E a ricordare Carla Bley è anche Arturo O'Farrill - che già giovanissimo fece parte della Big Band, negli anni a cavallo tra i Settanta e gli Ottanta - pubblicando l'ultimo lavoro commissionatele proprio per la sua Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, Blue Palestine, brano articolato in quattro sezioni portato a termine nel 2018. E' nell'album Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley (Zoho, 2025), e così a suo tempo lo descrisse lei stessa: "My fascination with Palestine began many years ago. I’ve never been there, and most of the Middle Eastern music I’ve heard is from other places. Blue Palestine is only a fantasy, my naive desire to draw attention to the people of that country, who meaningfully express something that relates to what we call “the blues" in their music and in their everyday life. I needed to write a piece that said, “we hear you." When Arturo asked me to write some music for the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, I started writing a simple blues. In 7/4. A melody from an old Hollywood movie, The Thief Of Baghdad, starring Sabu (whom I had a crush on at the time), had been in my mind ever since I was 12. It gave me a portion of a melodic idea, which when put into 7/4 sounded vaguely Middle Eastern to me, and many ideas followed. Steve Swallow, who had worked with Rabih Abouh Khalil and knew about exotic time signatures, told me that Rabih had asked him not to harmonize the melodies that were being played. That inspired the next section. From then on I just followed my imagination and hoped the band would go along with me. If necessary, I could use the old tactic I’ve used when things got out of hand (and this would be the smart call with this particular band) - Drum Solo!"