‘Utviklingssang’ is perfect, all gorgeous melody and abstraction, no words required. ‘Social Studies’ (also from 1981) thus became the first jazz album I ever bought, opening up a whole world I knew nothing about. It’s a Carla Bley album in all but name: her songs embellished with brilliant and witty arrangements.
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The novelist and musician Wesley Stace has a similar story: “Aged sixteen, and full only of rock and pop music, I came upon Carla Bley by chance through a Pink Floyd solo project, Nick Mason’s ‘Fictitious Sports,’ which I only bought because the vocals were by my favorite singer, Robert Wyatt, once of Soft Machine. From the first notes onward, I was never quite the same again. The deadly serious yet hilarious “Spangled Banner Minor and Other Patriotic Songs,” from that 1977 recording, celebrates and defaces several nationalistic themes, beginning with the American national anthem recast as Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata. (The two were married.) My small home-town library also had a copy of “The Carla Bley Band: European Tour 1977,” a superb disk of rowdy horn soloists carousing through instantly memorable Bley compositions and arrangements. I began listening to her in high school when I was enamored with the pianist Paul Bley, whose seminal nineteen-sixties LPs were filled with Carla Bley compositions.
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An important figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s, she is perhaps best known for her jazz opera Escalator over the Hill (released as a triple LP set), as well as a book of compositions that have been performed by many other artists, including Gary Burton, Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell, Art Farmer, John Scofield and her ex-husband Paul Bley.Įvery jazz fan knows the name of Carla Bley, but her relentless productivity and constant reinvention can make it difficult to grasp her contribution to music. Carla Bley: a life in MusicĬarla Bley (born Lovella May Borg, May 11, 1936) is an American jazz composer, pianist, organist and bandleader.
This ten-piece band toured in the 1980s and catches her iconoclastic reworking of gospel and big band jazz. From her sprawling jazz opera Escalator Over The Hill to her arrangements for Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, and from her Big Carla Bley Band to her trio with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bassist Steve Swallow, she has made her mark on all sizes of composition and ensemble. One of the finest and most productive of all female jazz instrumentalists, bandleaders and composers is Carla Bley. And subscribe to our social channels for news and music updates:Ĭarla Bley: The Top 25 pearls in Jazz history
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