Name: Escalator Over The Hill
Brand: Carla Bley

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

8393102

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2020-04-03

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Proper

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

42283931022

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Total Cap

2 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Carla Bley

Genre GB

Jazz

Label GB

ECM Records, also known as "The Creative Label," is a German independent label that was co-founded by producer Manfred Eicher, Manfred Scheffner, and Karl Egger in Munich (Pasing) in 1969. With the label code LC 2516 / LC 02516, ECM stands for Edition of Contemporary Music and focuses on jazz and Western classical music. They showcase both acoustic and electronic artists who produce eclectic versions of contemporary music.

ECM's extensive catalog features a wide range of genres, from contemporary works by renowned composers like Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt, and Philip Glass to experimental and electronic jazz from artists such as Nils Petter Molvær, Pat Metheny Group, and Jan Garbarek. Over the past 40+ years, ECM has released more than 1500 recordings that have been acclaimed for their exceptional music quality, creative production techniques, and outstanding sound.

Although an independent label, ECM titles are distributed by Universal Music Group (UMG) in the US, Japan, and throughout Europe. However, they have also collaborated with other distributors over the years. Notably during the period when Polydor distributed ECM products in Germany; [l447694] was used for pressing identified by a CP suffix on labels and runouts. Afterward,[l25946] became their primary distributor.

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. 

Escalator Over The Hill

Music GB