(ECM, Vocal Jazz, Modern Jazz, Chamber) [WEB] Karen Mantler - Business Is Bad - 2014, FLAC (tracks), lossless

You might not know it, but somewhere between pop and jazz lies a quirky alcove and if you dare to go there, you’ll find Karen Mantler thriving.
Composer, vocalist, pianist and harmonica player Mantler has impeccable pedigree: the offspring of elite avant-jazz composers and band leaders Michael Mantler and Carla Bley, Mantler has shown the adventurous nature of her parents, but at the same time finds inspiration from classic pop and show tune composers who preceded them.
Business Is Bad is Mantler’s first album in fourteen years, following a spurt of activity that begun with a trilogy of albums themed around her cat Arnold, and a fourth one that used the search for a new pet as its unifying topic. Mantler used an electric band and a bank of backing vocals to shape the sound of these recordings, and her dry, deadpan humor made these records goofy fun that get by on charm, wit and an ear for melody; America’s answer to Robert Wyatt, if you will. That’s no wild claim, either: she was a collaborator with Wyatt for his superb Cuckooland album.
Business strips down the accompaniment down to herself on piano and harmonica, Kato Hideki on acoustic bass and Doug Wieselman on guitar and bass clarinet, and Mantler isn’t singing about domesticated animals anymore. But nothing else has changed about her, she is still a master at spinning first-person narratives about little situations and getting straight to the emotional heart of them without getting overly emotional about them. Mantler is no crooner, but crooning would ruin her songs. Her dispassionate delivery brings authenticity to the lyrics by not trying too hard to be convincing.
Coy, unpredictable lyrical turns are found everywhere: her English lines are followed by the spoken French equivalent ones, and the roles are reversed, suggesting she’s learning to “Speak French.” The profane word dropped on “Catch As Catch Can” might arch an eyebrow in this setting, but is there really a more natural way to express sympathy with homeless people who want to hunt for game in the park and make it rhyme with “duck”?
Elsewhere, Mantler tries to cope with inconveniences big and small, from staving off bankruptcy (“Business Is Bad”) to facing insurmountable legal fees (“I Can’t Afford My Lawyer”) and pouting about a flight delayed due to volcanic activity in the path (“That Damn Volcano”).
Proving she doesn’t lean too heavily on humor to make her songs appealing, Mantler puts wit aside for the somber numbers “Wintertime,” and “Surviving You,” and brilliant, polished melodies remain. Even lyrics are largely put aside for “My Solo,” where she readily admits, “I find it hard to improvise” before doing just that on harmonica. The best improvising moment, however, might be from Wieselman’s Eric Dolphy wails during the instrumental break on “Volcano”.
As a collection of children’s songs for grown-ups, Business Is Bad would be terribly silly if it wasn’t so damned inconspicuously clever. Thankfully, it is clever, and marks the return of Karen Mantler after nearly a decade and a half off without skipping a beat. (S. Victor Aaron)

