Carla Bley
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Carla Bley (born Lovella May Borg; May 11, 1936 – October 17, 2023) was an American jazz composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader.<ref name="Larkin">Template:Cite book</ref> An important figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s, she gained acclaim 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, Robert Wyatt, John Scofield, and her ex-husband Paul Bley. She was a pioneer in the development of independent artist-owned record labels, and recorded over two dozen albums between 1966 and 2019.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Early life
Bley was born in Oakland, California, in 1936, to Swedish parents. Her father, Emil Borg, a piano teacher and church choirmaster,<ref name="Larkin"/><ref name = Sandner>Template:Cite news</ref> encouraged her to sing and to learn to play the piano; her mother, Arline Anderson, died of a heart attack when Bley was eight years old.<ref name = Chinen>Template:Cite news</ref> After giving up church to immerse herself in roller skating at the age of fourteen,<ref name=sidran>Sidran, Ben, Talking Jazz: An Illustrated Oral History, Pomegranate Artbooks, 1992.</ref> she moved to New York City at seventeen and became a cigarette girl at Birdland, where she met jazz pianist Paul Bley, who encouraged her to start composing.<ref name="nyt80" /> She toured with him under the name Karen Borg before changing her name in 1957 to Carla Borg. She married Bley and took his name the same year,<ref name=dict>Carles, Philippe, André Clergeat, and Jean-Louis Comolli, Dictionnaire du jazz, Paris, 1994.</ref> later divorcing.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She kept the surname professionally thereafter.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Career
A number of musicians began to record Bley's compositions: George Russell recorded "Bent Eagle" for his album Stratusphunk in 1960;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Jimmy Giuffre recorded "Ictus" on his album Thesis;<ref name="Chinen"/> and Paul Bley's Barrage consisted entirely of her compositions.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Throughout her career, Bley thought of herself as a writer first, describing herself as 99 percent composer and one percent pianist.<ref name="IrishTimes">Review of Andando el Tiempo (2017), The Irish Times June 2, 2016.</ref>
In 1964, she was involved in organizing the Jazz Composers Guild,<ref name="Larkin"/> which brought together the most innovative musicians in New York at the time.<ref name=nyt80 /> She then had a personal and professional relationship with Michael Mantler, with whom she had a daughter, Karen Mantler, who also became a musician.<ref name = Chinen/> Bley and Mantler were married from 1965<ref name="Guardian" /> to 1991. With Mantler, she co-led the Jazz Composers' Orchestra and started the JCOA record label which issued a number of historic recordings by Clifford Thornton, Don Cherry, and Roswell Rudd, as well as her own magnum opus Escalator Over The Hill and Mantler's The Jazz Composer's Orchestra LPs.<ref name="Larkin"/> Bley and Mantler were pioneers in the development of independent artist-owned record labels, and also started WATT Records and the now defunct New Music Distribution Service, which specialized in small, independent labels that issued recordings of "creative improvised music".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Bley arranged and composed music for bassist Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, and wrote A Genuine Tong Funeral for vibraphonist Gary Burton.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Bley collaborated with a number of other artists, including Jack Bruce,<ref name="Larkin"/> Robert Wyatt, and Nick Mason, drummer for the rock group Pink Floyd. Mason's solo debut album Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports was written entirely by Bley, and features, alongside Mason on drums, many of her regular band musicians, leading Brian Olewnick of AllMusic to consider it a Carla Bley album in all but name.<ref>Template:AllMusic</ref>
Wolfgang Sandner summarized for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that she was "great as a stimulator, as a muse, catalyst, idea generator, as a sounding board and amplifier, also in refusing – virtuosity, fetishised technique, perfect craft, convention and false pathos".<ref name = Sandner />
Later life and death
Bley continued to record frequently with her own big band, which included Lew Soloff from Blood, Sweat & Tears, and with a number of smaller ensembles, notably the Lost Chords.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
After Bley's marriage to Mantler ended, she began a relationship with bassist Steve Swallow.<ref name = Chinen/>
In 2005, she arranged the music for and performed on Charlie Haden's latest Liberation Music Orchestra tour and recording, Not in Our Name.
Her final album, Life Goes On, was released in 2020.<ref name = Chinen/>
In 2018, Bley was diagnosed with brain cancer,<ref name="Guardian">Template:Cite news</ref> from which she died at home in Willow, New York, on October 17, 2023, at age 87.<ref name = Chinen/><ref>Tobisch, Léopold (October 17, 2023), "La compositrice et jazzwoman Carla Bley est décédée", Radio France Template:In lang</ref>
Awards
Bley was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1972 for music composition.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2009, she received the German Jazz Trophy "A Life for Jazz".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Bley received the NEA Jazz Masters Award in 2015.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Discography
References
External links
- EJN: Carla Bley
- Carla Bley and Steve Swallow video interview about Dreams So Real and working with ECM Records
- Carla Bley in conversation with Frank J. Oteri
- Template:Discogs artist
- Template:AllMusic
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- Carla Bley at All About Jazz
- Carla Bley interview at All About Jazz
Template:Carla Bley Template:Jazz Composer's Orchestra Template:Authority control
- 1936 births
- 2023 deaths
- 20th-century American keyboardists
- 20th-century American pianists
- 20th-century American women pianists
- 20th-century American jazz composers
- 20th-century American organists
- 20th-century American women composers
- 21st-century American women composers
- 21st-century American keyboardists
- 21st-century American pianists
- 21st-century American women pianists
- 21st-century American jazz composers
- 21st-century American organists
- American jazz bandleaders
- American jazz organists
- American jazz pianists
- American opera composers
- American people of Swedish descent
- American big band bandleaders
- Deaths from brain cancer in New York (state)
- ECM Records artists
- Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Jazz musicians from California
- Jazz musicians from New York (state)
- Musicians from Oakland, California
- Musicians from Woodstock, New York
- Post-bop composers
- Post-bop pianists
- Progressive big band musicians
- The Golden Palominos members
- American women jazz composers
- American women jazz pianists
- American women opera composers
- American women keyboardists
- American women organists
- Jazz Composer's Orchestra members
- DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame members
- NEA Jazz Masters