![]() ![]() "Yeah, but that's the end of that-never again!" she confessed in an interview a few days before the Knitting Factory date. ![]() Of course, it also means she has to solo half the time, so she claims to hate it. ![]() The three albums partnering her piano with Swallow's electric bass are fascinating: As frequently as not, she provides the rhythmic bottom for Swallow's soaring melodic forays, inverting the expectation for that instrumental combination. She has fronted just about every size of large ensemble, but has also toured as part of a sextet (guitar, piano, organ, bass, drums, percussion), trio (sax, piano, bass), and duo (with lifelong advocate, bassist Steve Swallow). She has written piano music for Ursula Oppens, chamber works for the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, big-band arrangements for Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, several albums' worth of music for vibraphonist Gary Burton's quartet and sextet, as well as for Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason's first solo album. After that, 4x4 is my next favorite, because I have a lot of great soloists, and again, all I have to do is a little accompanying and hardly wave my arms at all."īley has written for and performed in a wide range of ensembles. My second favorite is big band, where I just have to play a little accompaniment and wave my arms. My favorite favorite format is Escalator over the Hill, where I don't play a note, I just stand up there and conduct. "I'm not comfortable performing on stage, so I like to be surrounded by people. "I can't remember who first suggested it, but it just made sense to tour with a stripped-down ensemble," Bley said. In an age that reveres the soloist, she has succeeded as a songwriter and arranger in a world of trios and quartets, she has flourished by thinking big-compared to her big band, which ranges from 12 to 17 pieces, an octet is a small ensemble, the space constraints of the Knitting Factory stage not withstanding. Yet, her music is no joke-she has amassed an impressive list of artistic triumphs as she has hewn to an almost contrarian career path. Over the last three decades, she has constructed a body of work that has distinguished itself as much for its sly wit as for her austerely beautiful melodies. That comic image would probably amuse Bley. If she'd showed up with her 17-piece band, they'd have had to have hung the horn sections from the rafters, like the sound system. Four music stands dominate the rest of the apron-her front line of tenor saxophone, alto saxophone, trumpet, and trombone stand shoulder to shoulder, blocking the audience's view of Larry Goldings and his Hammond B3, drummer Billy Drummond, and bassist Steve Swallow, who stands 15' back and on a riser. Bley's piano is so far to stage left, she has to lean against the wall and stoop under a hanging monitor speaker to address the audience. Even though she calls her new band, 4x4, a "small" group, it's a big band-almost too big for the stage of the Knitting Factory on the night of October 11, 2000, as it makes its first American appearance. ![]()
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