''Looking for America'' is an album by American composer, bandleader and keyboardist Carla Bley recorded in 2002 and released on the Watt/ECM label in 2003.Carla Bley discography
accessed August 12, 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 Thom Jurek awarded the album 4 stars and stated "''Looking for America'' is a fun, innovative, and indefatigable album by one of the true geniuses in modern jazz".Jurek, T.

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 12, 2010 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 Harvey Siders said "Inevitably, sardonic wit pervades her search on ''Looking for America'' as fragments of "

The Star-Spangled Banner "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the b ...

" materialize-dreamlike, impressionistically and, above all, whimsically-throughout the CD".Siders, H
''Looking for America'' Review
''

'', June, 2003 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 it 3⅓ stars stating "As an exploration of Americana, this is a fine and fun album".

Track listing

All compositions by Carla Bley except where noted. # "Grand Mother" - 0:53 # "The National Anthem: OG Can UC?/Flags/Whose Broad Stripes?/Anthem/Keep It Spangled" - 21:49 # "Step Mother" - 3:18 # "Fast Lane" - 5:17 # "Los Cocineros" - 10:57 # "Your Mother" - 1:41 # "Tijuana Traffic" - 8:05 # "God Mother" - 1:27 # "

Old MacDonald Had a Farm "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" (sometimes shortened to Old MacDonald) is a traditional children's song and nursery rhyme about a farmer and the various animals he keeps. Each verse of the song changes the name of the animal and its respective noise ...

" (Traditional) - 6:15 :*Recorded at Avatar Studios, New York, NY on October 7 & 8, 2002.

Personnel

* Carla Bley -

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 ...

, conductor * Earl Gardner,

Lew Soloff Lewis Michael Soloff (February 20, 1944–March 8, 2015) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and actor. Biography From his birth place of New York City, United States, he studied trumpet at the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard Sc ...

, Byron Stripling, Giampaolo Casati -

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 ...

Robert Routch The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...

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 ...

(tracks 1, 3, 6 & 8) *

Jim Pugh Jim Pugh (born February 5, 1964) is a former professional tennis player from the United States. He grew up in Palos Verdes, California and at age 10 began taking tennis lessons from John Hillebrand. He played tennis at UCLA. He became a doubl ...

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 ...

, Dave Bargeron -

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 ...

* David Taylor - bass trombone * Lawrence Feldman - alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute * Wolfgang Puschnig - alto saxophone, flute *

Andy Sheppard Andy Sheppard (born 20 January 1957) is a British jazz saxophonist and composer. He has been awarded several prizes at the British Jazz Awards, and has worked with some notable figures in contemporary jazz, including Gil Evans, Carla Bley, ...

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 ...

* Gary Smulyan - baritone saxophone * Karen Mantler - organ, glockenspiel *

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 ...

Billy Drummond Willis Robert "Billy" Drummond Jr. (born June 19, 1959) is an American jazz drummer. Early life Billy Drummond was born in Newport News, Virginia, where he grew up listening to the extensive jazz record collection of his father, an amateur dr ...

- drums *

Don Alias Charles "Don" Alias (December 25, 1939 in New York City – March 28, 2006 in New York City) was an American jazz percussionist. Alias was best known for playing congas and other hand drums. He was, however, a capable drum kit performer: for ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

References

{{Authority control ECM Records albums Carla Bley albums 2003 albums