Even the jazz hardcore sometimes concede that unfettered improvisation can deliver a torrent of notes that could have used the odd edit. The distilled, yet playful, music of Carla Bley’s trio is the perfect antidote. Led by the great California-born composer/pianist, with Steve Swallow on bass guitar and Andy Sheppard on saxes, they seemed to be playing the absolute essence of a busier and more convoluted jazz, which they had decided to keep to themselves. They memorably worked that leisurely magic with a mix of old and new material on the London leg of Bley’s 80th birthday European tour.
Her new Copycat suite opened the night, a typically slow-waltzing framework for Sheppard’s tremulously piping long tones, distant-thunder rumbles, and contented purrs on tenor sax. A brightly prancing theme was then built around artful paraphrases of the sax line from Bley’s pursuing piano. The gospelly The Lord Is Listening to Ya, Hallelujah! kindled some superb tenor-sax blues flights and Mendelssohn’s Wedding March surfaced in dissonances in the contrapuntal, fitfully swinging Naked Bridges, Diving Brides. Bley’s lovely arrangement of Thelonious Monk’s Misterioso first respected its famously slow-strutting, rising hook, then folded it into an unexpectedly romantic reverie. Andando el Tiempo, the study of a friend’s journey through addiction, was the highlight of the closing stages, weaving ecstasy, tumult and discovery. Every detail of this performance sounded crucial – that’s why the audience tuned in so closely, despite jazz standbys such as drum solos and big crescendos being entirely absent.
• Carla Bley returns to play with the Liberation Music Orchestra at the EFG London jazz festival at Cadogan Hall, London, on 20 November. Box office: 020-7730 4500.
