Steve Cardenas - Healing Power: The Music of Carla Bley '2022

Tracks list

Tracklist:

01. Ida Lupino
02. Donkey
03. And Now, The Queen
04. Ictus
05. Lawns
06. Ad Infinitum
07. Olhos De Gato
08. King Korn
09. Healing Power


 moreIn 2004, Cardenas was invited by Charlie Haden to join the newly
reformed Liberation Music Orchestra when Goodrick, who had been in the group
since 1982, had stopped touring a few years earlier. Cardenas toured that summer
with LMO and appeared on the group’s 2005 release, Not In Our Name.
Cardenas went on to join bassist Steve Swallow’s Quintet in 2009, with
Bley playing organ in the group. The result was several tours and a record (Into
The Woodwork) thus further solidifying Cardenas’s musical relationship
with Bley and Swallow.

The collective trio of Cardenas, Allison, and Nash came together in 2011 when
Allison was invited to play a concert in upstate New York. Allison thought it
would be a nice opportunity to explore the music of the legendary guitarist Jim
Hall with Cardenas and Nash. After a very inspiring performance, the three of
them continued to perform on occasion nationally and internationally.

The trio also found further inspiration in the Jimmy Giuffre drummer-less trio
that featured Hall. In 2015, Allison was invited to record an album for Newvelle
Records and thought it was good timing to document the trio’s repertoire
of Hall and Giuffre, which led to the release of Quiet Revolution. In early
2018, by way of an invitation to Ted Nash, the trio performed in Cuba. Nash
thought it would be fitting to perform music from West Side Story to commemorate
the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth. This inevitably led to the
trio recording Somewhere Else: West Side Story Songs later that year.

The music of Carla Bley straddles the musical sensibilities that this collective
trio has focused on for over a decade. In this regard, the trio’s
connection to the esthetic of Giuffre’s later trio, which featured Paul
Bley and Steve Swallow, is apparent as this version Giuffre’s
groundbreaking trios played many of Carla Bley’s compositions.

As the trio was deciding on which Bley compositions to record, one of the
considerations was to include music from Bley’s earlier, well-known tunes
with some later pieces that seemed to be less covered by many modern
interpreters. In June 2021, the trio convened at Matt Balitsaris’s
Maggie’s Farm studios in rural Pennsylvania to record Healing Power.

The recording begins with Bley’s beloved ballad, “Ida
Lupino,” possibly the composer’s most well-known piece and one that
Cardenas knew would be natural for the group, as the song seemed to arrange
itself with Nash and Cardenas alternating between the melody and counter lines.
Though Bley never recorded it herself, “Donkey” fits a strong
element of the trio’s abstract, blues-laced vibe. While the short, tonal
vignette “And Now, The Queen” allows a more open, conversational
collective improvisation. A poignant reading of “Ictus” sets a more
strident mood for individual improvisations, Nash’s abstract tenor solo
setting up a tremolo drenched guitar solo followed by Allison’s dynamic
bass.

The resonant “Lawns” is one of Bley’s most well-known songs
of the 1980s and seems to play itself. “Ad Infinitum” provides a
challenging 6/8 form and open harmonic changes for the trio to navigate, while
“Olhos de Gato” is a gorgeous and somber slow bossa where
Nash’s lush clarinet holds the melody. Originally written for tenor
colossus Sonny Rollins, “King Korn” allows the trio to focus on
their unique collective improvisational language. The recording concludes with
the title track, a slow, funky soul tune from Bley’s 1980s catalog that
has a warm and playful vibe.

Much can and should be spoken of when the topic of Carla Bley and her music
comes up. The transparent, healing feeling of her music is one of its
characteristics that keeps listeners and musicians returning to it. Steve
Cardenas, Ben Allison, and Ted Nash channel their own invigorating feeling into
Bley’s pieces on their new Healing Power. 

Steve Cardenas - guitar
Ben Allison - bass
Ted Nash - woodwinds

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