Jazz pianist and composer Carla Bley dies at the age of 87

Renowned jazz pianist and composer Carla Bley has died aged 87.

Bley passed away of complications from brain cancer at her home in Willow, New York, her longtime partner and collaborator Steve Swallow said.

She was arguably best known for her 1971 work, the jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill.

Bley was also responsible for writing jazz staples including Lawns and Ida Lupino.

After dropping out of school aged 14, she started playing as a pianist in San Francisco jazz clubs before heading to New York aged 17.

Bley worked as a cigarette girl at the jazz club Birdland, whose acts included Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

In the 1950s she met and pianist married Paul Bley, who featured her compositions on his own albums.

At the time, Bley became a central player in the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra and Guild, a union that campaigned on behalf of musicians’ conditions at work.

The couple divorced in 1967 before Bley married Austrian trumpeter Michael Mantler.

She later wrote music for the debut album by Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason and collaborated with British musician Robert Wyatt.

Bley was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018 aged 82.

She is survived by a daughter, shared with Mantler, and Swallow, her partner of more than 30 years.