Around 1980,
Carla Bley
seemed to find herself torn between several possible avenues of expression. On the one hand, you had her wild (and wildly successful) projects like
Escalator Over the Hill
and
Tropic Appetites
, where styles and musicians were combined with inspired abandon. Then there was the romantic
classical
aspect as shown in her composition
"3/4"
and, with
jazz
influences, her fine, ambitious
Social Studies
release. But, always lurking beneath the surface was her itching desire to have essentially a
jazz-rock
band, drawing heavily from
funk
and demonstrating a loose and bawdy humor. Unfortunately, this last impulse was responsible for some of her weaker efforts though, in fairness, it brought her a level of popularity hitherto unreached.
Live!
demonstrates the pitfalls of this approach. Though the ten-piece ensemble features some very capable musicians (including altoist
Steve Slagle
, French horn virtuoso
Vincent Chauncey
, and electric bassist extraordinaire
Steve Swallow
), the compositions tend to plod toward their goal and the soloing doesn't rise very far above what one might expect from a
David Sanborn
session (how one yearns for a youthful
Gato Barbieri
, a
Perry Robinson
, or a
Don Cherry
to inject some life!).
Bley
's themes here, once so ravishingly, bitterly gorgeous, are relatively dull or awkward in turn; when she tries her hand at
gospel
, as on the embarrassingly titled
"The Lord is Listenin' to Ya, Hallelujah!,"
the results are cringe-inducing.
Swallow
has a nice introduction to
"Still in the Room"
Earl McIntyre
on tuba and trombonist
Gary Valente
do their best to get things rolling, but the lackluster compositions and leaden drumming (by
D. Sharpe
) never allow the project to take off. Listeners looking for prime
would do better to search out her earlier, far more adventurous and creative work. ~ Brian Olewnick