Carla Bley & Paul Haines

The Profile

Collaborative team behind the 1971 jazz-opera Escalator Over the Hill: music by Carla Bley with texts by Paul Haines.

Escalator Over the Hill (1971) is a large-scale, genre-blending project involving a wide ensemble; the original production credits include Michael Mantler (producer). The work mixes jazz, classical references, rock, psychedelia and non-Western elements.

The available review treats Escalator Over the Hill as an ambitious, eclectic summation of 20th-century styles. It highlights the album's fusion of jazz, classical (including references to dodecaphony), opera/theater, rock, psychedelia and Indian music. The reviewer praises its scope and imagery while noting its intellectualized, maximalist tendencies. The review gives the album a middling score (3/5).