The output of pianist and composer Carla Bley spans half a century, from her early collaborations with Gary Burton, Michael Mantler, Jack Bruce, Paul Haines, Charlie Haden, and Don Cherry to a long stretch of utterly distinctive albums on her own WATT imprint (a partner of ECM). Much of this music she made with Steve Swallow, her husband, the great ’60s upright bassist turned innovator of the electric bass guitar. Their late-career duo work, and their partnership with UK saxophonist Andy Sheppard (from the early Songs With Legs to the valedictory Life Goes On), yielded many subtle and melodic riches. Bley’s tasty, atmospheric use of organ; her singing (“Dining Alone”); her approach to long-form composition and the big-band idiom (Fleur Carnivore, Big Band Theory): All of it speaks to an artistic fearlessness, a way of being avant-garde and mainstream in the same moment. Her “Vashkar” became a fusion touchstone thanks to The Tony Williams Lifetime on Emergency!, but her own versions (not to mention Swallow’s on Hotel Hello) peel back more layers of this stirring, unusual piece. Bley, who died in October 2023 at the age of 87, was a prescient figure, an influence on jazz composers of every generation since. Take it from George Russell, Jimmy Giuffre, Art Farmer, Steve Lacy, Phil Woods, Mark Turner, Arturo O’Farrill, and other greats who’ve recorded her compositions.