Jump to content

Carla Bley in the New Yorker


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 82
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

On ‎5‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 8:18 PM, ep1str0phy said:

Actually, this band did happen and is on a few of Jack's official releases. There's even video:

Again, I have a strong appreciation for much of Bley's music but Bruce's is some of my favorite vocal rock music of any era--and having listened to a lot of what Bley has done and (I think) most of what Bruce recorded, I'd say that this band was kind of middling for both folks. I don't think that Bley's talents as an instrumentalist really benefit in a context in which she isn't the focus (and in which the arrangement is more or less tailored to spotlight her manner of off-kilter composer's piano, ala "War Orphans" or her feature on Relativity Suite), as was the case in this project. Bruce's voice was in the midst of a transition and it's pretty rough going for most of this band's appearances, and the other big star in the ensemble (Taylor) was relegated to a perplexing middle-ground between warmed-over Claptonisms and pseudo-Robben Ford stuff. 

Tangent time: I have no idea what the party line on proper jazz-rock is anymore (vs. the more overt avant-gardeisms of the Canterbury bands or the more aggressively experimental stuff emanating from the likes of John Stevens, Trevor Watts, or even--to stretch the genre to its limits--some of the South African improvisers of that vintage), and Jack's appearances within this axis always struck me as kind of peripheral to the action (occupied as he often was with more commercial fare). But I'd commit to the notion that the studio versions of much of the repertoire from the Bley-Taylor band--the things from Harmony Row especially--are abso-fucking-lutely brilliant. As more "rock with a jazz inflection" rather than "jazz with a rock inflection," the music sounds at once experimental, fluid, and fully-realized. 

Example (featuring Chris Spedding and John Marshall of Nucleus):

 

 

There is a 2 CD album of the Jack Bruce/Mick Taylor/Carla Bley band in live performance.

https://www.amazon.com/Live-Manchester-Free-Trade-Hall/dp/B00008LKHR

 

61FhU5dn3GL.jpg

Edited by Hot Ptah
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...