01	Blues in 12 Bars			then Blues in 12 Other Bars			14:32
	02	Sidewinders in Paradise						08:36
	03	Les Trois Lagons			(d'apres Henri Matisse) plate XVII plate XVIII plate XIX			15:37
	04	Baseball						07:48
	05	Utviklingssang						09:18

Lew Soloff - trumpet
Wolfgang Puschnig - alto sax
Andy Sheppard - tenor sax
Gary Valente - trombone
Carla Bley - piano
Larry Goldings - organ
Steve Swallow - bass
Victor Lewis - drums

Date of Release Oct 3, 2000

AMG EXPERT REVIEW: The latest in Carla Bley's ever-changing array of ensemble configurations, the 4 x 4 group features Bley on piano, Larry Goldings on organ, Steve Swallow on bass, and Victor Lewis on drums. Add to this core unit a four-horn section: Lew Soloff on trumpet, Wolfgang Puschnig on alto, Andy Sheppard on tenor, and Gary Valente on trombone.
This batch of compositions is informed by Bley's distinctive brand of tongue-in-cheek playfulness, especially on the Latin-rooted "Baseball," which is peppered with the kinds of organ motifs one hears at the ballpark. Also in this semi-comic vein, "Sidewinders in Paradise," a seemingly random juxtaposition of "Stranger in Paradise" and Lee Morgan's "The Sidewinder," chugs along with a retro-funk groove perfectly colored by Goldings's organ. The album ends in a darker mood with "Utviklingssang" (Norwegian for "Development Song.") Two extended pieces form the real backbone of the album, however. "Blues in Twelve Bars/Blues in Twelve Other Bars" is a funky, modulating blues with gospel undertones. Goldings shines on this one, and Lew Soloff captures the mood with a plunger solo. "Les Trois Lagons," the most ambitious track, takes its inspiration from three cut-outs in a book by Henri Matisse. Divided into three movements, the piece begins with a round of bebop soloing, then morphs into a ballad, and concludes with an unusual whole-tone stride section that recalls both Thelonious Monk and Louis Armstrong.

While the entire eight-piece band is consistently a pleasure, some of the album's most appealing moments occur during several Bley/Swallow duet passages. The two have been performing and recording as a duo for many years, so in a certain sense the whole band seems to revolve around them. - David R. Adler




Carla Bley
AKA real name: Carla Borg
Born May 11, 1938 in Oakland, CA

Post-bop jazz has produced only a few first-rate composers of larger forms; Carla Bley ranks high amongst them. Bley possesses an unusually wide compositional range; she combines an acquaintance with and love for jazz in all its forms with great talent and originality. Her music is a peculiarly individual type of hyper-modern jazz. Bley is capable of writing music of great drama and profound humor, often within the confines of the same piece.
Born Carla Borg, Bley learned the fundamentals of music as a child from her father, a church musician. Thereafter, she was mostly self-taught. Bley moved to New York around 1955, where she worked as a cigarette girl and occasional pianist. She married pianist Paul Bley, for whom she began to write tunes (she also wrote for George Russell and Jimmy Giuffre). In 1964, with her second husband, trumpeter Michael Mantler, Bley formed the Jazz Composers Guild Orchestra, which a year later became known simply as the Jazz Composers' Orchestra. Two years later, Bley helped found the Jazz Composers' Orchestra Association, a non-profit organization designed to present, distribute, and produce unconventional forms of jazz. In 1967, vibist Gary Burton's quartet recorded Bley's cycle of tunes A Genuine Tong Funeral, which brought her to the attention of the general public for the first time. In 1969, Bley composed and arranged music for Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra. In 1971, Bley completed the work that cemented her reputation, the jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill. In the '70s and '80s, Bley continued to run the JCOA and compose and record for her own Watt label. The JCOA essentially folded in the late '80s, but Bley's creative life has continued mostly unabated. For much of the past two decades, she's maintained a mid-sized big band with fairly stable personnel to tour and record. She's also worked a great deal with the bassist Steve Swallow, in duo and in ensembles of varying size.

Bley wrote the music for the soundtrack to the 1985 film Mortelle Randone. She also contributed new compositions to the Liberation Music Orchestra's second incarnation in 1983. All through the eighties, nineties and into the new millenium, Bley has continued releasing albums through ECM, ranging from duets with bassist Steve Swallow to the "Very Big Carla Bley Band. As an instrumentalist, Bley makes a fine composer; she plays piano and/or organ with most of her bands, and while her playing is always quite musical, it's clear that her strengths lie elsewhere. Bley's asymmetrical compositional structures subvert jazz formula to wonderful effect, and her unpredictable melodies are often as catchy as they are obscure. In the tradition of jazz's very finest composers and improvisers, Bley has developed a style of her very own, and the music as a whole is the better for it. - Chris Kelsey


1968 Escalator Over the Hill ECM
1973 Tropic Appetites ECM
1975 13 for Piano and Two Orchestras and 3/4 for... Watt
1976 Dinner Music ECM
1977 European Tour (1977) Watt
1978 Musique Mecanique Watt
1980 Social Studies ECM
1981 Live! Watt
1983 Heavy Heart ECM
1983 Mortelle Randonnee [Original Soundtrack]
1984 I Hate to Sing [live] ECM
1985 Night-Glo ECM
1986 Sextet Watt
1988 Fleur Carnivore [live] ECM
1988 Duets: Carla Bley and Steve Swallow Watt
1990 The Very Big Carla Bley Band ECM
1991 Jazz Realities Fontana
1992 Go Together ECM
1993 Big Band Theory Watt
1995 Songs with Legs [live] Watt
1996 Carla Bley Big Band Goes to Church [live] ECM
1998 Fancy Chamber Music ECM
2000 Carla Bley Live ECM
2000 Are We There Yet? [live] ECM
2000 4 X 4 ECM
2003 Looking for America ECM