Results for "carla bley"

Carla Bley

Born: May 11, 1938

Carla Bley was born in Oakland, California in 1936. Her father Emil Borg, a piano teacher and church organist, began giving her music lessons when she was three years old and she was soon playing at church functions. But her musical education ended at the age of eight. Her formal education stopped entirely when she dropped out of high school after completing the tenth grade.

During her adolescence Carla was drawn to jazz and moved to New York City to be closer to the musicians she admired. She resumed her musical education by working as a cigarette girl at the notorious Birdland jazz club, where she was able to hear the greatest jazz musicians of the day. She met pianist Paul Bley and eventually relocated to Los Angeles, where Paul and his quartet had a steady gig at the Hillcrest Club. She began to write music. When saxophonist Ornette Coleman came on the scene in the mid-fifties, Paul Bley immediately hired him and Carla was exposed nightly to ‘free’ playing, a powerful influence that was to affect her writing for many years.

Joyful Noise – Live In Hamburg 1984

By Carla Bley

Label: MIG Music
Released: 2026
Track listing: CD 1: La Paloma; Talking Hearts; Joyful Noise; The Lord is Listening' To Ya, Hallelujah!; Light Or Dark; Misterioso. CD 2: Venus Fly Trap; Nu Derection; Ending It; Starting Again / Ups And Downs;; Battleship Copyright Royalties.

Texas Tenors and the Big Beat

by Marshall Bowden
July 30, 2002

This article first appeared on All About Jazz in July 2002. Texas is a miniature of the cultural and musical melting pot that is American music. Texas shares a border with Louisiana, inheriting some of that state's French and Caribbean roots, and when it comes to the blues, Texas has its own style. Texas ...

Andy Sheppard: Salt Catchers

by Jack Kenny
September 28, 2026

Andy Sheppard was not always heading for ECM. In 1990, he formed his first big band, the Soft on the Inside Band, for an album of the same name. Soft on the Inside (Island Records, 1990) was rumbustious and expansive, featuring many notable players, including drummer Han Bennink, trumpeter Claude Deppa and trombonist Gary Valente.

Andy Sheppard: Salt Catchers

by Neil Duggan
September 10, 2026

Since discovering John Coltrane as a teenager, tenor and soprano saxophonist Andy Sheppard has forged a remarkable career, earning multiple British Jazz Awards, international acclaim and even a place in the UK pop charts. His musical range is equally impressive: alongside jazz giants George Russell, Gil Evans and Carla Bley, he has worked with artists as ...

Matteo Rossi: Young Lions Orchestra

by Marco Iacoboni
September 7, 2026

È sempre con grande piacere ascoltare il risultato di progetti costruttivi e creativi come quello della Young Lions Orchestra, un collettivo che coinvolge giovani musicisti della scena romana under 30. Matteo Rossi, compositore, direttore d'orchestra, arrangiatore, cresce come un talentuoso pianista e tastierista cresciuto a pane, jazz e avanguardia, prestato alla realtà pop-rock come ...

Clovis Nicolas: Blues in Blueprint: 12 Variations on the Blues

by Angelo Leonardi
August 13, 2026

Il contrabbassista Clovis Nicolas presenta dodici differenti interpretazioni del blues, interpretando in trio brani personali e temi appartenenti ad epoche e autori  diversi: dai tradizionali “Abide with Me" e “Old Stack O'Lee Blues" a Duke Ellington, Wes Montgomery, Ornette Coleman, Carla Bley e altri. Con lui sono Carl Allen alla batteria e ...

Tony Williams Lifetime: Tony Williams Lifetime Emergency! Reference: With John McLaughlin & Larry Young

by Glenn Astarita
August 11, 2026

Tony Williams was barely twenty-three when he put the Lifetime trio together in 1969, only five years past his stint as the engine of the Miles Davis Quintet. Emergency!, the group's sprawling doublealbum debut, paired Williams with organist Larry Young and a littleknown British guitarist named John McLaughlin, and the record still stands as one of ...

Steve Swallow: Music Is Elemental

by Dean Nardi
August 5, 2026

For esteemed composer and bassist Steve Swallow, writing music is a long, sometimes arduous process that typically begins with only a cup of coffee in the morning before putting in hours, days, weeks--five months in fact, to complete the music for Winter Songs (ECM Records, 2026). For him, that is lightning fast. His idea of composition ...

A Few of My Favorite 2026 Jazz Things (so far) - Part 6

by Ludovico Granvassu
July 12, 2026

These past two weeks have been an opportunity to leaf back through six months of listening and rediscover the tracks that turned out to have the longest shelf life--music that still feels as fresh and compelling now as when we first heard it. Here's the last installment. We'll get back to this in six months! Stay ...