Steve Swallow, bass guitar Carla Bley, piano
Chis Cheek, saxophone Steve Cardenas, guitar
Jorge Rossy, drums
Steve Swallow
Steve Swallow was born in New York City in 1940, and spent his childhood in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Before turning to the acoustic bass at age 14, he studied piano (with Howard Kasschau, who also taught Nelson Riddle) and trumpet. His otherwise miserable adolescence was brightened by his discovery of jazz. He took many of his first stabs at improvisation with Ian Underwood (who subsequently became a Mother Of Invention and an L.A. studio ace), with whom he attended a swank New England private school.
During his years at Yale University he studied composition with Donald Martino, and played dixiel and with many of the greats, among them Pee Wee Russell, Buck Clayton and Vic Dickenson. In 1960 he met Paul and Carla Bley, left Yale in a hurry, moved to New York City, and began to tour and record with Paul Bley, The Jimmy Giuffre Trio and George Russell’s sextet, which featured Eric Dolphy and Thad Jones. He also performed in the early ’60s with Joao Gilberto, Sheila Jordan, and bands led by Benny Goodman, Marian McPartland, Chico Hamilton, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, Clark Terry and Bob Brookmeyer, and Chick Corea.
In 1964 he joined the Art Farmer Quartet featuring Jim Hall, and began writing music. Many of his songs have been recorded by prominent jazz artists, including Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Stan Getz, Gary Burton, Art Farmer, Phil Woods, Jack DeJohnette, Steve Kuhn, Lyle Mays, Jim Hall and Pat Metheny. And he was sampled by A Tribe Called Quest.
He toured from late 1965 through 1967 with the Stan Getz Quartet, which also included Gary Burton (replaced in 1967 by Chick Corea) and Roy Haynes. In 1968 he left Getz to join Gary Burton’s quartet, an association he maintained, with occasional time off for good behavior, for 20 years. He has performed on more than 20 of Burton’s recordings, the most recent being Six Pack, released in 1992.
In 1970 he switched from acoustic to electric bass and moved to Bolinas, California, where he wrote music for Hotel Hello, a duet album for ECM with Gary Burton. Returning to the East Coast in 1974, he taught for two long years at the Berklee College of Music. In 1976 he was awarded a National Endowment For The Arts grant to set poems by Robert Creeley to music, which resulted in another ECM album, Home. He performed with such diverse artists as Dizzy Gillespie, Michael Brecker, George Benson and Herbie Hancock, and recorded with Stan Getz (on an album featuring Joao Gilberto), Bob Moses, Steve Lacy, Michael Mantler and Kip Hanrahan. He also played on recordings produced by Hal Willner, on tracks featuring, among others, Carla Bley, Dr. John and James Taylor.
In 1978 he joined the Carla Bley Band. He continues to perform and record with her extensively, in various contexts. He toured and recorded often with John Scofield from 1980 to 1984, first in trio with drummer Adam Nussbaum, and then in duet. He has since toured often with Scofield, and has also produced several of his recordings.
He has also co-produced many albums with Carla Bley for her record companies WATT and XtraWATT, including Night-Glo (1985), which she wrote to feature him, and Carla (1987), a collection of his songs featuring her. In 1987 he also produced the first of four albums for the British saxophonist Andy Sheppard. In the ensuing years he produced recordings for Karen Mantler, Lew Soloff and Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, and recorded and/or toured with, among others, Joe Lovano, Motohiko Hino, Ernie Watts, Michael Gibbs, Rabih Abou-Khalil, Paul Bley, Henri Texier and Allen Ginsberg.
In 1988 he and Carla Bley began performing duet concerts in Europe, the United States, South America and Japan. Duets, an album of their songs arranged for piano and bass, was released in 1988, and a second recording, Go Together, in 1993.
In December of 1989 he reunited, after 27 years, with Jimmy Giuffre and Paul Bley to record two discs for Owl Records entitled The Life Of A Trio. This trio toured frequently until Spring of 1995, and recorded for Owl and Soul Note Records.
In 1991 he composed and produced Swallow, an XtraWATT recording featuring his five-string bass and several of his longtime associates, including Gary Burton, John Scofield and Steve Kuhn. He recorded often in the nineties. John Scofield and Pat Metheny’s I Can See Your House From Here, on which he played with drummer Bill Stewart, was released on Blue Note Records; this quartet toured in the summer of 1994. Real Book, his third XtraWATT disc, was recorded in December of 1993 and released in 1994; its cast included Tom Harrell, Joe Lovano, Mulgrew Miller and Jack DeJohnette.
