Carla Bley

后Bop爵士时期的优秀作曲家相对于Bop的颠峰时期，显得较少了，而钢琴手Carla Bley 是其中最重要的一位作曲者。她是一位幽默风趣的女性，她的弹奏风格也就像他的性格一样，充满不可预测的色彩，她的音乐也同时给乐迷很大的想象空间。
Carla Bley 在1955年时来到纽约市。在纽约市她与具有前卫观念的音乐家合作，像是George Russell与Jimmy Giuffre等人。之后她嫁给她的第一任丈夫Paul Bley（也是为钢琴手）。1964年她与小喇叭手Michael Mantler结婚，1966年她组织Jazz Composers Guild Orchestra（JCOA）。
1969年Carla Bley为贝斯手Charlie Haden的乐团 Liberation Music Orchestra制作乐曲。70年代与80年代，她持续在经营JCOA，也与她的第二任丈夫Mike Mantler（小喇叭手）一起经营 Watt唱片公司。JCOA这个组织在 80年代后期做一个结束。之后的十多年以来的时间，Carla Bley仍然很努力在音乐上做表现，她持续带领一个中型的乐团，进行演奏与录唱片的工作。 她也参与1985年的电影Mortelle Randone制作电影原声带。
by Chris Kelsey
Post-bop jazz has produced only a few first-rate composers of larger forms; Carla Bley ranks high among them. Bley possesses an unusually wide compositional range; she combines an acquaintance with and love for jazz in all its forms with great talent and originality. Her music is a peculiarly individual type of hyper-modern jazz. Bley is capable of writing music of great drama and profound humor, often within the confines of the same piece. As an instrumentalist, Bley makes a fine composer; she plays piano and/or organ with most of her bands, and while her playing is always quite musical, its clear that her strengths lie elsewhere. Bleys asymmetrical compositional structures subvert jazz formula to wonderful effect, and her unpredictable melodies are often as catchy as they are obscure. In the tradition of jazzs very finest composers and improvisers, Bley has developed a style of her very own, and the music as a whole is the better for it.
Born Carla Borg, Bley learned the fundamentals of music as a child from her father, a church musician. Thereafter, she was mostly self-taught. Bley moved to New York around 1955, where she worked as a cigarette girl and occasional pianist. She married pianist Paul Bley, for whom she began to write tunes (she also wrote for George Russell and Jimmy Giuffre). In 1964, with her second husband, trumpeter Michael Mantler, Bley formed the Jazz Composers Guild Orchestra, which a year later became known simply as the Jazz Composers Orchestra. Two years later, Bley helped found the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association, a non-profit organization designed to present, distribute, and produce unconventional forms of jazz.
In 1967, vibist Gary Burtons quartet recorded Bleys cycle of tunes A Genuine Tong Funeral, which brought her to the attention of the general public for the first time. In 1969, Bley composed and arranged music for Charlie Hadens Liberation Music Orchestra. In 1971, Bley completed the work that cemented her reputation, the jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill. In the 70s and 80s, Bley continued to run the JCOA and compose and record for her own Watt label. The JCOA essentially folded in the late 80s, but Bleys creative life has continued mostly unabated. For much of the past two decades, shes maintained a mid-sized big band with fairly stable personnel to tour and record. Shes also worked a great deal with the bassist Steve Swallow, in duo and in ensembles of varying size.
Bley wrote the music for the soundtrack to the 1985 film Mortelle Randone. She also contributed new compositions to the Liberation Music Orchestras second incarnation in 1983. All through the 80s, 90s, and into the new millennium, Bley continued releasing albums through ECM, ranging from duets with bassist Steve Swallow to the Very Big Carla Bley Band. She released a third duets album with Steve Swallow, Are We There Yet?, in 2000, Looking for America in 2003, and The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu in 2007.