Reviews that mention Paul Bley
May 13, 2017
Bremen & Stuttgart 1961
Emanem 5208
By Ken Waxman
Arguably improvised music most underappreciated pioneer groups, clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre’s trio of the early 1960s with pianist Pail Bley and bassist Steve Swallow, toured infrequently made poorly selling LPs and finally called it quits when a door gig yielded the members 35 cents each. Yet more than a half-century later the foundations of sophisticated chamber jazz characterized by Keith Jarrett and the dissemination of now classic Carla Bley compositions can be traced back to the trio. MORE
May 13, 2017
Bremen & Stuttgart 1961
Emanem 5208
By Ken Waxman
Arguably improvised music most underappreciated pioneer groups, clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre’s trio of the early 1960s with pianist Pail Bley and bassist Steve Swallow, toured infrequently made poorly selling LPs and finally called it quits when a door gig yielded the members 35 cents each. Yet more than a half-century later the foundations of sophisticated chamber jazz characterized by Keith Jarrett and the dissemination of now classic Carla Bley compositions can be traced back to the trio. MORE
February 11, 2016
A Modern Jazz Piano Master
By Ken Waxman
Paul Bley who died at 83 in early January was probably never bothered that he was usually described as Canada’s second best-known jazz pianist; Oscar Peterson was the first. But Bley, who shared a Montreal birth with Peterson, and who similarly was honored with induction into the Order of Canada in 2008 – albeit 30 plus years after Peterson – was for all intents and purposes a much more radical pianist than O.P. Peterson, seven years Bley’s senior, was a flamboyant stylist who adapted Art Tatum’s all-encompassing swing era techniques to the structure of modern jazz during an almost incalculable number of performances from the late 1940s until his death in 2007. However Bley, represented on more than 100 discs during his career, cycled through a variety of keyboard strategies from the outgoing to the cerebral, eventually matching the atonality of off-centre techniques with straightforward, melodically measured motion. He was also one of the first serious improvisers to deal with the sonic possibilities that could be extracted from the then brand-new portable Moog synthesizer. Later, such better-known pianists as Keith Jarrett, The Bad Plus’ Ethan Iverson and Satoko Fujii developed their playing following the examples of Bley’s breakthroughs. MORE
September 11, 2014
Play Blue
ECM: 2373
By Ken Waxman
Aged 81 and ailing, the likelihood of Canadian expatriate pianist Paul Bley giving (m)any more concerts is limited. But this newly issued 2008 live performance from Oslo easily confirms why the unique style he developed in the early 1960s has influenced many pianists including Keith Jarrett
Except for Sonny Rollins’ “Pent-Up House”, which Bley performs in response to vociferous demands for an encore from the audience – and which he appends some so-called classical trope to the boppish line – all the compositions are his. Given enough time to develop, each is, for all intents and purposes, a suite, which brings in many allusions. Deceptive lyrical as well as maintaining a blues sensibility, “Flame”’s ringing key strokes suggest nightclub ballads like “My Way”, but with a cleaner interface. The dramatic Longer is crowded with chords and arpeggiated runs that would be as didactic as an Art Tatum performance if Bley didn’t slyly insert what sounds like a lick from “Arrivederci Roma” mid-way through. MORE
December 23, 2013
8th Annual Jazz Critics Poll – NPR Music
Ken Waxman
(The New York City Jazz Record, Jazz Word)
NEW RELEASES
1. Convergence Quartet, Slow and Steady (NoBusiness)
2. Andrew Cyrille, Duology (Jazzwerkstatt)
3. Black Host, Life in the Sugar Candle Mines (Northern Spy)
4. Scott Neumann, Blessed (Origin)
5. Michel Edelin, Resurgence (RogueArt)
6. Ab Baars-Meinard Kneer-Bill Elgart, Give No Quarter (Evil Rabbit)
7. Maria Faust, Jazz Catastrophe (Barefoot)
8. Barry Altschul, The 3dom Factor (TUM)
9. Mark Dresser, Nourishments (Clean Feed)
10. Alexey Kruglov-Alexey Lapin-Jaak Sooäär-Oleg Yudanov, Military Space (Leo) MORE
December 8, 2013
Closer
ESP-Disk ESP 1021
Evan Parker/Barry Guy/Paul Lytton
Live at Maya Recordings Festival
NoBusiness NBCD 55
Butcher/Buck/Mayas/Stangl
Plume
Unsounds 35u
Michel Doneda/Joris Rühl
Linge
Umlaut Records umfrcd 07
Lori Freedman & John Heward
On No On
Mode Avant 16
Matt Mitchell
Fiction
Pi Recordings PI50
Kidd Jordan & Hamid Drake
MORE
April 6, 2013
Always in Trouble: An Oral History of ESP-Disk, the Most Outrageous Record Label in America
Jason Weiss (Wesleyan University Press)
By Ken Waxman
Visionary, charlatan, crook, naïf – these are just a few of the epitaphs applied to Bernard Stollman who founded the legendary ESP-Disk record label in the early 1960s. Interviewing Stollman and almost three dozen ESP artists, Jason Weiss tries to make sense of its history.