In Spring of 1994 he was featured at the London Jazz Festival in a concert of his compositions with lyrics written and sung by Norma Winstone. 1994 also contained concert appearances in Japan with Steve Kuhn and in Europe with The Very Big Carla Bley Band, Jimmy Giuffreand Paul Bley, The Paul Motian Electric BeBop Band, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, and Carla Bley and Andy Sheppard. A live recording of this trio, Songs With Legs, was released on WATT in early 1995, at which time they again toured Europe. He also recorded in Spring of 1995 with Steve Kuhn, Michael Franks, John Taylor, Pierre Favre and Julian Arguelles. In July he and Carla Bley performed duets in Brazil, and in the fall returned to Europe for a lengthy tour.
In Spring of 1996 he found himself again touring Europe, first with Bley and Sheppard and then with John Scofield and Bill Stewart. He subsequently co-produced and played on Scofield’s first album for Verve Records, Quiet. He also co-produced and played on The Carla Bley Big Band Goes To Church, recorded live at Umbria Jazz in Perugia, Italy, and toured and recorded with Paul Motian.
In November of ‘96 he introduced the Steve Swallow Quintet, with Chris Potter, Ryan Kisor (subsequently replaced by Barry Ries), Mick Goodrick and Adam Nussbaum, to audiences in Europe, and recorded with this group after its tour. The resulting album, Deconstructed, features his compositions based on classic Tin Pan Alley song structures; it was released in early 1997.
He toured relentlessly in 1997 with Trio 2000 (with Paul Motian and Chris Potter), Carla Bley, John Scofield and several others, and recorded with several diverse artists, including Henri Texier (with Lee Konitz and Bob Brookmeyer), Glen Moore, Ettore Fioravanti and Michel Portal. He also produced the first of two recording by French drummer/composer Christophe Marguet.
In the Spring of 1998 he toured and recorded with Lee Konitz and Paul Motian, and toured with Brazilian guitarist Paulo Bellinati. He also participated with Carla Bley in the Copenhagen Jazzvisits program, and was nominated for the 1999 Danish Jazzpar. In April he directed and performed his music for big band with the Harvard University Jazz Band, and in June recorded with pianist Christian Jacob. In July he participated in a tour presenting the concert version of Carla Bley’s Escalator Over The Hill, and toured in trio with Lee Konitz and Paul Bley. He toured in the Fall with Paul Motian’s Electric Be Bop Band, and with John Scofield and Bill Stewart. He also performed in duo with Carla Bley, which resulted in a third Duets CD entitled Are We There Yet?
In March and April of 1999 he toured again with his quintet. Reviewing the band’s performance at Ronnie Scott’s Club in the Times of London, Chris Parker wrote “…this was as near a perfect display of small-group jazz – robust yet exquisitely poised, cogent but surprisingly delicate – as has been heard in London in recent years.” An XtraWATT CD entitled Always Pack Your Uniform On Top, recorded live at Ronnie’s, was released shortly thereafter.
2000 proceeded apace. After a return to Tokyo with Carla Bley, this time performing Fancy Chamber Music, and to Sao Paulo performing Duets, he roamed Europe again with Paulo Bellinati. European festival-goers found him with Bobby Previte in July, and with John Scofield in August. In September he reunited with Lee Konitz and Paul Bley for appearances in the USA, and then returned to Europe for further tours with Bobby Previte and Carla Bley.
2001 proved adventurous. After a Spring Trios tour with Carla Bley and Andy Sheppard, he toured and recorded with Gerard Marais in France, recorded with Michael Gibbs (with a band of elite studio sharks) in New York City, with Bobby Previte (with Ray Anderson, Wayne Horvitz and Marty Ehrlich) in rustic Pennsylvania, and with Wolfi Puschnig (with Victor Lewis and Don Alias) in industrial Hoboken. In the Fall he also recorded with Akira Ishii, Arrigo Cappilletti, Maria Pia DeVito and Giovanni Mazzarino, and toured with Scofield, Bley and Previte. The year thundered to a conclusion with a triumphant tour and live recording by Damaged In Transit, Swallow’s trio featuring Chris Potter and Adam Nussbaum. An XtraWATT CD followed soon after.
