Carla Bley, the pianist, composer, bandleader, and pioneer of the free jazz movement, has died from complications of brain cancer, The New York Times reports, citing the musician’s partner of more than 30 years, bassist Steve Swallow. Bley was 87 years old.
Bley was born Lovella May Borg in Oakland, California. She moved to New York in the 1950s, working as a cigarette vendor at the famed Birdland jazz club before meeting and marrying jazz pianist Paul Bley. The couple toured together and she began composing original works, and Paul Bley’s 1964 album Barrage consisted entirely of Carla’s compositions. A few years later, in 1967, the Bleys divorced.
Bley released her best known work, the jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill, in 1971. It involved dozens of musicians, including Linda Ronstadt, Jack Bruce, and Charlie Haden. Beyond her own albums as a bandleader, she also worked closely with Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason on his 1981 solo debut album, Nick Mason’s Fictious Sports, writing and co-producing all of its tracks.
Beyond her work as a musician, Bley founded multiple record labels, JCOA Records and the ECM-distributed Watt, releasing work by Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor, and others. She and Michael Mantler also established the nonprofit New Music Distribution Service, which helped connect JCOA, ECM, and other labels to larger audiences. It remained in operation from 1972 to 1990.
Carla Bley was awarded the Guggenheim fellowship for music composition in 1972. Decades later, in 2015, she was recognized as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. Bley released the final album of her lifetime—Life Goes On, a collaboration with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow—in 2020.
Allison Hussey
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