Who was Carla Bley married to? Does Carla Bley have children?

Influential jazz pianist and composer Carla Bley passed away in her Willow, New York, home from complications related to brain cancer. She was 87 years old. Bassist Steve Swallow, Bley’s longtime companion of over 30 years, verified the information to The New York Times.

A leader in the free jazz movement, Bley also led a sextet with Hiram Bullock and Larry Willis, a big band with top New York musicians, and a chamber-like trio with Swallow and Andy Sheppard.

The Liberation Music Orchestra, which Charlie Haden founded in 1969, was originally conducted and arranged by Bley, who continued to do so in Haden’s honor after his passing in 2014. The daughter of that union, pianist Karen Mantler, and Swallow both survive Bley.

Who was Carla Bley married to? Does Carla Bley have children?

Bley married trumpeter Mantler in 1967, following the divorce of the couple. Karen Mantler, a musician, and Swallow are Bley’s surviving children from that union. She received a Guggenheim fellowship for compositional music in 1972, and in 2015, she was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.