Carla Bley’s Trio, which has been in existence for more than 20 years, is now, with her big band days behind her, the master jazz composer’s prime vehicle for presenting her compositions. In the trio’s earlier years her writing often sounded as if it were conceived with a larger ensemble at the back of her mind. However, in the last five years, Bley has had to come to terms with the fact a big band is now unfeasible in today’s jazz economy, and correspondingly her compositions often contain intricacies best exploited by a smaller ensemble. That is certainly the case here, with five original compositions, all written in recent times. The compositions on Andando el Tiempo often betray a fragility in their melodic construction – the three part title track, for example – but always there’s a sense of probing melodic curiosity that stops short of losing coherence and continuity. A sense of mischief pervades ‘Naked Bridges/Diving Brides’ (which deserves a prize for the best song title of the last two decades), while the easy rapport between the musicians gives these compositions a second life – a second life within memory.

Jazzwise spoke to Carla Bley about the album

Were you planning for this album’s release to coincide with your 80th birthday?

I didn’t think of it in that way! Just happened. Andando el Tiempo is still being written, I’m not quite finished with it, but I recorded it anyway, ‘Potación de Guaya’ was one year old and ‘Saints Alive’ was three years old, all stuff that had not been recorded before.

You are one of the few people in jazz to have survived as a jazz composer. Does it get any easier with the passage of time, or are you one of these disciplined people who go to the piano every day and develop ideas?

I know! I just go every day. I don’t think it gets any easier, but I don’t think it gets harder either. I just finished another three part piece which I am playing for the first time for my 80th birthday party [in New York] that ECM is giving at Steinway Hall and I’m going to present an entirely new piece, and they’re sending Andy Sheppard over from England and we’re playing a trio concert! I can’t believe that turning 80 is such a good thing. Maybe every musician should aim for it!

The trio has been recording for some while and for me your earlier work sounded like outlines for a big band composition, but with Trios (2013) and this album, it sounds more intricate in some places, as if it was written specifically for trio, so does that mean the big band days are over?

Yes, they are behind me. In general trio is what I do now, because I can afford to do that, I can tour with the trio. I just did big band because I was able to do big band and I seemed to have the ability to do it, and nobody else was doing it at the time [1970s and 1980s] and there was not much competition, but now that I am in the trio world, there’s a lot of trios out there, My God! I feel a little bit awash.

‘Naked Bridges/Diving Brides’ references Mendelssohn. I wonder if you would talk a little about this track.

Yes, I wrote it for Andy Sheppard, as a present, so I said to myself ‘What does the Wedding March sound like’, and then I thought it’s horrible, but I found that the piece that you play as the bride and groom leave the stage, so to speak, has great [chord] changes, and those are the changes Steve Swallow solos on after the [quote] from Mendelssohn, so I have to give Mendelssohn a lot of credit for that piece, and you know, he deserves it! Isn’t it great when you can give somebody who died 200 years ago a little boost!

Yes, life will be totally different for him now.

He’ll be famous!