My father called it the devil’s music.”Ĭarla left school in 10th grade and became a serious roller skater when she was 14. The band was marching up and down the aisles, and it was unusual music that I had never heard in church. That’s the kind of music I wanted to pursue. When she was 12, she went to the Oakland Auditorium to hear Lionel Hampton.
Even then, I knew I wasn’t playing for free.” I would go around in the church playing songs like ‘This Little Light of Mine’ with a cup in my hand and people would put coins in. Her father was a pianist and a fundamentalist Baptist church choir master who encouraged her to play. Lovella May Borg was born in the flatlands of Oakland on May 11, 1936, not far from the city’s airport. In Rolling Stone, Jonathon Cott wrote of the result: “Like an electric transformer, Escalator Over the Hill synthesizes and draws on an enormous range of musical materials – raga, jazz, rock, ring-modulated piano sounds – all brought together through Carla Bley’s extraordinary formal sense and ability to unify individual but diverse musical sections…The opera is an international musical encounter of the first order.”įor those unfamiliar with the album, this article intends to answer some of the key questions about what is one of the most impressive records ever released. “It’s insane.” She pauses with a smile and adds, “Insane is good.” Today, she reflects back on her youthful magnum opus: “It takes a long time to listen to,” she says. Nonetheless, Bley persisted in making her debut album as a leader.
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