''I Hate to Sing'' is a live album by American composer, bandleader and keyboardist Carla Bley recorded at the

Great American Music Hall The Great American Music Hall is a concert hall in San Francisco, California. It is located on O'Farrell Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood on the same block as the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. It is known for its decorative balconies ...

in 1981 (at the same concerts that produced '' Live!'') combined with three tracks recorded at Grog Kill Studios in 1983 and released on the Watt/ECM label in 1984.Carla Bley discography
accessed August 3, 2010

Reception

The

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

review by Stacia Proefrock awarded the album 2½ stars and stated "here the airy, goofy tone seems to be the only thing holding the album together. Fans of the Carla Bley Band will appreciate the group's jovial performance and loose, swinging style, but this is little more than a novelty album".Proefrock, S.

Allmusic Review AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

accessed August 3, 2010 The

Penguin Guide to Jazz ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled b ...

awarded the album 2 stars. The ''

JazzTimes ''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store. Coverage After a decade of growt ...

'' review by Willard Jenkins said "There's a comic, antic quality afoot here-and isn't that what one expects from Bley in regular doses? The dose is over the top here, particularly on the title track. Certain band members, including the boss, take turns letting the listener know in no uncertain terms why they are instrumentalists and not singers. Dissonant voices collide with dissonant chords on track one, anchored by Steve Swallow's distinctive electric bass on "The Internationale." This one is perhaps even more madcap than usual because of the confluence of flat, non-singing singers balanced with a sort of Germanic romanticism that in places would have brought a smile to Kurt Weill".Jenkins, W
''I Hate to Sing'' Review
''

'', May, 1997

Track listing

All compositions by Carla Bley. # "The Internationale" - 5:58 # "Murder" - 3:57 # "Very Very Simple" - 6:47 # "I Hate to Sing" - 8:22 # "The Piano Lesson" - 6:08 # "The Lone Arranger" - 9:06 # "Battleship" - 7:53 *Recorded at the Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, California on August 19–21, 1981 (tracks 1-4) and at Grog Kill Studio, Willow, New York on January 11–13, 1983 (tracks 5-7).

Personnel

* Carla Bley - organ, glockenspiel,

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

(track 3),

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

(tracks 2 & 3) *

Michael Mantler Michael Mantler (born August 10, 1943) is an Austrian avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer of contemporary music. Career: United States Mantler was born in Vienna, Austria. In the early 1960s, he was a student at the Academy of Music and V ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

* Steve Slagle - alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet, voice (track 6) *

Tony Dagradi Anthony Arnold "Tony" Dagradi (born September 22, 1952) is an American jazz saxophonist. Biography Dagradi was born in New York City, and began playing alto saxophone when he was eight years old. In his professional career, he has primarily play ...

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while ...

Vincent Chancey Vincent Chancey (born February 4, 1950) is an American jazz hornist. Early life and education Chancey was born and raised in Chicago. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from the SIUC School of Music in 1973 and studied under Julius W ...

french horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

Gary Valente Gary Valente (born June 26, 1953) is a jazz trombonist. Early life Valente was born on June 26, 1953, in Worcester, Massachusetts. He started playing the trombone as a young child, encouraged by his father, who played the same instrument. In the ...

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

, voice (track 6) *

Earl McIntyre Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particular ...

tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

(track 1) * Arturo O'Farrill - piano, organ (track 3) *

Steve Swallow Steve Swallow (born October 4, 1940) is an American jazz bassist and composer, known for his collaborations with Jimmy Giuffre, Gary Burton, and Carla Bley. He was one of the first jazz double bassists to switch entirely to electric bass guitar. ...

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, voice (track 6), drums (track 4) *D. Sharpe - drums, voice (track 4)

References

{{Authority control ECM Records live albums Carla Bley live albums 1984 live albums