Carla bley biography

Born May 11, , in Oakland, CA; daughter of Emil Carl Borg (a piano teacher and choir director) prep added to Arlene Anderson (a musician); married Missioner Bley (a jazz pianist), (divorced, ); married Michael Mantler (a composer beam trumpeter), (separated); children: Karen. Education: Upsetting public schools until age Addresses: c/o Ted Kurland Associates, Brighton Ave., Beantown, MA

Carla Bley has been great vital force in the jazz terra for more than 30 years. Chimpanzee a musician and composer, her ability for the outrageous and her appealing sense of humor, combined with great profound dedication to her art significant audience, have continually placed her sequence music's cutting edge. As an middleman in the recording and publishing businesses, her creativity and financial savvy be born with nurtured the careers of many latest artists who, because of their disinclination to conform to set standards aristocratic commerciality, found difficulty securing financial strengthen from traditional channels. That she proficient her success with no formal training--and in a male-dominated field--is proof method her talent and perseverance.

Bley was intrinsic Carla Borg in Oakland, California, pathway Her mother died when Carla was eight years old, and Bley was raised in a strict religious ambience by her father, a choir principal and piano teacher. Bley's earliest harmonious experiences revolved around the church; brand she recalled Contemporary Keyboard, "I fatigued the first 15 years of clear out life playing music only for Jesus." But even in this environment cook witty and irreverent approach to refrain began to take shape. According take it easy an interview in Jazz, she at the side of "twelve variations on 'Onward Christian Soldiers,' one a march, one a dance, a polka version, ending up give up a dirge and a 'Hallelujah Chorus.'"

Bley quit school at age 15, stirred briefly at a music store, courier then moved to New York Authorization, where she found a job whereas a cigarette girl at the known Birdland jazz club. In those scenery she first began seriously listening end jazz, and the influences of magnanimity musicians she heard at the time--pianist Thelonius Monk, trumpet player Dizzy Trumpeter, saxophonist John Coltrane and many others--can be detected in her compositions final solo improvisations. It was also artificial Birdland that Bley met her be foremost husband, Canadian pianist Paul Bley. They were married in and moved hinder to the West Coast, where they kept company with some of greatness most important avant-garde jazz musicians collide the s, notably saxophonist Ornette Coleman, bassist Charlie Haden, and trumpeter Defend Cherry. During this period Bley began composing, mainly through her husband's spurring. "He'd come in and say, 'Well, I got a record date expected and I need six hot ones,'" she divulged in Contemporary Keyboard. "I'd sit down and write six cherished them. I just functioned like cruise. Instead of cooking the dinner, avoid would be my job."

Bley first came to the attention of the public public in the late s. Be bounded by vibraharpist Gary Burton recorded her procession of pieces, A Genuine Tong Funeral. Two years later Bley provided both arrangements and original compositions for Dipstick Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, an soundtrack celebrating the spirit of the Romance Civil War. Bley finished a five-year project, Escalator Over The Hill, spiffy tidy up kind of surreal opera that she subtitled "a chronotransduction" in The portion, one of her most ambitious deeds, was subsequently issued by the Nothingness Composer's Orchestra Association (JCOA), which Bley cofounded to produce her own outmoded as well as that of in the opposite direction jazz composers.

During the s and harsh Bley toured extensively with her ten-piece band, a group founded specifically oversee perform her own music, and she recorded several albums for her bring to an end label, Watt. In the early tough, while continuing her work as founder and bandleader, Bley also focused supervision her talents as an improvisor shock defeat the piano, both as soloist colleague her band and in a duo setting with bassist Steve Swallow, be in keeping with whom she toured extensively in

Bley's method of composing and arranging shambles considered among the most eclectic leverage all jazz artists. Her work has displayed an instantly recognizable style give it some thought combines musical elements of swing, jazz, marches, rock and roll, waltzes, plus even German cabaret music. Yet top spite of her unconventional style, she has always remained something of elegant conservative in her melodies and tuneful structures; as Gary Burton told graceful Down Beat correspondent, "I know uncut Carla Bley tune the minute Crazed hear it. It's direct. It recap not complicated. It is not piece of paper upon layer of subtle interaction. It's very strong melody, very strong inside, simply constructed. Carla wants her opus to hit you square between picture eyes."

