You'll find lots of FRESH AIR interviews. (SOUNDBITE OF CARLA BLEY, ANDY SHEPPARD AND STEVE SWALLOW'S 'COPYCAT: COPYCAT')ĭAVIES: Kevin Whitehead is the author of the books 'Play The Way You Feel: The Essential Guide To Jazz Stories On Film,' 'Why Jazz?' and 'New Dutch Swing.' If you'd like to catch up on interviews you've missed, like our interview with Andre Braugher, who died last week, or Terry's conversation with David Byrne, who shares some of his favorite Christmas music, check out our podcast. Carla Bley died in October at 87, one of the great and singular jazz composers of our time. It was as if her music had come full circle but now with more humor. Now understated Carla came back, playing some early tunes and new ones echoing old conundrums. By the 1990s, she and Steve Swallow were an item and toured as a duo, sometimes joined by saxophonist Andy Sheppard. Then she scaled back to eight pieces, then four or five, finally two or three. The orchestra kept growing, so she was calling it her Very Big Band. It's as if she worried we'd think she took it all too seriously. WHITEHEAD: Carla Bley wrote lovely charts, but there was often something tongue-in-cheek about them, like that dance academy tango beat. (SOUNDBITE OF THE CARLA BLEY BAND'S 'REACTIONARY TANGO') This is 'Reactionary Tango' with Gary Valenti on trombone and old ally Steve Swallow now on bass guitar. Bley's 1980 classic 'Social Studies' had a few splendid tunes she'd revisit later. She put together a little big band of nine or 10 pieces, booked her own tours and put out her own LPs. She disparaged her own piano and organ playing, but a short stint in a 1970s Jack Bruce band gave her a taste for the road. WHITEHEAD: Carla Bley worked well with a few rock musicians, from NRBQ's Terry Adams to Pink Floyd's Nick Mason. JACK BRUCE AND LINDA RONSTADT: (Singing) And pineapple and cheese, so many ingredients in the soup. It doesn't seem to matter to them the traces of horses. LINDA RONSTADT: (Singing) Nurses dyeing their hair, don't care if the horse is locked, the house still there. By the late '60s, Carla Bley was busy with a three-year project that was the opposite of understated - the guest star drenched, multifarious triple album 'Escalator Over the Hill,' with a huge cast including jazz luminaries and rock singers Linda Ronstadt and Jack Bruce. Erik Satie's reductive piano music is in there, alongside Duke Ellington's reliance on key soloists. WHITEHEAD: Kurt Weill's German theater songs sound like an influence there. (SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE HADEN'S 'THE INTERLUDE (DRINKING MUSIC)') She was learning to deal with larger forces and a light comic touch. In 1969, Bley organized bassist Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, which played her arrangements of Latin American revolutionary songs and a bit of her own droll music. WHITEHEAD: Howard Johnson on tuba, Jimmy Knepper on trombone, and once more, Steve Swallow on bass.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE GARY BURTON QUARTET'S 'GRAVE TRAIN') Her tune 'Grave Train' evoked Nina Rota's music for Fellini films. In 1967, she wrote and arranged the album 'A Genuine Tong Funeral' for vibraphonist Gary Burton. Carla Bley heard the value in being understated where some '60s jazz was all testosterone. WHITEHEAD: That melody ends with a whisper, an uncommon move.

(SOUNDBITE OF STEVE KUHN TRIO'S 'IDA LUPINO')

Pianist Steve Kuhn played another deceptively simple sounding early Carla Bley tune, 'Ida Lupino,' with the Giuffre Trio's Steve Swallow again on bass. While married to Paul Bley, he encouraged her to write tunes for him. She'd been making up songs since she was small. The tune shows Carla's knack for building a piece around one or two barely mutating phrases, giving improvisers shapes to develop and a mood to maintain. KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Carla Bley's 'Jesus Maria,' played by clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre with Paul Bley on piano in 1961. (SOUNDBITE OF JIMMY GIUFFRE'S 'JESUS MARIA') Today, jazz critic Kevin Whitehead traces Carla Bley's development as a composer. She 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. Composer Carla Bley died in October at the age of 87.

Carla bley and steve swallow lawns