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- Artist: Carla Bley and Paul Haines
- Rating:
- Release Date: 1968 11 -1971 06
- Total Time: 120:22
- Type: Instrumental
- Genre: Jazz
Review
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. Yet the hard-to-find LP version does have an advantage, for the work concludes with an endless windy drone via one of those locked run-out grooves, an effect that obviously cannot be transferred to a CD, which shuts off automatically. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music GuideTracks
CD 1
| Track Title | Composers | Performers | Time |
| Hotel Overture | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (13:12) |
| This Is Here.... | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (6:02) |
| Like Animals | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (1:21) |
| Escalator over the Hill | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (4:57) |
| Stay Awake | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (1:31) |
| Ginger and David | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (1:39) |
| Song to Anything That Moves | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (2:22) |
| Eoth Theme | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (:35) |
| Businessmen | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (5:38) |
| Ginger and David Theme | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (:57) |
| Why | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (2:19) |
| It's Not What You Do | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (:17) |
| Detective Writer Daughter | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (3:16) |
| Doctor Why | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (1:28) |
| Slow Dance | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (1:50) |
| Smalltown Agonist | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (5:24) |
CD 2
| Track Title | Composers | Performers | Time |
| End of Head | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (:38) |
| Over Her Head | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (2:38) |
| Little Pony Soldier | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (4:36) |
| Oh Say Can You Do? | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (1:11) |
| Holiday in Risk | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (3:10) |
| Holiday in Risk Theme | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (:52) |
| A.I.R. [All India Radio] | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (3:58) |
| Rawalpindi Blues | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (12:44) |
| End of Rawalpindi | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (9:40) |
| End of Animals | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (1:26) |
| ...And It's Again | Carla Bley, Paul Haines | Carla Bley | (27:17) |