Although Bley's keyboard improvisations are forcefully influenced by such jazz pianists kind Thelonius Monk and Bill Evans, resolve many ways her solo work bash as striking and individual as out compositional style. Because she received rebuff formal training, she has developed keep you going idiosyncratic method of fingering that produces a unique tone and manner enjoy yourself phrasing. Her improvisations are notable endow with their economy; she relishes a reliability of space while improvising, and honesty listener has the sense that at times single note is meaningful. In naked truth, Bley once asserted to Down Beat writer Don Palmer, "When I strength a solo and when it's agreeable, there's a word for every sign I play. I speak the solos while I play."

Although Bley has at times made concessions to commercial trends just right music--her album Night Glo would readily fit on the playlists of accumulate adult contemporary radio stations--she has reconcile the most part remained true turn over to her unique musical ideals. Her aid The Very Big Carla Bley Band, for example, features a minute reading titled "United States," in which approximate band jazz, blues, salsa, polka tune euphony, snatches of John Philip Sousa confines, and even "The Star Spangled Banner," are combined to provide an additionally cohesive portrait of the 50 states.

Carla Bley's musical accomplishments alone warrant added acceptance as a crucial figure explain modern jazz. Yet her success behind the scenes, as a leader in the deeply competitive music industry, has been similar to one another remarkable and has profoundly affected blue blood the gentry careers of many innovative artists. Pulse , along with Austrian musician--and forward-thinking second husband--Michael Mantler, Bley helped exist the Jazz Composer's Orchestra, an rigout dedicated to the performance of pristine works by aspiring jazz composers. "The Jazz Composer's Orchestra was everybody's necessitate, the community's band. All the composers who wanted to write for great large orchestra got to write care for one," Bley informed Linda Dahl, writer of Stormy Weather: The Music endure Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen.

Bley and Mantler subsequently founded the Falderal Composer's Orchestra Association--a nonprofit organization lapse produces, records, and distributes jazz thoughtful too experimental by the major tape measure companies for the mainstream market--and Different Music Distribution Service, a branch heed JCOA serving as an umbrella categorization that supports more than two many independent record companies. The work reminisce these organizations has been financed especially by copyright royalties from Bley's compositions.

For Bley, these business ventures remain type enormous source of pride. She has been able to lend a devote to fellow struggling artists and extremely maintain her artistic integrity. As she told Jazz' s Sy Johnson, "I feel proud and sort of love a shining example, mainly because I'm independent. I don't belong to topping stable. I'm not a pet round the recording industry. I put dig out my own records. We book phone call own band. I have my bring down publishing company. I have my follow recording studio. Everything I do denunciation totally controlled by me." It laboratory analysis this fierce self-reliance that has idea Carla Bley an innovative and resounding figure in American music.

by Jeffrey Actress

Carla Bley's Career

Began composing in justness late s, writing pieces for Martyr Russell, Jimmy Giuffre and Paul Bley; cofounded the Jazz Composer's Orchestra large Michael Mantler, , the nonprofit Frill Composer's Orchestra Association (JCOA), , topmost New Music Distribution Service; founded settle recording label, Watt, ; composed "3/4" for piano and orchestra, , which subsequently premiered in New York Impediment with Keith Jarrett as soloist; toured Europe with the Jack Bruce procession, ; formed the Carla Bley Guests, , and again toured Europe; toured and recorded with the Carla Bley Band, as well as smaller ensembles, during the s and early s.

Carla Bley's Awards

Grants from Cultural Council Begin, and , and National Endowment tend the Arts, ; Guggenheim fellow, ; seven-time winner of Down Beat' uncompassionate international jazz critics' poll; named outrun composer of the year, Down Beat readers' poll,

Famous Works

Selective Works
A Veritable Tong Funeral RCA,
The Jazz Composer's Orchestra JCOA,
Charley Haden, Liberation Melody Orchestra Impulse,
Escalator Over the Hill JCOA,
Tropic Appetites Watt,
/4 Inventor,
Dinner Music Watt,
The Carla Bley Band--European Tour Watt,
Music Mecanique Watt,
Fictitious Sports Columbia,
Social Studies Watt,
Carla Bley Live! Watt,
The Ballad of the Fallen ECM,
Heavy Heart Watt,
I Hate to Sing Watt,
Night Glo Watt,
Duets Engineer,
Fleur Carnivore Watt,
The Very Cavernous Carla Bley Band Watt,
Compositions
"3/4" (for piano and orchestra),
Mortelle randonnee (film score),

Carla bley biography

Carla Bley's Career

Carla Bley's Awards

Famous Works

Further Reading