This is FRESH AIR. Composer Carla Bley died in October at the age of 87. She led her own large and small touring bands from the 1970s until a few years ago, but jazz musicians had been playing her ...

Our guest this hour was an American band leader, a piano player and arranger, but she would have liked you to know her as someone who wrote music. The late Carla Bley was one of the jazz world’s most ...

Artistically ambitious, a rare woman in a male dominated scene, taking the road less travelled, or even the road never travelled, and with her feet well on the ground business-wise to ensure her ...

Carla Bley is one of the jazz world's most prolific writers. She grew up in a religious family in California but set her sights on the New York City jazz scene of the 1950s. In her music, Carla Bley ...

Bley, who died Oct. 17, led her own large and small touring bands from the 1970s until a few years ago — but jazz musicians had been playing her enigmatic compositions long before that. This is FRESH ...