Carla Bley Escalator Over The Hill CD

ESCALATOR OVER THE HILL is a jazz/rock musical. Included with the 2 discs are complete cast personnel listings, script and black and white photographs.
Principal Cast: Carla Bley (Leader, Mutant, Voice, Desert Women), Jack Bruce (Jack, Parrot), Don Cherry (Sand Shepherd), Linda Ronstadt (Ginger), Jeanne Lee (Ginger II), Paul Jones (David), Don Preston (Doctor, Lion), Viva (Viva), Tod Papageorge (Cecil Clark), Charlie Haden, Steve Ferguson (His Friends), Bill Leonard (Calliope Bill).
Orchestra (& Hotel Lobby Band): Carla Bley (piano); Jimmy Lyons (alto saxophone); Gato Barbieri (tenor saxophone); Chris Woods (baritone saxophone); Michael Mantler, Enrico Rava (trumpet); Roswell Rudd, Sam Burtis, Jimmy Knepper (trombone); Jack Jeffers (bass trombone); Bob Carlisle, Sharon Freeman (French horn); John Buckingham (tuba); Nancy Newton (viola); Karl Berger (vibraphone); Charlie Haden (bass); Paul Motian (drums); Roger Dawson (congas); Bill Morimando (orchestra bells, celeste).
Jack's Traveling Band: Carla Bley (organ); John McLaughlin (guitar); Jack Bruce (bass); Paul Motian (drums).
Desert Band: Carla Bley (organ); Don Cherry (trumpet); Souren Baronian (clarinet); Leroy Jenkins (violin); Calo Scott (cello); Sam Brown (guitar); Ron McClure (bass); Paul Motian (dumbec).
Original Hotel Amateur Band: Carla Bley (piano); Michael Snow (trumpet); Michael Mantler (valve trombone); Howard Johnson (tuba); Perry Robinson, Peggy Imig (clarinet); Nancy Newton (viola); Richard Youngstein (bass); Paul Motian (drums).
Phantom Music: Carla Bley (organ, celeste, chimes, calliope); Michael Mantler (prepared piano); Don Preston (Moog synthesizer).
Engineers include: Ray Hall, Jom Crotty, Pat Martin.
Recorded at RCA Recording Studios, Empirical Sound and Butterfly Mobile Sound Van, New York, New York between November 1968 and June 1971.
At the time, this was probably the longest jazz-generated work in existence (its length has since been exceeded by recent pieces like Wynton Marsalis' Blood On the Fields), a massive, messy, all-encompassing, all-star ego trip that nevertheless gave Carla Bley an immense cachet of good will among the avant-garde. Bley and librettist Paul Haines called it a "chronotransduction," whatever that means. The critics called it a jazz opera -- which it isn't. Escalator is, however, very much of its time, a late-'60s attempt to let a thousand flowers bloom and indulge in every trendy influence that Bley could conceive. There is rock music, early synthesizer and ring modulator experiments, the obligatory Indian section, repeated outbreaks of Weimar Republic cabaret in 3/4 time that both mock and revere European tradition. The incomprehensible "libretto" and a good deal of the lugubrious writing for big band amount to a textbook of avant-garde pretension. And yet sometimes this unwieldy hash pulls itself together -- the woolly, somber, sectional "Hotel Overture" with avant-squeal solos from clarinetist Perry Robinson and the young Gato Barbieri in all his Wild Bull of the Pampas glory, the clear voice of Linda Ronstadt brightening up a song called "Why," Don Cherry's clarion trumpet work, the power trio of John McLaughlin, Jack Bruce and Paul Motian rumbling energetically away amidst the Indian structures of "Rawalpindi Blues." Originally released on three LPs, an almost unheard-of extravagance in 1971, today this giant relic fits comfortably on two CDs. Yet the hard-to-find LP version does have an advantage, for the work concludes with an endless windy drone via one of those locked run-out grooves, an effect that obviously cannot be transferred to a CD, which shuts off automatically. ~ Richard S. Ginell
This two-hour-plus opus is billed as "a chronotransduction." With music by Carla Bley and lyrics/text are by Paul Haines, the project was recorded over nearly three years (1968-1971) in several locations and with nearly a hundred people involved in one way or another (musicians, singers, speakers). Thos