She had been born in California into a musical family: mother a pianist and father an organist in a church where he directed a choir. From a very young age, the little girl was introduced to religious music before being seized by the demon of jazz as a teenager. After discovering Teo Macero’s album Explorations in 1953, the little provincial arrived in New York in search of thrills. The concerts of Lionel Hampton, Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker will provide them. She even landed a small job at Birdland, a famous club where she sold cigarettes, stuffed animals and photographs. One evening, the pianist Paul Bley approached him. She married this man who was the first to record one of her compositions. If the marriage fizzles out, their collaboration will continue with great vigor. Soon, his songs allowed him to make a name for himself.
In 1965, it was with her second husband, Michael Mantler, that she founded her first big band, the Jazz Composers Orchestra. She also works with the great Charlie Haden. Little by little, Carla Bley became an avant-garde figure. His Escalator Over the Hill, released in 1971, established it. The opera, whose libretto is written by Canadian poet Paul Haines, includes more than 50 musicians including a few guests such as English guitarist John Mclaughlin, former Cream bassist Jack Bruce and American singer Linda Ronstadt. This dazzling one-and-a-half hour synthesis abolishes the boundaries between jazz, pop, Kurt Weil-style cabaret, soul and progressive rock. Bley intended him as an equivalent to the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper. After three years of work and the devouring of all his savings, the album permanently established him at the top.
A sought-after collaborator, from Nick Mason and Robert Wyatt to Mick Taylor, very eclectic, a figure much appreciated by the European public, the young woman with bangs became synonymous with high standards. With Steve Swallow, she will continue the best of an inspiration that made her one of the greatest jazz composers, not far from her mentors, Duke Ellington and Gil Evans.