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Our Review

American jazz icon Carla Bley is an amazing pianist, composer, and band leader--perhaps best known for her avant garde "Free Jazz" work in the 1960s (this was the beginning of my own fascination with jazz). Bley's desire to make holiday music has apparently burned for 40 years, and that anticipation explodes with profound professionalism on Carla's Christmas Carols, which I give my highest recommendation. Many successful musicians mechanically produce a "token" holiday release, not taking the project very seriously. That is not the case with excellent Carla Bley, who throws her heart and soul into this superb project. She also had the good sense to include some uber-talented pals, including Steve Swallow (bass) and the Partyka Brass Quintet (brass really brightens up holiday instrumentals). So sit back, relax, and fall into the world of wonderful jazz.

The album opens well with a traditional introduction to O Tannenbaum; the music slowly morphs into cool, jazz-driven glissandos. Her mysterious Away in a Manger is alone worth the price of admission; at nearly six minutes, it is one of the longest tracks, and its shifting moods are absolutely fascinating. Bley includes two of her own originals here--Hell's Bells and Jesus Maria. The former is a bell-ringing delight, a shout-out to the holiday season that is rich with cheer. Truly excellent. The latter Bley creation is a darker, more contemplative, free-flowing piece of improvisation; the tuba provides a throaty, supportive foundation.

Carla's Christmas Carols is an outstanding choice for jazz fanatics, but the offering reaches out to broader audiences, too. Bley admires holiday music. The music speaks to her, and her intensely-creative arrangements acknowledge and magnify the essence of each Christmas carol/song. Carla Bley's variations exude intelligence, playful whimsy, and thoughtful reverence--everything that great holiday music should be. What an album!

--Carol Swanson
(Reviewed in 2009)

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From the liner notes:

Carla Bley: piano, celeste
Steve Swallow: bass, chimes
Partyka Brass Quintet
Tobias Weidinger: trumpet, flugelhorn (lead), glockenspiel
Axel Schlosser: trumpet, flugelhorn (soloist), chimes
Christine Chapman: horn
Adrian Mears: trombone
Ed Partyka: bass trombone, tuba

All songs arranged by Carla Bley

From the Promotional Materials:

The following year I remained interested in writing Christmas Carol arrangements for brass quintet, and when it was time to decide about tours for 2008 an idea sprung to mind. Steve [Swallow] and I hadn't played duets for many years. We had toured and recorded as a duo, then with a trio, then a quartet, then a quintet. The more people there were on the stage with me, the more comfortable I felt, so every time we thought about reviving the duets I would ask Steve if we could please include some type of distraction - a troupe of jugglers, a gospel choir or even a movie projected onto the stage while we played, so I wouldn't feel so self-conscious. This might be the perfect solution: Carla Bley and Steve Swallow plus Brass Quintet playing Christmas Carols!

We told Ed Partyka our idea and asked him to try to get the same brass players we had used in Essen and to keep the first week of December open. Then we asked Karin Kriesl, our agent at Saudades, to book us a Christmas tour directly following the final concert of my residency at the Essen Philharmonie. She wasn't sure she could pull together a tour at that time of year, but eventually got enough concerts to make it worth doing. I started re-writing the pieces that had included alto and drums, and also discovered a few more Christmas songs I wanted to arrange for my new band.

It turned out to be a wonderful little tour. We played in Italy, Greece, Germany, Poland and France - five countries in five days. The brass players (the same musicians we had played with a year earlier except for a new Horn player) were fun to travel with and they all played great. After the last concert we went to a little town in the south of France and recorded at La Buissonne, our favorite studio. Sometimes everything works out just right.

Carla Bley

Carla's Christmas Carols

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Track List