Carla Bley

Sextet is the 1987 album on which Carla Bley worked with a compact group of six and played organ, leaving the piano to another musician. Six of her own compositions, written and arranged for a band with piano, guitar and percussion, give the record a relaxed, warm surface. Each piece runs between six and seven and a half minutes, long enough for full solos without losing the shape of the tune.

The band is Steve Swallow on bass, Hiram Bullock on guitar, Larry Willis on piano, Victor Lewis on drums and Don Alias on percussion. It was recorded and mixed by Doug Epstein at Grog Kill Studio in Willow, New York, in December 1986 and January 1987, and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound. Bley and Swallow produced it, with Michael Mantler as general coordinator. It followed Night-Glo of 1985, and the same sessions also produced Swallow's album Carla.

Handing the piano to Willis lets Bley colour the music from the organ, adding sustained chords and, on parts of Houses and People, synthesizer bass. More Brahms opens the album at an easy pace, with Willis's comping setting a dusky, twilight mood under the solos. The Girl Who Cried Champagne, one of her best-known tunes, rides a Latin rhythm from the piano while organ and guitar shimmer above it. On Brooklyn Bridge Bullock moves to bass and Alias's percussion marks time, and Lawns gives Swallow a long, lyrical bass solo.

Tyran Grillo reviewed it on ECM Reviews in 2020. He heard Bley and Swallow at the centre of the record, "essentially a duo whose not-so-hidden thoughts are spun outward by the other musicians". He also noted the album's breeziness, born of "confident left turns". Swallow's Carla, made with the same core group, is the natural companion to this record. A year later the two went further and recorded Duets for WATT.

This is the CD edition of WATT/17 (ECM 831 697-2), released in March 1987 on WATT. Bley and Mantler founded the label in the early 1970s for their own music, and ECM manufactures and distributes it.