CARLA BLEY
Avant-jazz innovator (1936–2023)
AN audacious jazz opera that took four years to complete, 1971’s Escalator Over The Hill was symptomatic of Carla Bley’s tireless sense of exploration and ambition. The American pianist devised the triple album as a repository for a wealth of styles – free jazz, raga, rock’n’roll, electronica, European theatre music, spoken word and more – united by her formal conceptual vision. It involved an enormous cast of diverse players, including Jack Bruce, Linda Ronstadt, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, John Mclaughlin, Warhol starlet Viva and Bley’s then husband, Michael Mantler. “It takes a long time to listen to,” she told writer Dan Ouellette in 2019. “It’s insane. Insane is good!”
By the time of the record’s release, Bley’s reputation as a composer was formidable, her pieces having been recorded by the likes of George Russell, Jimmy Giure, Art Farmer, Gary Burton and ex-husband Paul Bley, the latter pair cutting albums made entirely from her material. She and Mantler also founded the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, performing avant-jazz in a big band set-up. “Living composers writing for big band are very few and far between,” she explained. “I am zeroing in on what I do best.” This, in turn, led to the formation of the couple’s JCOA label.
Reunited with Escalator Over The Hill lyricist Paul Haines, Bley’s Tropic Appetites (1974) was the rst of over two dozen albums as bandleader, with Julie Tippetts on lead vocals. Five years later she enlisted Robert Wyatt to sing on Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports. The Pink Floyd drummer’s solo debut, co-produced by Bley, was made up of songs she’d written for her irreverent post-punk band, Penny Cillin And The Burning Sensation.
One of Bley’s most enduring collaborators was double bassist Charlie Haden. Her expansive arrangements on 1969’s Liberation Music Orchestra were deemed “miracles of dynamics” by critic Lester Bangs. This professional association continued through to 2016’s Time/life, mostly written and conducted by Bley, issued two years aer Haden’s death. Recipient of both a Guggenheim Fellowship and the prestigious NEA Jazz Masters Award, the highest honour bestowed upon jazz musicians in the States, Bley released her nal album, Life Goes On, in 2020.