2002 yielded further excitement. After the customary Spring Trios tour, Swallow directed the Bohuslan Big Band, based in Goteborg, Sweden, in performances of his compositions and arrangements, and then toured Scandinavia with Jonas Johansen and Hans Ulrik. After another Bobby Previte tour and work with Maria Pia DeVito, he barnstormed the summer festival circuit with Carla Bley’s big band. In the waning days of summer he participated in the recording of L’Histoire Du Clochard, a Palmetto Records CD featuring arrangements by Ohad Talmor of his music. He then returned to Europe for performances with John Taylor and with Wolfi Puschnig, and toured the USA with Bobby Previte. After a quick trip to Korea for a one-nighter with Carla Bley and Andy Sheppard, he returned to Europe for the year’s breathless finish, with singer Antonio Placer and Paulo Bellinati.
The pace hardly slackened in 2003, which began with Eurotours with Bobby Previte, Gerard Marais, Antonio Placer and in duo with Paulo Bellinati. Swallow returned home in June to do his laundry and to pick up Carla, with whom he ventured to Porto, Portugal, for a memorable big band concert in a magnificent Rem Koolhaas concert hall, at the time still under construction. Carla’s big band then toured briefly in the USA. Swallow worked often during the second half ofthe year with John Scofield and Bill Stewart, detouring in September to play with Ulrik and Johansen. The Fall also saw the birth of Carla Bley’s new quartet, The Lost Chords; drummer Billy Drummond joined Bley, Sheppard and Swallow. The band toured and recorded an eponymous album in November. A December engagement at the Blue Note in New York City with Scofield and Stewart also yielded a live album, En Route.
A trio tour with We Three, a cooperative band with Dave Liebman and Adam Nussbaum, began the 2004 season. Yet another tour with Bobby Previte followed, and gave way to work with Nussbaum and pianist Giovanni Mazzerino. This summer’s traditional European festival dance was performed with Scofield and Stewart. Kip Hanrahan called, and Swallow found himself in a trendy SoHo studio in August with a roomful of great drummers and percussionists. September was spent in the company of Scofield and Stewart. After yet another round with Ulrik and Johansen (this trio had come to be called Tin Pan Aliens), and a brief stint with Puschnig, a Lost Chords tour wrapped up the year.
Spring of 2005 was spent once again in the company of Scofield and Stewart, and in May We Three repaired to a studio in upstate New York to record their debut CD, Three For All. In August Swallow, his old friend Steve Kuhn and the Cikada Quartet recorded music written by the bassist to poems written and read by Robert Creeley. The album, titled So There, was released in November 2006. In a review of it in the New York Times, Ben Ratliff said “It’s a record with a soul, remarkably curious and thoughtful…” September of 2005 was spent with the Lost Chords, October with Antonio Placer and Ohad Talmor, and November with Scofield. He also recorded in duet with pianist Deidre Rodman for Sunnyside Records.
2006 began with a We Three tour, and proceeded to projects with Scofield and with Bley. In June Swallow reunited with Gary Burton and Pat Metheny (with drummer Antonio Sanchez) for concerts in Japan and the USA, which were recorded for future release. He spent the summer happily with Carla Bley in a variety of contexts, which included a big band tour of the European festivals. He also flew to Ludwigsburg, Germany to record with Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor. September was spent touring and recording with the Scofield trio, October with Tin Pan Aliens and again with Scofield, and November with Ohad Talmor. He also recorded in Brooklyn with Pietro Tonolo, in the company of Gil Goldstein and Paul Motian. The year ended with a joyous concert of Christmas carols directed by Carla Bley.
In spring 2007 our intrepid bassist toured first with Scofield, then with Bley (with The Lost Chords and Paolo Fresu). A recording made in France at the end of their tour produced a WATT CD, which was released later that year. While in France he also recorded with Jean-Sebastien Simonoviez. After an appearance at Zankel Hall in New York City with Lee Konitz, Swallow galloped across Europe with Liebman and Nussbaum in July and played duets with Pat Metheny in August. The fall began with a trip to Sweden, to record an album of his music with the Bohuslan Big Band. This album, called Swallow Songs, was released in early 2008. Tin Pan Aliens also recorded again, with guests Bobo Stenson and Ulf Wakenius. After a tour of the UK with Michael Gibbs’ band, he polished off the year with further tours with Bley and Scofield.
Carla Bley beckoned again in early 2008; Swallow gladly signed onto a trio tour with her and Andy Sheppard. This was followed by lots of work with Scofield, in the company of Bill Stewart and a motley horn section. The usual summer European frolic was accomplished first with Bley, and then with Burton/Metheny. The fall promises work in trio with Talmor and Nussbaum, and with Enrico Pieranunzi and Paul Motian. Will it never end?
