And Then One Day

In praise of Carla Bley, who left us something extraordinary

Carla Bley forever. (Mark Marnie / ECM)

Carla Bley nestled a wry joke into the track listing of her final album, Life Goes On. Side A begins with a suite whose four movements are titled as follows:

“Life Goes On”
“On”
“And On”
“And Then One Day”

This is classic Carla Bley: a self-aware bit that in its morbid, meta splendor suggests something like Kierkegaard in the Catskills. Yet the music — composed for a gemlike trio with Bley on piano, Andy Sheppard on saxophones and Steve Swallow on bass guitar — is the farthest thing from a gag. Its chamberesque sparkle converges with an earthiness indirectly rooted in the blues. In fact, I have a suspicion Bley was aware of another “Life Goes On,” recorded by Big Mama Thornton with Muddy Waters. That’s a tune of heartsick resolve, not at all what Bley is getting at — but there’s something about its stoic resignation that fits. Life does go on, and on. And then one day…

That day came yesterday, a fact that many of us find tough to accept. I’m among them, even though I wrote Carla Bley’s New York Times obituary (which I’ve “gifted” here in case you run up against the paywall). Much of what I have to say about her slippery iconoclasm as a composer, arranger and bandleader is factored into the obit. She was a resolute original, an instinctual subversive, and the slyest sort of traditionalist. She introduced so much character to the grammar of big band writing, the syntax of small-group form, and the spirit of modern jazz. In short, an irreplaceable genius.

In addition to the obit, I wrote an admiring profile for the Times in 2016, in honor of Bley’s 80th birthday. (I’ve “gifted” this link, too.) For that piece, I visited her and Steve Swallow at their home. Carla had just broken her wrist after a fall during their annual retreat in the British Virgin Islands. But she was in fine spirits, humoring my questions with her trademark mix of candor, self-deprecation and surrealism. “I’ve always cherished being different, feeling different,” she said at one point. “And sort of going out of my way to hurt my chances at ever being called anything whatsoever.”

For part of the interview, Steve puttered about the house — brewing coffee, tidying up. But eventually he joined Carla on the couch, where we’d been talking about the reception to her music in the early 1960s. He had a lot to do with it, Carla explained. “Steve Swallow carried them with him,” she said, referring to her lead sheets, “and whenever anyone said ‘You got a waltz?’ he’d pull one out of his bass case.”

I turned the question over to Steve: by his reckoning, why did Carla’s tunes spread so widely in musician circles, so quickly? Especially when she was such an outsider?

“Well, I was the vector, but the virus was the pieces themselves,” he said, with the sort of unhurried Yankee circumspection that is his conversational trademark. “I think it was inevitable that they get out in the world, because they were so useful to the community of improvisers.” He paused for just a moment, and went on to articulate perhaps the most elegant analysis of Carla Bley’s music that I’ve ever heard:

I think they’ve circulated as widely as they have first and foremost because they’re wonderful pieces. But beyond that, because they’re especially useful to improvisers. They posit a certain set of circumstances that provoke real improvisation. It’s difficult to play the standard bebop repertoire without playing standard bebop. But when you play Carla’s music you’re more likely to search within yourself for a method to realize these pieces. And I think that has to do at least in part with what’s left out of them. There’s so much left out. That’s a process I kind of witness: she writes at the piano up there, and I sit down here. I hear the process. She begins with a lot — with a huge, Wagnerian stew of music. And over a period of many weeks, and even months, eliminates almost everything.

A few years after the NYT profile, I was involved in writing and producing an episode of Jazz Night in America at the Big Ears Festival. That year, the fest presented an array of concerts for the 50th anniversary of ECM. Along with my producer, Sarah Geledi, I made arrangements to include the Carla Bley Trio in the show — even though, as Carla pointed out, most of her music had only been distributed by ECM.

Here is that hourlong episode, which opens with some exquisite music by her trio, and insights from both Carla and Steve (among others). There’s a touching moment where she says: “I don’t want to be different anymore.” She seems to mean it, but it’s also clear that she is helpless in the face of nonconformity. Here’s a snap taken just after our interview, backstage at the Tennessee Theater in Knoxville.

Steve Swallow, Carla Bley, Sarah Geledi et moi. Big Ears, Knoxville, 2019.

Whether you’re new to The Gig or have been with it from the start, thank you for being here. If you’re a paid subscriber, scroll down for audio and a transcript from a portion of my conversation with Carla at her home in 2016. We talk about her brief but fateful gig as a cigarette girl at Birdland (yes, that’s literally what the job was called), what initially drew her to Paul Bley, and how she set out to start composing. The audio is a real treat; hearing Carla’s voice, it’s impossible to get morose.

If this is your stop, thanks again for reading. Some love for fellow Substackers:

• Vinnie Sperrazza
  lays out a lovely memorial playlist in this post at Chronicles.

• ETHAN IVERSON
  pays tribute as well, with links to his fine New Yorker piece.

  (thanks to both Ethan and Vinnie for their kind words about the NYT obituary.)

• Not a Substack link, but Andrey Henkin wrote a lovely obit for NPR Music.

Rest well, Carla Bley. And my deepest condolences to Steve Swallow, Karen Mantler, and everyone who knew and loved her (the two categories are one and the same). On to this interview, which will always be one of my fondest memories in the field.