A Bley In a Manger

I don't normally do Christmas music, but when it's this delicious there's little resistance.

There isn't much to say about its creator, except that she's still around and it's been, what? Sixty-something years since she first started selling cigarettes at Birdland?

Fast forward to now, and by sheer prolific power, she might be the single greatest female composer in Jazz history.

Is what she does strictly Jazz though? She is kind of her own genre, to tell the truth.

It doesn't matter; Carla Bley is a musician's musician and a composer's composer since before most of us were born.

These recordings date from a couple of Yuletide tours she did, the first in support of her CD of carols for piano, brass & the impeccably beautiful electric bass of Steve Swallow, her life partner.

We have a full broadcast from 2013, augmented by three bonus tracks from a 2008 performance; both are sourced from digital broadcasts and should toast your Yule Logs and chestnuts to perfection.

Carla Bley & Ed Partyka Brass

"Carla's Christmas Carols"

György-Ligety-Saal

Graz, Austria

12.5.2013

01 O Tannenbaum

02 Fernab in Einer Krippe

03 Jingle Bells

04 Hell's Bells

05 Jesus Maria

06 Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

07 The Christmas Song

08 O Holy Night/Joy to the World

09 Ring Christmas Bells

10 Silent Night and Day

11 God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen

12 O Come to Bethlehem, All Ye Faithful

Total time: 1:14:38

Tracks 10-12 are bonus tracks from Passionskirche, Berlin DE 12.4.2008 FM

Tracks 01-09:

Carla Bley - piano

Steve Swallow - bass

Axel Schlosser - trumpet & flugelhorn

Bernhard Nolf - trumpet & flugelhorn

Adrian Mears - trombone

Ed Partyka - bass trombone & tuba

Linus Pernulli - French horn

Tracks 10-12:

Carla Bley - piano

Steve Swallow - bass

Tobias Weidinger - trumpet & glockenspiel

Axel Schlosser - trumpet

Christine Chapman - French horn

Adrian Mears - trombone

Ed Partyka - bass trombone & tuba

digital capture of a digital FM broadcast, with 3 bonus cuts from a 2008 performance in Berlin (also a digital capture of a digital FM broadcast)

converted to CD Audio 16/44 by EN, December 2020

267 MB FLAC/December 2020 archive link

Don't be fooled by the pictures that suggest Carla Bley is the Diamanda Galas of keyboards; this is some of the most gorgeous and serene recasting of well-worn Xmas fare ever attempted, and entirely appropriate for your grandparents -- or your contrapuntally-inclined hipster grandkids -- unwrapping their gifts around the tree.

I'll be back Monday, health willing, with something that couldn't be more different than this if you dyed its hair blue.

Don't sleep without visions of this 75 minutes of bliss dancing in your head, though... and of course I wish you all the brassiest of holidays, whatever your preferences for those might be.--J.