Another jazz lady famous for going her own way is Carla Bley, a composer-bandleader who combines a taste for rich sonorities with post-modern whimsy.

ECONOMIST: Old friends are the best friends

Named for the iconic British actress and credited here to Carla Bley and Terry Adams (of NRBQ), it succeeds with an elegiac recurring motif, overtones of folk and the blues, rapturous glissandos, and an expert grasp of volume dynamics.

NPR: Paul Bley Trio: Darkly Winsome Jazz

Beginning in the late '50s, a good deal of that allure came from the compositions of Bley's then-wife, a composer and pianist born Carla Borg who, using the Bley surname, would become an enduring jazz progressive in her own right.

NPR: Paul Bley Trio: Darkly Winsome Jazz