Steve Swallow has placed first (electric bass) in the Downbeat International Critics Poll since 1983, and in the Downbeat Readers Poll since 1985. He has also won the Jazz Times poll (electric bass) for the past several years, and has been voted the Jazz Journalists Association’s electric bassist of the year since 2001, when that category was instituted. He lives now in contented isolation with Carla Bley, in the mountains of upstate New York.
Selected discography
As a leader:
Swallow Songs Vara Konserthus(with the Bohuslan Big Band); So There XtraWATT 12; Damaged In Transit XtraWATT11; L’Histoire Du Clochard Palmetto PM2103 (with Ohad Talmor); Always Pack Your Uniform On Top XtraWATT 10; Are We There Yet? WATT 29 (with Carla Bley); Deconstructed XtraWATT 9; Real Book XtraWATT 7; Go Together WATT 24 (with Carla Bley); Swallow XtraWATT 6; Duets WATT 20 (with Carla Bley); Carla XtraWATT 2; Home ECM 1160; Hotel Hello ECM 1055 (with Gary Burton).
Featured with others:
Carla Bley, The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu WATT 34; Carla Bley, Night-Glo WATT 16; Carla Bley, Sextet WATT 17; John Scofield, En Route Verve B0001699-02; John Scofield, Shinola ENJA 4004; John Scofield, Out Like A Light ENJA 4038
Carla Bley
Carla Bley was born in Oakland, California in 1936. Her father Emil Borg, a piano teacher and church organist, began giving her music lessons when she was three years old and she was soon playing at church functions. But her musical education ended at the age of eight. Her formal education stopped entirely when she dropped out of high school after completing the tenth grade.
During her adolescence Carla was drawn to jazz and moved to New York City to be closer to the musicians she admired. She resumed her musical education by working as a cigarette girl at the notorious Birdland jazz club, where she was able to hear the greatest jazz musicians of the day. She met pianist Paul Bley and eventually relocated to Los Angeles, where Paul and his quartet had a steady gig at the Hillcrest Club. She began to write music. When saxophonist Ornette Coleman came on the scene in the mid-fifties, Paul Bley immediately hired him and Carla was exposed nightly to ‘free’ playing, a powerful influence that was to affect her writing for many years.
In the early sixties Paul and Carla returned to New York. Soon George Russell, Jimmy Giuffre, Tony Williams and others began to play and record her compositions. During this period she also worked in the cloakrooms of Basin Street and the Jazz Gallery in order to hear as much music as possible. She was a member of The Jazz Composer’s Guild and met composer Michael Mantler at the meetings. They formed a group called The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, and soon became personally involved; she left Paul Bley and moved in with Michael Mantler. In 1966 they had a daughter, Karen, who was to be Carla’s only offspring.
At the end of the sixties Gary Burton recorded Carla’s first extended work, A Genuine Tong Funeral. Shortly after, Charlie Haden asked her to arrange and write for The Liberation Music Orchestra. Her next major work, with words by Paul Haines, Escalator Over The Hill, was recorded on theJazz Composer’s Orchestra Association’s label, JCOA. It received the French award Oscar du Disque de Jazz. Soon she and Michael Mantler founded The New Music Distribution Service, which distributed independent recordings.
In 1972 Carla received a Guggenheim Fellowship. She and Mantler started their own record company, WATT. Its first release was Carla’s Tropic Appetites, another project with poet Paul Haines. In 1974 The Ensemble, a group of New York players, commissioned a piece for chamber orchestra. Titled ¾, it was conducted by Dennis Russell Davies and featured pianist Keith Jarrett. It was later performed by Speculum Musicae featuring Ursula Oppens, and recorded for the WATT label with Carla as the soloist. In1975 she was in a band with Jack Bruce and Mick Taylor, and lived in London for six months. After the band prematurely broke up she returned home and decided to start her own band. Over the next six years the Carla Bley Band, which consisted of six horns and a rhythm section, toured Europe and Japan, and made five albums on the WATT label. The band also recorded a movie soundtrack for the Claude Miller film Mortelle Randonee and played Carla’s arrangement of Nino Rota’s music for 8½. On Hal Willner’s Fellini tribute album. During this period she also did recording projects for other labels with Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, Stuff, and Charlie Haden.
