This is the first comprehensive treatment of the remarkable music and influence of Carla Bley, a highly innovative American jazz composer, pianist, organist, band leader, and activist. Amy C. Beal gives fastidious attention to Bley's diverse compositions over the last fifty years which look at critical moments in jazz and experimental music history._x000B_Bley is best known for her jazz opera "Escalator over the Hill," her role in the Free Jazz movement of the 1960s, and her collaborations with artists such as Jack Bruce, Don Cherry, Robert Wyatt, and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. She has successfully maneuvered the field of jazz creating works that range from the highly accessible and tradition-based to commercially unviable and avant-garde. _x000B_Showing her to be not just an artist but an activist who has maintained musical independence and professional control, Beal's straightforward discussion of Bley's life and career will stimulate deeper examinations of her work.