Karen Mantler

At the same time she has been working with her trio featuring bassist Kato Hideki and multi-instrumentalist Doug Wieselman. Her fifth recording as a leader, entitled Business Is Bad, was released in June 2014 (XtraWATT/14).

As well as creating the WATTxtraWATT web site, she has been the designer of every WATT and XtraWATT CD cover and booklet since 2003.

She studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston on a scholarship from 1985-87. She moved back to New York City in 1987 where she formed her own ensemble to record her first two albums for the XtraWATT record label (distributed by ECM Records), My Cat Arnold (1989) and Karen Mantler and Her Cat Arnold Get the Flu (1990). The band toured Europe several times and also appeared at venues in New York, on Dave Sanborn's NBC Night Music television show, and at the Montreal International Jazz Festival (1991). She recorded two more albums of her music, Farewell (XtraWATT, 1996) and Pet Project (Virgin Classics, 2000). In 2003 she collaborated with Robert Wyatt on his album Cuckooland, playing keyboards, singing and contributing three compositions.

Her musical debut consisted of contributing vocals on Carla Bley's albums Escalator Over the Hill (1971) and Tropic Appetites (1974). She then continued performing and recording on glockenspiel, organ and chromatic harmonica in many of Carla Bley's ensembles and projects from 1977 on to the present.

Karen Mantler (born 25 April 1966, New York City, New York, United States) is an American jazz pianist, singer, and composer. She is the daughter of Carla Bley and Michael Mantler.