Carla’s next regular group was an enlarged rhythm section without horns, but she still made recordings with larger groups. Heavy Heart, then Night-Glo, the album she wrote for her bass player (and soon to be partner) Steve Swallow, were her next projects for the WATT label. The music on these two albums was not well received by the jazz establishment or her public but she managed to be voted Best Composer by Downbeat magazine before her fall from favor. She also received the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis. Two more arrangements for Hal Willner tribute albums, of Theolonius Monk’s Misterioso featuring Johnny Griffin and Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars featuring Phil Woods, were also recorded during this time. Misterioso was nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental, Big Band.
The Carla Bley Sextet, with Hiram Bullock, Larry Willis, Steve Swallow, Victor Lewis and Don Alias, toured in 1986 and recorded an album for WATT. An extension label called XtraWATT was started to record the music of friends and family. It produced an album by Steve Weisberg, released a live recording of a Sicilian Big Band playing orchestrations of Carla’s music by Jeff Friedman and a series of albums by Carla’s daughter, Karen Mantler. Soon it became the label for all of Steve Swallow’s projects.
She received a commission from The Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and wrote a piece featuring Fred Sherry, Paula Robison and Ani Kavafian called Coppertone. Soon after, she wrote Romantic Notions, a set of short piano pieces, for Ursula Oppens.
Playing duets with Steve Swallow, which started as recreation, soon turned professional and Steve and Carla toured and recorded as a duo regularly for five years. Their first album was called Duets. They were guests on the short-lived NBC TV Night Music series, produced by Hal Willner and hosted by David Sanborn. During that time she also worked with a 15-piece band and recorded the album Fleur Carnivore, then started writing for the standard Big Band instrumentation. Another album, Dreamkeeper, arranged for Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, won the Downbeat Record of the Year award. She also was named Best Composer by Jazz Times magazine and Jazz Musician of the Year by Hi Fi Vision.
In the fall of 1990 she was a visiting professor at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. During the semester she took off time to tour Europe and record The Very Big Carla Bley Band. The album received the Prix Jazz Moderne from the French Academy du Jazz. She and Michael Mantler separated in early 1991. Soon after, Carla and Steve Swallow began living together. A second Duets album, Go Together, was recorded during the summer of 1992.
A commission from the Glasgow Jazz Festival resulted in a piece for violin and Big Band, called Birds of Paradise. It featured Rumanian violinist Alex Balanescu.
The ‘Very Big Band’ toured Europe in the fall of 1993 and recorded another album, Big Band Theory, which included Birds of Paradise, at a studio in London. The album was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Jazz Big Band category.
During the remainder of the year Carla performed only with Steve Swallow, but eventually saxophonist Andy Sheppard was added to the duo. The trio toured Europe and recorded a live album called Songs With Legs.
In 1994 Carla finished Tigers In Training, a piece commissioned by the Hamburg-based chamber group, L’Art Pour L’Art, and wrote a piece for the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. In 1995 she and Steve played Duets in Brazil, and worked with local Big Bands, first in Sandvika, Norway, then at the Cornish Institute in Seattle. In November, Carla’s Big Band premiered a commissioned piece, Setting Calvin’s Waltz, at the Berlin Jazz Festival. This was followed by another European Duets tour. She got to hear all the music she had recently been writing for classical musicians at the 300th Jazz Workshop at the North German radio station in Hamburg. A new piece, End of Vienna was premiered there.
In early 1996 Carla, Steve and Andy Sheppard performed a piece in Grenoble, France that had been commissioned by the Grenoble Jazz Festival. Based on cutouts by Henri Matisse, it was called Les Trois Lagons. In July there was another Big Band tour, which culminated in three days of live recording at a famous church in Perugia, Italy during the Umbria Jazz Festival. The album was called The Carla Bley Big Band Goes To Church. Later in the summer, a Big Band made up entirely of musicians from New York played the new pieces at jazz festivals in Detroit and Chicago. She spent the rest of the year writing chamber music.
In 1997 Carla had a week’s residency at the Barbican Center in London. This was followed by a British Arts Council tour of England. In June she went to Cologne, Germany for the first live production of Escalator Over The Hill, then played at the Montreal Jazz Festival with the trio. In August her Big Band played at a festival in Belgium, and Carla and Steve went to Helsinki, Finland to work with a local Big Band. This was followed by a tour and recording of Fancy Chamber Music, Carla’s collected music written for non-improvising musicians.
