Carla Van Blake (aka Carla Van Blake Terwilliger) possesses a variety of skills, from software engineering to couture design to jewelry making, but her first and enduring love is music. Starting in a gospel choir at age three, Van Blake expanded her repertoire to blues and jazz as an adult. When trumpet maestro and jazz icon Bobby Shew heard her for the first time, he said, “The phrasing and everything was right, and she sings in tune, and she has the whole persona as a jazz singer.” In 2018, she released her first jazz album, Land of Enchantment, a New Mexico Music Awards finalist that includes 10 originals.
She’s led an interesting life, growing up in New York State and Nigeria, volunteering with the Peace Corps in Mali, and surviving a near-death experience (see my article from Albuquerque The Magazine, appended below). So it seems only fitting that, for her appearance in the New Mexico Jazz Workshop’s Jazz Stories 3.0 series on September 24, she will be presenting “My Life, My Music,” featuring original music, with the help of Jim Ahrend (piano), Steve Terwilliger (guitar), Rob “Milo” Jaramillo (bass), John Bartlit (drums), and special guest, reed maestro Arlen Asher.
Carla and I had recently spoke about the upcoming event, and the lightly edited interview follows.
Carla Van Blake: What do you want to know?
Musically Speaking: Let’s start with how this gig came about.
CVB: I was at the Jazz Workshop for a ukulele class with John Bartlit—I play bass ukulele.
MS: Bass ukulele?
CVB: Yes, that’s another unusual thing about Carla. [Laughs.] And Markus Gottschlich [executive director of the NMJW] was outside the door. He approached me , and he said, “You’re Carla,” and I said, “Yeah!” And he said, “You sang at Arlen’s birthday party at the Outpost,” and I said, “Yeah.” He said, “You sang ‘Alfie,’ ” and I thought, “Wow, he was paying attention.” So he said he wanted me to do one of the Stories series. So he sent me the schedule, and I picked the last one, to give me time to prepare.
MS: Right.
CVB: He said, “Why don’t you do bass and piano,” and I’m thinking, “Markus doesn’t really know my music because that’s kind of sparse for me.” [Laughs.] And he suggested I do my own original music. And that’s how it came about. So I started thinking about things I wanted to share, and I started writing also. So I have like six new songs that will be showcased, that I’ve never done before.
MS: That’s a lot of new tunes.
CVB: And the other eight or so will be ones that are on my CD or that people have heard in public before.
MS: So tell me a little bit about the new songs.
CVB: One is called “Estes Park,” because Steve [Terwilliger, Carla’s husband] and I like to go up in the mountains and look for critters. [Laughs.] Estes Park—it’s in Colorado. It’s actually the Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s on this huge mountain. It’s very beautiful. It has lots of animals up there—bighorn sheep, elk. One of the hobbies that Steve and I have is going up there and looking for animals in the wild. We had a beautiful trip the last time we went up there. We actually saw moose and elk and eagles fishing over a lake, and it inspired a song.
Another one is called “Saturday Morning Serenade,” and it’s about that peaceful Saturday-morning feeling that you get your cup of coffee, and you go sit on the patio and relax and savor life. It’s about savoring life.
MS: That’s something that I think you are probably very good at, Carla.
CVB: What’s that? Savoring life?
MS: Yes, ma’am.
CVB: I try to. You never know when it’s not going to be there, you know?
MS: Well, that’s what I mean—because you’ve come close to losing it. What I’ve seen in you as an individual is such a zest for life and a gratitude. So I have no doubt that you sit out on your patio with your cup of coffee and savor life.
CVB: You’ll have to visit that patio. Steve made this beautiful pond for me when I couldn’t swim anymore. He turned a 16,000-gallon pool into a fish pond. I love to sit by it and watch the fish swim and listen to the doves coo and my wind chimes play, and it’s a very peaceful, savor-the-moment, almost spiritual experience. So this song has kind of a gospely feel.
MS: OK.
CVB: I have a couple of highly opinionated songs. [Laughs.] One is called “Mother’s Blues.” It’s an appeal to people to take better care of the earth and each other. And there’s a couple more. I don’t have to reveal all of them, do I?
MS: No, no, that’s great. So I see that you have a quintet behind you, whereas most of the Jazz Stories evenings have been duos and trios. Why did you choose to go so big?
CVB: I wanted to create a fuller experience for the audience. I’m doing my music, and I want it to be a certain way.
MS: Anything else you want to share with potential audience members?
CVB: I want the audience to know this will be a unique and fresh experience that they won’t see anywhere else. I also want to mention that there will be some interesting time changes in some of my new songs.
MS: Can you give us a sense of the evening’s through line, the “My Life, My Music” story?
CVB: I’ll be talking about how my life has influenced my music, and events or things in my life that have inspired my writing. So there’ll be a little bit of narrative, and maybe a funny story or two.
MS: Terrific.
CVB: And there will also be some dead serious songs. You know, I’m there to entertain, but I’m also there to open people’s eyes.
MS: OK.
CVB: I will be playing my idiopan.
MS: Your what?
CVB: I have a steel drum. It’s called an idiopan.
MS: OK.
CVB: It’s a tunable drum made of steel. It’s not like a Trinidad steel drum. It’s more like a giant spaceship-shaped bell. [Laughs.] I will be playing a weird instrument.
MS: OK, “weird instrument,” I like that, and I’ll look forward to seeing you on the 24th.
Jazz Stories 3.0
Carla Van Blake
My Life, My Music
Tuesday, September 24, 7:00 p.m. (Doors, 6:00 p.m.)
Kosmos Astropub
1517 5th St. NW, Albuquerque
Tickets: $15 general/$10 NMJW members
Available here.
© 2019 Mel Minter