Biography
California-born Carla Bley once attributed her originality as a composer – she is self-taught – to blissful ignorance of “right” and “wrong” ways to write a song. Her early role models included Thelonious Monk, Erik Satie and Miles Davis, all of whom achieved much with few notes. However, Bley’s work also includes maximalist pieces such as the epic “chronotransduction” Escalator over the Hill, an album of Fancy Chamber Music, and many spirited pieces for big band. Nat Hentoff has said that “her scores for jazz big bands are matched only by those of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus for yearning lyricism, explosive exultation and other expressions of the human condition”.