Carla and Steve were invited to Denmark to take part in a program called Jazzvisits. They lived in Copenhagen for a month and worked with various groups of Danish musicians. Escalator Over The Hill, with a 24-piece band including Paul Haines, was presented at European Jazz Festivals in July. Carla and Steve recorded a Duets album, Are We There Yet?, during a tour in the fall of 1998. Carla spent the rest of the winter preparing music for her new group, called 4X4.
In April of 1999 4X4 made its premiere at a nightclub in Tokyo. In July the group, which consisted of four horns and four rhythm, toured Europe and recorded an album in Oslo. Later in the year, Carla and Steve played Trios with Andy Sheppard in Europe. She spent the winter writing and re-orchestrating chamber music. In March of 2000, Carla and Steve went to Tokyo to play a Fancy Chamber Music concert with members of the New Japan Philharmonic. It was the first performance of a new piece called First Date. They formally retired the Duets format after a concert in Sao Paulo the next month.
Thierry Paul Benizeau, who had previously made a film about Escalator Over The Hill, came to New York and filmed a portrait of Carla that included a Trios concert at a gallery in Woodstock. He continued filming the following month at a Fancy Chamber Music concert in Verona, Italy.
4X4 toured Europe again in the fall of 2000. During the next few years Carla and Steve worked with various Big Bands (in the USA, Luxembourg, Italy and Portugal) including her own (Europe) and toured with Trios (Europe and Korea). When Carla wasn’t touring she was writing music for her next Big Band album.
In the fall of 2002 Carla recorded Looking For America at a studio in New York. It was nominated for a Grammy in the ‘best large jazz ensemble album” category. The following year she played the music from that album with musicians from New York at the Iridium in Manhattan, then took the band to Minnesota to play a concert in Minneapolis. Carla’s Big Band drummer, Billy Drummond, was added to Trios and the new group was called The Lost Chords.
Their first concert was in Austria in August of 2003. That fall they toured Europe, recorded some of the concerts, and released a live album called The Lost Chords.
During the winter Carla wrote and arranged music for Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. She toured Europewith that group the following summer and recorded the album Not In Our Name in Rome. Later that year they played a night at the Village Vanguard in New York. In November The Lost Chords had another European tour. Carla’s next project was a piece for Big Band commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival.
During 2005 The Lost Chords worked in America. Their schedule included appearances at the Newport Jazz Festival and a week at Iridium in New York City followed by a two-week tour of the West Coast. Appearing Nightly At The Black Orchid, the piece Carla had written for the Monterey Jazz Festival, was premiered at that festival in September. When the Lost Chords tour was over Carla played a week at the Blue Note in New York with the Liberation Music Orchestra, then went on a fall tour with that band in Europe.
Michael Kaufmann, director of programming at the Philharmonie in Essen, Germany, invited Carla to be artist in residence for a year. The first program she brought to Essen was Fancy Chamber Music, performed with Steve Swallow and musicians from the area. She spent the early months of 2006 writing music for an upcoming big band tour scheduled for the summer, then returned to Essen twice in April, first to prepare and perform a concert with a student big band, and later to re-create Escalator Over The Hill with a mostly new cast.
In the summer of 2006 the Carla Bley Big Band toured Europe for three weeks and recorded a live album at the New Morning in Paris. In August Carla and Steve went to Sardinia and worked with Orchestra Jazz Della Sardegna, then flew to Hamburg and presented a similar program with the NDR Big Band. Another tour with the Liberation Music Orchestra took place in November. In December Carla completed her residency at the Essen Philharmonie with a program written especially for the event, called Carla’s Christmas Carols.
During the winter of 2007 she worked on music for her new quintet, The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu. The Banana Quintet was written during this period. The group’s tour, in the spring of the year, concluded with a recording (Watt/34) at Studio La Buissonne in the south of France. She asked ECM if it would be possible to release Watt/34 (The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu) before Watt/33 (the big band album, Appearing Nightly, which was due to be released in a few months) and ECM agreed.
Carla and Steve went to Toronto to rehearse and perform Carla’s music with a Canadian big band at the Art Of Jazz Festival. Later in the summer Carla made a few appearances with the Liberation Music Orchestra at jazz festivals in the Northeast. Carla and Steve returned to La Buissonne to mix the quintet album in August, and then continued on to the south of Italy and played with the quintet at a festival in RocellaIonica.
In September they rehearsed and performed Carla’s big band music with a young Dutch big band at a jazz festival in Rotterdam.
