Carla Bly, the cigarette girl with staying power

The sensitive pianist and important jazz composer Carla Bley died at the age of 87 from a tumor.

The idea of ​​​​using an electric elevator to float over all the hills that limit the field of vision and therefore the ability to think, came to the mind of the pianist Carla Bley in the early 1970s. She finally wrote jazz history in 1972 with her triple album “Escalator Over The Hill,” which broke all genre boundaries. Free jazz, folk, fusion, electronics, Native American music, and so-called new music came together in a big way and eventually led to a very harmonious postmodern sonic image. Similar to Keith Jarrett’s “Cologne Party”, this was a work that every educated, middle-class person should have in their collection in the 1970s. Participants included greats from Don Cherry to Gato Barbieri, from Jack Bruce to Linda Ronstadt. She also used her famous husband Paul Bly and Mike Mantler.

Soft toys at the grocery store

In the 1960s, Carla Bley was one of the very few women who played a jazz instrument. There were female singers in the genre early on, but “real” jazz was considered a male bastion for decades. The musician was born in Oakland, California in 1936. He is of Swedish descent and was originally named Borg. She learned to play the organ and piano since she was four years old. She came to jazz because she liked the atmosphere at clubs such as Birdland in New York and worked there as a tobacconist and photographer. There were also stuffed animals for sale at her grocery store. During this activity she met pianist Paul Bley. The two married in 1957.