CARLA BLEY LAWNS CHORDS FREE
I’ve been listening to nothing but Carla for the last month, and I feel that I’m still far from having absorbed the life’s work of this major artist.Īlthough her reputation is primarily as a composer in the world of free jazz, I’ve found her oeuvre to be surprisingly diverse. She’s also recorded well over 30 albums in a wide variety of contexts–big band, smaller ensembles, and in recent years duets with Swallow and trios with him and saxophonist Andy Sheppard. And since then, from what I can gather, she’s been with bassist extraordinaire Steve Swallow, with whom she’d been collaborating musically since the late 70s. Then she was married to Austrian avant garde trumpeter Michael Mantler from 1965 to 1991, with whom she pioneered the independent free jazz scene, establishing an artist-owned big band, record label and distribution agency for progressive jazz. At 19 she married dour avant garde Montreal pianist Paul Bley for a while. It’s the gentle, warm intimacy born of years of two very individual individuals living together, creating a world bigger than the sum of their own selves.Īt 17, in 1955, Carla hitchhiked from California to New York, where she got a job as a cigarette girl in Birdland, a leading jazz venue. Not screaming and strutting or popping buttons and groaning. It’s about real humans, serious and mature and wrinkled, and real love.
It’s not a Hollywood Barbie and Ken Get It On scene. It’s a voyeuristic experience, watching this couple making musical love.
CARLA BLEY LAWNS CHORDS FULL
He is a full partner in making the music. First of all, he’s more of an instrumentalist than Carla. But when you actually listen, you see that he more than holds his own. And the fact that Carla is such a strong composer (and imposing figure) that she might seem to ‘wear the pants’ (jeez, you can probably get arrested today for using that phrase) in the relationship. It’s true that the bass traditionally and by nature provides support for a lead instrument. Her partner Steve Swallow eschewed the double bass for an electric bass in the late 1960s, a pioneering move for a progressive jazz musician. But she is first and foremost a singular composer of elusive, intriguing, beautiful songs. She’s a character, a dynamo, hilarious and wacky and imposing. I’ve watched this clip of ‘Lawns’ maybe 30 times in the last month. You can watch this clip of Carla Bley and her partner Steve Swallow playing her composition ‘Lawns’, and witness as true an expression of love as can be made through music.You can look at the picture of Carla Bley, say to yourself “Well, she just looks silly”, click Delete and spend the next seven minutes listening to a digital organ play Chinese torture music while you wait on the phone to make an appointment for the orthodontist.
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