In the fall the quintet with Paolo toured Europe. ECM managed to have the new album released at the same time as the tour. This was an unusual and, for Carla, unprecedented advantage that allowed the album to get extensive promotional coverage resulting in great reviews and strong sales.
The big band album was re-scheduled for release the following summer.
Michael Kaufmann asked Carla if she could envision a program involving any other of the artist swho had been in residency at the Essen Philharmonie, to be performed in November of 2008.
She decided to work on a revision of an earlier piece called ¾, and to feature Uri Caine as the piano soloist. During the rest of the year she prepared music for that program, which would also include other music she had written, and worked on new material for an upcoming trio tour with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow. During the holiday season she couldn’t resist arranging another Christmas carol for brass quintet.
In April, 2008 the trio of Carla, Steve and Andy Sheppard had a mini American tour consisting of a week at Birdland in New York City, a night at a jazz club in Boston and four days rehearsing and performing with the student band at the University of Vermont in Burlington. Short but sweet. In early summer Carla toured Europe with The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu.
Carla Bley discography
As a leader:
Watt/33 Appearing Nightly; Watt/34 The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu; Watt/32 The Lost Chords; Watt/31 Looking For America; Watt/30 4×4; Watt/29 Are We There Yet?; Watt/28 Fancy Chamber Music; Watt/27 Goes to Church; Watt/26 Songs With Legs; Watt/25 Big Band Theory; Watt/24 Go Together; Watt/23 The Very Big Carla Bley Band; Watt/21 Fleur Carnivore; Watt/20 Duets; Watt/17 Sextet; Watt/16 Night-Glo; Watt/14 Heavy Heart; Watt/12-1/2 I Hate To Sing; Watt/12 Live!; Phonogram Mortelle Randonnee; Watt/11 Social Studies; Watt/09 Musique Mecanique; Watt/08 European Tour 1977; Watt/06 Dinner Music; Watt/01 Tropic Appetites; JCOA Escalator Over The Hill
Selected others:
Verve France Charlie Haden, Not In Our Name; Virgin Classics Karen Mantler’s Pet Project; XtraWatt/02 Steve Swallow, Carla; Blue Note Charlie Haden, Dreamkeeper; A&M Various Artists, Lost In The Stars, The Music of Kurt Weill; A&M Various Artists, That’s The Way I Feel Now, A Tribute To Thelonius Monk; Celluloid Golden Palominos, Drunk With Passion; Hannibal Various Artists, Amarcord Nino Rota; CBS Nick Mason, Fictitious Sports; ECM Charlie Haden, Ballad of The Fallen; Watt/03 Michael Mantler, 13 &¾; JCOA Michael Mantler, The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra; Impulse Charlie Haden, Liberation Music Orchestra; Fontana Michael Mantler, Jazz Realities; RCA Gary Burton, A Genuine Tong Funeral
Steve Cardenas
Steve Cardenas has diverse credits as a performer and recording artist. Having started his musical career in Kansas City, he is now an integral part of the jazz community in New York.
Cardenas has backed up such greats as Eddie Harris, Marilyn Maye, Jay McShann, and Slide Hampton. He has toured Europe extensively, performing at various jazz festivals including the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on three separate occasions and the North Sea Jazz Festival four times. He has regularly performed in groups led by such diverse artists as Paul McCandless of the group Oregon, trumpeters/composers Mark Ishamand Jeff Beal, bassists Marc Johnson and John Patitucci, as well as vocalists Madeleine Peyroux and Norah Jones. Steve is currently a member of the Paul Motian Band, Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra, a group led by JoeyBaron called ”Killer Joey”, as well as Ben Allison & Man Size Safe. In addition, he leads his own trio performing at various venues around New York City.
Along with performing and recording, Cardenas is on faculty at the New School in New York where he teaches the Thelonious Monk Ensemble and gives private lessons. Recently, Steve was an instructor at the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. In 2003, he was guest faculty at the California Institute of the Arts for the spring semester. Other workshops have included Langnau Jazz Nights in Switzerland, Seda Jazz in Spain and Jamey Abersold Summer Jazz Camps. Also, in collaboration with editor Don Sickler, Cardenas completed work on a book of Thelonious Monk’s compositions through Hal Leonard Publishing. The Thelonious Monk Fakebook marks the premier publishing of all of Monk’s compositions together, with many of them appearing for the first time.
Panoramic is Steve’s latest release for Fresh Sound New Talent Records. As on his previous record, Shebang, this CD features Larry Grenadier on bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums, with Tony Malaby added on tenor saxophone.
