Not screaming and strutting or popping buttons and groaning. It’s about real humans, serious and mature and wrinkled, and real love.
It’s not a Hollywood Barbie and Ken Get It On scene. It’s a voyeuristic experience, watching this couple making musical love. He is a full partner in making the music. First of all, he’s more of an instrumentalist than Carla. But when you actually listen, you see that he more than holds his own. And the fact that Carla is such a strong composer (and imposing figure) that she might seem to ‘wear the pants’ (jeez, you can probably get arrested today for using that phrase) in the relationship. It’s true that the bass traditionally and by nature provides support for a lead instrument. Her partner Steve Swallow eschewed the double bass for an electric bass in the late 1960s, a pioneering move for a progressive jazz musician.
But she is first and foremost a singular composer of elusive, intriguing, beautiful songs. She’s a character, a dynamo, hilarious and wacky and imposing. I’ve watched this clip of ‘Lawns’ maybe 30 times in the last month. You can watch this clip of Carla Bley and her partner Steve Swallow playing her composition ‘Lawns’, and witness as true an expression of love as can be made through music.You can look at the picture of Carla Bley, say to yourself “Well, she just looks silly”, click Delete and spend the next seven minutes listening to a digital organ play Chinese torture music while you wait on the phone to make an appointment for the orthodontist.
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