stratusfunk (Riverside Records, 1960). Jimmy ...