Selected discography
Leader:
Panoramic – Fresh Sound New Talent Records; Shebang – Fresh Sound New Talent Records
Sideman:
Little Things Run The World – Ben Allison & Man Size Safe, Palmetto Records; No Way Out – David Brandom, Blujazz Records; Song For Anyone – Chris Potter 10, Sunnyside Records; Cowboy Justice – Ben Allison, Palmetto Records; Give and Go – Donny McCaslin, Criss Cross Jazz; Garden Of Eden – Paul Motian Band, ECM Records; Not In Our Name – Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra, Verve Records; Traveller – Arthur Kell Quartet, Fresh Sound New Talent Records; Mercy Streets – Kate McGarry, Palmetto Records; Visual – Alexis Cuadrado Sextet, Fresh Sound New Talent Records; People Behave Like Ballads – Rebecca Martin, Maxjazz; Home – David Brandom, (independent release); Holiday For Strings – The Paul Motian E.B.B.B., Winter & Winter Records; Show Me – Kate McGarry, Palmetto Records; Middlehope– Rebecca Martin, Fresh Sound New Talent Records; Close Your Eyes And Listen – Mike Fahn, Sparky1 Productions; Metro – Alexis Cuadrado, Fresh Sound New Talent Records; Europe – The Paul Motian E.B.B.B., Winter & Winter Records; See You In Zanzibar – Arthur Kell, (independent release); Killer Joey – Joey Baron, (independent release); Monk and Powell – The Paul Motian E.B.B.B., Winter & Winter Records; Who Loves You: A Tribute To Jaco Pastorius– various artists, JVC Records; Miles Remembered: The Silent Way Project – Mark Isham, Columbia Records; From The Street – Tom Coster, JVC Records; Raising The Standard – New York Guitar Trio, Midi Inc. Records; 10/10: Tribute to Thelonious Monk – Duo with pianist John Beasley, MMP Records; Contemplations – Jeff Beal, Triloka Records; The Last Romantics – Paul Hanson, Midi Inc. Records; Three Graces – Jeff Beal, Triloka Records; Premonition – Paul McCandless, Windham Hill Records.
Chris Cheek
Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Chris Cheek, the son of a junior high school band director, began playing the alto sax at the age of 12. Chris played in a variety of local Jazz and Blues bands in the St. Louis area while attending Webster University. In 1988, on scholarship, he went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts where he studiedwith Joe Viola and Hal Crook, eventually receiving a bachelors degree in performance.
Chris moved to New York in 1992 and since then has played and recorded with a number of different groups including: Paul Motian’s ”Electric Bebop Band”, ”The Bloomdaddies”, Charlie Haden’s ”Liberation Music Orchestra”, The Brian Blade Fellowship, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Luciana Souza, David Berkman, and Guillermo Klein’s ”Los Guachos”. Chris has played in Japan, China, Russia, Canada, throughout much of Europe and the United States, with these and other bands.
In addition to appearing on over 60 albums as a sideman, Chris has recorded 4 albums as a leader on Fresh Sound Records, ”I Wish I Knew”, ”A Girl Named Joe”, ”Vine”, and most recently ”Blues Cruise”, featuring Brad Mehldau. While he continues to be actively involved in a number of different musical projects, Chris plays regularly with his own band at various clubs in the U.S. and abroad. (http://www.chrischeek.net)
Jorge Rossy
Jorge Rossy began to play drums at the age of 11.
Between 1982 and 1989, he played all around Spain regularly with musicians like Perico Sambeat, Tete Montoliu, Carle sBenavent, Chano Domínguez among others, and occasionally with musicians like Woody Shaw, Jack Walrath, Sal Nistico, Dave Schnitter and Kenny Wheeler.
In 1989 he moved to Boston and in 1990 started playing with the Danilo Perez Trio. In 1991, Rossy went to Panama with the Danilo Perez Quartet featuring Giovanni Hidalgo, and shortly after it, he started playing with the Paquito D’Rivera Quartet.
From 1991 he began to bring to Spain his American colleagues, Joshua Redman, Mark Turner, Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Seamus Blake, Chris Cheek, Kevin Hayes and Freddie Bryant, among others.
In 1995 the Brad Melhdau Trio with Larry Grenadier and Jorge Rossy recorded for the first time for Warner Bros; this collaboration will give more than 10 CDs.
Jordi Rossy has recorded over 80 CDs as a sideman, and has recently recorded his second CD with his own band.