It's been nearly two decades since Karen Mantler last released an album under her own name on the XtraWATT label belonging to her similarly coifed mother, pianist/composer Carla Bley, but she's been anything but idle. Work on Bley albums like Appearing Nightly (Watt, 2008), recordings by father Michael Mantler like Folly Seeing All This (ECM, 1993), and sessions with fellow singer/songwriter Robert Wyatt have dovetailed with the singer/pianist/harmonicist's collaborations with the Golden Palominos and Hal Wilner, as well as her own Pet Projects (Virgin, 2000), the final instalment in a series of albums about her cat, that began with My Cat Arnold (XtraWATT, 1988), Karen Mantler and Her Cat Arnold Get the Flu (XtraWATT, 1990) and Farewell (XtraWATT, 1996). All this, along with teaching, busking and other life experiences have made Business is Bad an album that speaks to the human condition with rare informality, refreshing honesty and a complete lack of naval-gazing, its lighthearted approach to the music seeming, at times, to be paradoxical to the subject matter; still, it remains completely endemic to Mantler's longstanding approach.
From hungry street people in New York's Central Park catching and eating everything from squirrels and frogs to ducks and rabbits ("Catch as Catch Can"), dealing with the loss of a friend ("Surviving You") and bill collectors ("Business is Bad"), to bad legal support ("I Can't Afford My Lawyer"), the challenges of bilingualism ("Speak French"), volcanic travel disruptions ("That Damn Volcano") and the trials and tribulations of songwriting ("My Magic Pen"), Business is Bad is the most intimate album of Mantler's career. Supported only by ex-Lounge Lizards guitarist/bass clarinetist Doug Wieselman and, back from Pet Projects, bassist Kato Hideki, Mantler echoes Robert Wyatt's stream-of-consciousness approach to songwriting, where a song's kernel can run from the tragic to the banal.
Mantler opines about the perils of improvisation on the tango-esque "My Solo," a song of near-haiku lyric brevity:
"Here is a song
that features me
on harmonica.
If I had words
I would sing,
not play a solo.
All I can do
is try my best.
Hope I don't get lost.
I find it hard
to improvise."
And yet, at nearly seven minutes, Mantler manages to assuage any qualms about her improvisational capabilities, layering spare harmonica lines over her supporting piano, with Hideki holding down the pulse and Wieseman providing a combination of color, rhythmic support ...and the occasional spartan but impressive solo of his own.
As much as Business is Bad is about generally unpleasant subjects, Mantler leaves a brief message at the end of the CD booklet that's hopeful: "Business Bad, Music Good." It's a message that she needn't have articulated explicitly; with Mantler's calm, almost detached vocal delivery and music that is often a paradoxically beautiful contrast to the subject at hand, Business is Bad may, indeed, be about bad things but it feels oh so good. (John Kelman)

To read through Karen Mantler's hilarious biography on XTRA Watt's website, her life from the very beginning has been...unusual. Conceived by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler at the 1965 Newport Jazz Festival, as an infant she was placed under her mother's piano while she performed, and made her recording debut at the age of four on Escalator Over the Hill. Mantler has worked as a bandleader, live, and session player (with Robert Wyatt, Motohiko Hino, and the Golden Palominos, no less), musical transcriber, label boss, street musician, and coffee server. As a leader her four previous records comprised an 11-year cycle that revolved around her pet cat, his death, and her search for a replacement that began in 1989 with My Cat Arnold and ended with Karen Mantler's Pet Project in 2000, all of which melded progressive jazz and sophisticated avant-pop. Despite its title and the smallest lineup she has ever fronted (she's singing and playing piano and harmonica, accompanied by bassist Kato Hideki and Doug Wieselman on bass clarinet and guitar). Business Is Bad may be the record that reaches the largest audience. These songs are no less idiosyncratic or musically refined, but sparser arrangements and warm, spacious production frame her lyrics and melodies in such a way as to render them more accessible. The focus here is on the direct interplay between lyric and melody, yet her wry humor and honesty remain ever present. "Catch as Catch Can" opens on a deep bluesy note as it address the plight of the homeless and hungry, living in parks and eating when and what they can. Her delivery is dispassionate, thus making the lyric more poignant: "There are hungry people in the park, and they need to eat...There are too many geese anyway/You could eat one every day..What the fuck?/ Catch a duck/Spear a fish on a stick...What's the big deal?"
"My Magic Pencil (Wrote This Melody)" plays on bossa nova in the same way Tom Jobim did on "One Note Samba," with a metatextual lyric. The album's middle contains two fine ballads: "Wintertime" and "Surviving You" are quietly elegant songs that use humor more subtly; they reveal the influence of songwriters such as Harry Warren, Harold Arlen, Jimmy Van Heusen, et al. The title track recalls later Blossom Dearie and features a swinging bass clarinet break from Wieselman. (He also delivers a wailing solo on the more musically labyrinthine closer "That Damn Volcano.") On "My Solo," Mantler employs a lovely tango melody to tell us she cannot improvise, then proceeds to do exactly that on the harmonica with a gracefulness that recalls Toots Thielemans. Business Is Bad marks a welcome return for Mantler; if anything, she's only gotten better so it serves as a signature work. But for those who've never encountered her before, the album might prove a quiet revelation. (Thom Jurek)