Escalator Over The Hill

[bertrand]

1) Which tracks does Don Cherry play on?

2) Which tracks does John McLaughlin play on?

3) Does Dewey Redman appear on this at all?

Thanks,

Bertrand.

[A Lark Ascending]

Details here:

http://www.discogs.com/Carla-Bley-Paul-Haines-Escalator-Over-The-Hill/release/4596661

[Hot Ptah]

Those details are not entirely correct. I have the original LP booklet.

For example, on "Rawalpindi Blues" , only the following musicians play on it: John McLaughlin--guitar, Carla Bley--organ, piano, Jack Bruce-bass, Paul Motian--drums. It sounds like a guitar power trio song with a little keyboard backing. It definitely does not feature the expanded ensemble in the details of the Discogs information.

[Rooster_Ties]

Doesn't Rawalpindi Blues flow into the next track? - which I believe does have Don Cherry. Either that, or else the "next track" that it appears to flow into, is in fact part of Rawalpindi Blues in the first place.

I do know that Don Cherry is on whatever immediately follows what I've always thought of as being Rawalpindi Blues.

Love Escalator (have since college, circa 1990), and I just had it on a couple days ago in fact. I usually go a least a full year between spins (sometimes two years), but whenever I hear it, I'm immediately taken back to the awful apartments I had back in college, where I used to spin Escalator the most.

Amazingly, I think EOTH was one of the first 50 or 60 jazz CD's I ever owned -- or certainly one of the first 100. As off the wall as it is, even I'm kind of surprised I took to it as much as I did. Probably helped that I had a musical-theater background (most during high-school and early in college, mostly in a couple dozen community theater productions).

Edited December 10, 2013 by Rooster_Ties

[Hot Ptah]

Here is how I hear it, and "Escalator Over the Hill" was also an early jazz purchase of mine, only because a copy was on sale at the used music store I was frequenting then..

Side 5 of the 3 LP set consists of "A.I.R. (All India Radio)", a piece dominated by Don Cherry and strings--it is exotic and Third World sounding, very appealing but like no other music I know.

Then there is a distinct piece, a rocking guitar power trio piece in the middle of Side 5, "Rawalpindi Blues", with McLaughlin, Bruce and Motian making like Cream, or a slightly stranger version of Cream.

Then the side ends with "End of Rawalpindi", a return to the sound of "All India Radio", with Don Cherry, the strings, and the exotic music again.

To me, it is like two pieces of very appealing World Music, with a late 1960s hard rock piece in the middle.

The listing in Discogs makes it seem like the World Music ensemble plays on the hard rock piece, and it does not.

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes, Rawalpindi Blues flows into the much calmer section I've always thought of as 'Desert Music'. They seem to be lumped together as one 12 minute + track in listings even though they are quite distinct with the rock quartet on the first part and the Cherry plus orchestra on the second.

'Rawalpindi Blues' and the earlier track 'Businessmen' has some of my favourite McLaughlin on any record. And Cherry is astounding both on pocket trumpet and vocal on that 'Desert Music' coda to 'Rawalpindi Blues'.

[i think 'End of Rawalpindi' was the start of side 6. Includes some reprising of material from across Side 5.]

Edited December 10, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[Rooster_Ties]

'Rawalpindi Blues' and the earlier track 'Businessmen' has some of my favourite McLaughlin on any record. And Cherry is astounding both on pocket trumpet and vocal on that 'Desert Music' coda to 'Rawalpindi Blues'.

Amen to all that!! Did Jack Bruce and John McLaughlin ever team up again on anything?? Devastating combo on those two tracks in particular.

[alankin]

I love the version of "A.I.R." that is on the Jan Garbarek - Bob Stenson Quartet's 1975 LP Witchi-Tai-To. (It also has a side-long version of Don Cherry's "Desireless".)

[7/4]

'Rawalpindi Blues' and the earlier track 'Businessmen' has some of my favourite McLaughlin on any record. And Cherry is astounding both on pocket trumpet and vocal on that 'Desert Music' coda to 'Rawalpindi Blues'.

Amen to all that!! Did Jack Bruce and John McLaughlin ever team up again on anything?? Devastating combo on those two tracks in particular.

