The major new work on Carla Bley’s latest album is “The National Anthem”, a 21-minute fantasy on “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The timing of the disc’s release couldn’t have been worse, coming as the US swung into action against Iraq. These circumstances presumably lie behind the disclaimer on the back of the CD booklet: “The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the musicians in the band or the record company.” Actually, it’s hard to tell what views she is expressing here: the booklet itself is textless, featuring Patrick Hinely’s photo-documentary of the recording sessions and a few pertinent examples of Americana, including a John Wayne beach towel and a wall covered in evangelistic slogans: “THE LAST ROUND-UP! BE YE ALSO READY”; “JESUS IS RIGHT: ARE YOU LEFT?” The tone of the “National Anthem” suite itself is for the most part lightly ironic, with “OG Can UC?,” “Whose Broad Stripes?” and “Keep It Spangled” grooving along in a bouncy easygoing manner. “Flags” has a gentle parody of paradeground cheer, followed by a beautiful, churchy sequence with Gary Valente’s trombone shouting hallelujah (I can’t help thinking of James Weldon Johnson’s God’s Trombones). The mood darkens with Andy Sheppard’s tenor feature on “Anthem”; this is followed by a particularly inscrutable musical crux, a chaotic free-jazz interlude for the saxophones that ushers in a rendition of “O Canada”. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is stated in full at the end of the suite, rendered mostly straightforwardly but with a little harmonic tweaking. It swells to a climax that Bley then sidesteps: Valente roughly barks out “o’er the land of the free,” and the piece deflates to a pianissimo, unharmonized “and the home of the brave.” Make of that what you will!

The rest of the album is an interesting array of odds and ends from Bley’s workshop. The “Mothers” are four very short tracks left over from an abandoned full-scale project: one can only mourn its collapse, given the radiant mystery of these surviving offcuts. “Fast Lane” is a dizzy bop line; the other flagwaver is an unlikely reworking of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” The inclusion of the Latin ballad “Los Cocineros” and the droll Mexican pastiche “Tijuana Traffic” suggests that, as with the earlier glimpse of “O Canada,” Bley wishes to underline that “America” as a continent is more than just the United States.

Less coherent than Bley’s previous big band outing (the fine Goes to Church), more dependent on the listener’s sympathy with her brand of irony and pastiche, Looking for America is nonetheless a thought-provoking and enjoyable album.

Nate Dorward

Cadence, October 2003