Le Jazz Hot

I was playing "Musique Mechanique" in the car a few days ago. My partner Annette asked who it was and I told her the truth: it was indeed Carla Bley, a name that immediately brings up loathing in her spine. Bley's over the top, melodic rock-jazz-opera "Escalator Over The Hill" was on seemingly endless repeats when she shared a house with our friend Steve many years ago. Unfortunately, in between this he also played noisy improv by Bailey, Benninck, Frith et al and so the pain given by these masters of "tin cans down an alleyway" was mutated into a abhorrence of Bley as well. Mind you, hearing Escalator... more than once a month would probably drive me into an insane rage.

She looked puzzled for a minute or two and then asked me "If you hate jazz so much, why do you like this"? And that's a very good question to which I had no immediate answer [except some ridiculous guff I tried to make up on the spot, fooling myself that I knew all the reasons, even if I couldn't explain them verbally].

I do dislike jazz. There's no getting around that very basic fact. I think it's the displays of musical 'chops' that sticks in my guts so much - the self congratulatory smiles as the applause wells up yet again after another tiresome, lengthy solo; the condescending tone that the musicians and fans use for those who "just don't get it"; the reliance upon technique as the be-all and end-all to some sort of nirvana. However, I'm not too blinkered to know that there are jazz players who transcend the problems that I have with the genre. I can listen to them and understand why someone may want to stand up, clap their hands vigorously and show some appreciation. But overall their output still doesn't connect to me like other music does. I own a few Miles Davis releases and a Bill Evans Trio or two (and a few Bley and Mantler) but that's about it, really. I don't listen to them very often.

But I do own a lot of records where jazz tinges are added to the mix. The Pentangle are a prime example (or any other folk band / singer with Danny Thompson on bass, really). I dislike folk music almost as much as I dislike jazz but combine the two and I immediately fall for it. Pop + jazz: fantastic - Everything But The Girl at their highest career point made me swoon. All those 50's and 60's crooners like Sinatra, Martin and Julie London wouldn't exist at all if the music didn't have jazz elements. Jazz-rock: without The Soft Machine and early Henry Cow the shape of my own small creations would have been vastly different. My much-loved lounge music (Baxter, Esquivel, etc) is basically jazz that has been strictly controlled, flattened and parsed into easily digestible catch phrases. And that's exactly what I adore about it.

Carla Bley's music is a bit like this as well (or, at least, the 70s releases are). There's a weird, non-jazz quality to her writing that appeals to me. Maybe it's the addition of rock band elements that twist the music away from straight jazz. Maybe it's the strict control of orchestration that manages to get rid of the "free" elements of jazz which I find so annoying. Under the soloists there is still a big brass-laden band reading music and playing the notes exactly how she wants them to be played.

I can just imagine her with a ruler, whacking Gato Barbieri on the fingers if he dared to play one note longer than expected. He would answer simperingly "s-s-s-sorry Ms Bley. I won't do it again" and then blubber uncontrollably into his sax.