Details

Track Listing 1. Blues In Twelve Bars / Blues In Twelve Other Bars 2. Sidewinders in Paradise 3. Les Trois Lagons (D'Apres Henri Matisse): Plate XVII / Plate XVIII / Plate XIX 4. Baseball 5. Utviklingssang
Album Notes Personnel: Carla Bley (piano); Wolfgang Puschnig (alto saxophone); Andy Sheppard (tenor saxophone); Lew Soloff (trumpet); Gary Valente (trombone); Larry Goldings (organ); Steve Swallow (bass); Victor Lewis (drums). Recorded at Rainbow Studio, Oslo, Norway in July 1999. Includes liner notes by Carla Bley. 4X4 is Carla Bley's attempt to create music for a sort of stripped-down big band. The eight players on board include four horns (trumpet, trombone, and alto and tenor saxophones), organ bass, drums, and Bley herself on piano. The combination allows for a nicely varied approach to scoring, with the organ and the horns creating rolling textures under and around the rhythm section. As always, Bley's material is full of wit and invention. Bley recorded birdsong onto a cassette tape of Lee Morgan's "Sidewinder," only partially erasing the underlying music. "Sidewinders in Paradise" combines the twitter of birds with Morgan's rhythmic figure. "Le Trois Lagons" was commissioned to evoke the mood of Henri Matisse's cutouts from his JAZZ book. 4X4 is another delightful visit with Bley.
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