![]() She also worked a great deal with the bassist Steve Swallow, in duo and in ensembles of varying size.īley wrote the music for the soundtrack to the 1985 film Mortelle Randone. The JCOA essentially folded in the late '80s, but Bley's creative life continued mostly unabated as she maintained a midsized big band with fairly stable personnel to tour and record. ![]() ![]() In the '70s and '80s, Bley continued to run the JCOA and compose and record for her own Watt label. In 1971, she completed the work that cemented her reputation, the jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill. Bley composed and arranged music in 1969 for Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra. In 1967, vibraphonist Gary Burton's quartet recorded Bley's cycle of tunes A Genuine Tong Funeral, which brought her to the attention of the general public for the first time. Two years later, Bley helped found the Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association, a nonprofit organization designed to present, distribute, and produce unconventional forms of jazz. In 1964, with her second husband, trumpeter Michael Mantler, Bley formed the Jazz Composer's Guild Orchestra, which a year later became known simply as the Jazz Composer's Orchestra. She married pianist Paul Bley, for whom she began to write tunes (she also wrote for George Russell and Jimmy Giuffre). She moved to New York around 1955, where she worked as a cigarette girl and occasional pianist. Along with her many large-ensemble works, she regularly collaborated in a trio with bassist Steve Swallow, and saxophonist Andy Sheppard, issuing albums like 2013's Trios, 2016's Andando el Tiempo, and 2020's Life Goes On.īorn Carla Borg in 1936 in Oakland, California, Bley learned the fundamentals of music as a child from her father, a church musician. Bley worked with a host of free-jazz icons - including Pharaoh Sanders, Steve Lacy, and Peter Brotzmann, among others - and composed challenging genre-bending works into the 21st century. She was a founder of the Jazz Composers' Orchestra and her long-form jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill stands as a distinct stylistic signpost of the era. She initially emerged as a composer, working closely with pianist Paul Bley, as well as progressive artists like George Russell and Jimmy Giuffre. A highly regarded pianist, composer, and arranger, Carla Bley was at the forefront of avant-garde jazz and modern creative music beginning in the 1960s.
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