Tony Williams Lifetime.

and

There's one track on John McLaughlin - Electric Guitarist, Are You the One? Are You the One? with Tony Williams.

and an unrecorded 1979 group with Stu Golddberg and Billy Cobham. There's a concert video of this floating around.

and...Spectrum Road.

[RogerF]

'Rawalpindi Blues' and the earlier track 'Businessmen' has some of my favourite McLaughlin on any record. And Cherry is astounding both on pocket trumpet and vocal on that 'Desert Music' coda to 'Rawalpindi Blues'.

I couldn't agree more with the above. I would also add that EOTH is probably one of my top ten or fifteen most favourite albums - the whole thing is just brilliant.

[A Lark Ascending]

I first heard it sometime in 1975 - a friend at uni bought it and we spent the afternoon trying to make sense of it. This was before I had any sense of wanting to listen to jazz though I was deeply into the Soft Machine/Henry Cow/Mahavishnu side of jazz-rock.

I'd lived in Singapore ten years previously - one of the things I recall from those early listenings was a real sense of deja vu for the Far East. A bit like when you catch a smell that throws you back to a place from long ago.

I recall being intrigued by the overture at the start which is very much in the world of inside-outside jazz - I'd say it was one of the recordings that broke the ground for my later turn to jazz. I remember being absorbed by Charlie Haden on that overture. By early next year I'd combined that experience with my enjoyment of some of the solo Jarrett records to take the plunge with 'Death and the Flower'. I always think of that as the record that sent me over the edge.

That friend also bought 'Tropic Appetites' which just deepened the fascination.

I find Carla Bley's music from the last 30 years far plainer and less involving than those recordings. She's never 'mainstream' but I miss the raggedness and the references way outside of American jazz culture.

Edited December 11, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[etherbored]

I always think of that as the record that sent me over the edge.

um, over the hill....

[Chuck Nessa]

I always think of that as the record that sent me over the edge.

um, over the hill....

there was a surprise over the hill. :-)

[John Litweiler]

There's a thrill upon the hill,

Let's go let's go let's go

[A Lark Ascending]

I always think of that as the record that sent me over the edge.

um, over the hill....

"Escalator Over The Edge" would have been an intriguing jazz-prog rock album. Followed up by "Close to the Hill" (more pastoral in approach).

[Rooster_Ties]

Did someone mention Andrew Hill?

[JSngry]

Andrew Over The Hill doesn't sound appropriate, best intentions aside.

[xybert]

[Chuck Nessa]

Questions like this can usually be answered by buying the damn recording!

[John Litweiler]

Chuck, it's better to listen to the recording.

[bertrand]

Apparently some people don't grasp the concept of a discographical inquiry.

Bertrand.

[mjzee]

'Rawalpindi Blues' and the earlier track 'Businessmen' has some of my favourite McLaughlin on any record. And Cherry is astounding both on pocket trumpet and vocal on that 'Desert Music' coda to 'Rawalpindi Blues'.

Amen to all that!! Did Jack Bruce and John McLaughlin ever team up again on anything?? Devastating combo on those two tracks in particular.

Tony Williams Lifetime.

and

There's one track on John McLaughlin - Electric Guitarist, Are You the One? Are You the One? with Tony Williams.

and an unrecorded 1979 group with Stu Golddberg and Billy Cobham. There's a concert video of this floating around.

and...Spectrum Road.

Thanks for the Spectrum Road link. It was fun to see McLaughlin and Bruce together again. Boy, is this a noisy band!

And two big minuses to YouTube for interrupting the video with commercials at random intervals.

[Luciano]

I think Don Cherry plays on: This Is Here...;  A. I. R. (All India Radio);  Rawalpindi Blues;   End Of Rawalpindi;   And It's Again

but, some years ago I found a site where someone suggests he plays also on:
Escalator Over The Hill      on piano, 
Stay Awake                        on celesta, organ, chimes
Businessmen                     on organ
Why,  It's Not What You Do, Detective Writer Daughter,  Smalltown Agonist, Over Her Head, Little Pony Soldier  all on piano
Oh Say Can You Do?        as Calliope
Holiday In Risk                  on piano

Is it correct?