Monday, November 30, 2009

Carla's Christmas Carols (Berlin 2008)

Since it's that time of the year again, here's some seasonal music by Carla Bley. I just recently saw her live with The Lost Chords - fantastic concert!

Her carols have also been released officially on ECM - here's a review by John Fordham in the Guardian. I have the disc on order, can't say anything about it yet.

This of course comes a day after the disgraceful win of the right wingnuts and their fear mongery. I don't care that much for x-mas (and Christianity in general - they had a hard struggle to fit themselves to the enlightenment, but I guess after all if they wouldn't have tried, on the long term, enlightenment rather than christianity would have gone under, so thanks for that...), but this year seems particularly bad. The whole commercial crap has already began two weeks ago, ugly lights all over the city, and yesterday they had their Santa parade through Bahnhofstrasse, with a marching band tearing through "Jingle Bells" and lots of kiddies with light sabers and other crap... yuk yuk yuk!
I had to pass them on my way to catch "From Russia With Love" on the big screen once again, one of my favourite Bonds. And yes indeed, it's nice to catch some lightweight films after the heavy stuff by Miklos Jancso that I've seen recently!
Anyway, so we all love x-mas and x-mas loves us and we love each other etc - for that occasion, here's some nice music for y'all...



Carla Bley Plays Christmas Carols
Berlin (Germany), Passionskirche
December 4, 2008 (MP2)

Carla Bley - piano, arrangements, leader
Steve Swallow - bass
Tobias Weidinger - trumpet, Glockenspiel
Axel Schlosser - trumpet
Christine Chapman - french horn
Adrian Mears - trombone
Ed Partyka - bass trombone, tuba

1. O Tannenbaum (2:23)
2. Silent Night And Day (8:35)
3. Jingle Bells (3:22)
4. The Christmas Song (5:25)
5. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (5:35)
6. O Holy Night - Joy To The World (8:29)
7. God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen (9:46)
8. O Come To Bethlehem, All Ye Faithful (5:53)

TT: 49:28

Sound: A
Source: DVB-S@320, 48kHz > raw data > ProjextX > mp3DirectCut > mp2
(lossy recording seeded in its original broadcast codec)
at

8 comments:

  1. ubuNovember 30, 2009 5:29 pm

    MP2 (tagged) + info:

    http://rapidshare.com/files/314062013/Carla_Bley_-_Plays_Christmas_Carols_2008-12-04_Berlin__320_.rar

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  2. ivanDecember 01, 2009 3:53 pm

    Great music, thanks so much !!
    --ivan

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  3. UnknownDecember 01, 2009 7:29 pm

    What a coincidence I just attended the "Lost Chordes" concert in Geneva where Carla and Steve played a few songs from "Carlas Christmas Carols".
    Thanks for this music!
    renrew

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  4. NickSDecember 02, 2009 2:37 pm

    Thanks very much, UBU. I'm kind of a sucker for good Christmas music and this, for me, is really good Christmas music.

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  5. yotteDecember 03, 2009 11:50 am

    This is really great (really). I wish I had more Xmas music as interesting and enjoyable as this. Lotsa folks are gonna get this in their stockings this year. THANKS ubu!

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  6. zeca74December 11, 2009 11:04 pm

    Thanks very much. Far and away the best Christmas jazz album I've ever heard.

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  7. BorisBeckhamDecember 23, 2009 6:29 am

    thanks a lot UBU
    this is a little livelier than the official WATT release (which is also great)
    what a great christmass!
    first dylan, then carla...
    who's next?
    evan parker's starting to look a bit like santa these days, but you can't get him to play carols...

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  8. ubuDecember 23, 2009 9:20 am

    Ha, Evan Parker doing x-mas music - hilarious! Thanks for the morning laugh!

    Maybe John Surman could do some olde english traditional songs, he appeared on a beautiful John Dowland disc on ECM's New Series.

    I guess he'd be able to create something similarly unique and beautiful as Carla Bley did!

    Btw, "Oh Holy Night" and "Joy to the World" from the CD were taken from the Berlin concert.

    ReplyDelete