An attorney with aspirations towards art and entrepreneurship, Stollman made ESP a full-fledged imprint after hearing tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler. By chance he had stumbled upon a fertile jazz scene, rife with players who lacked recording opportunities. Soon ESP provided many of the era’s most important musical innovators with the freedom to record without interference. ESP jazz artists included Ayler, Burton Greene, Milford Graves, Paul Bley and Sun Ra plus rockers such as The Fugs and Pearls Before Swine. MORE
December 15, 2012
In the Beginning 1963-64
ESP-Disk ESP-4069
Pierre Favre
Drums and Dreams
Intakt CD 197
Connie Crothers - David Arner
Spontaneous Suite for Two Pianos
Rogueart R0G-037
Various Artists
Echtzeitmusik Berlin
Mikroton CD 14/15/16
Something In The Air: Multiple Disc Sets for the Adventurous
By Ken Waxman
Defying doomsayers who predicted the death of the LP, the CD’s disappearance appears oversold. True music collectors prefer the physical presence and superior fidelity of a well-designd CD package and important material continues to released. Partisans of advanced music, for instance, can choose any one of these sets. The only saxophonist to be part of saxophonist John Coltrane’s working group, tenorist Pharoah Sanders is celebrated for his own highly rhythmic Energy Music. In the Beginning 1963-64 ESP-Disk ESP-4069, a four CD-package highlight his steady growth. Besides Sanders’ first album as leader, very much in the freebop tradition, as part of quintet of now obscure players, the other previously released sounds capture Sanders’ recordings in the Sun Ra Arkestra. More valuable is a CD of unissued tracks where Sanders asserts himself in quartets led by cornetist Don Cherry or Canadian pianist Paul Bley. The set is completed by short interviews with all of the leaders. Oddly enough, although they precede his solo debut, Sanders’ playing is most impressive with Bley and Cherry. With more of a regularized beat via bassist David Izenson and drummer J.C. Moses, Cherry’s tracks advance melody juxtaposition and parallel improvisations with Sanders’ harsh obbligato contrasted with the cornetist’s feisty flourishes; plus the darting lines and quick jabs of pianist Joe Scianni provides an unheralded pleasure. Bley’s economical comping and discursive patterning lead the saxophonist into solos filled with harsh tongue-twisting lines and jagged interval leaps. With Izenson’s screeching assent and drummer Paul Motion’s press rolls the quartet plays super fast without losing the melodic thread. Sun Ra is a different matter. Recorded in concert, the sets include helpings of space chants such as “Rocket #9” and “Next Stop Mars”; a feature for Black Harold’s talking log drums; showcases for blaring trombones, growling trumpets; plus the leader’s propulsive half-down-home and half-outer-space keyboard. Sharing honking and double-tonguing interludes with Arkestra saxists Pat Patrick and Marshall Allen, Sanders exhibits his characteristic stridency. Enjoyable for Sun Ra’s vision which is spectacular and jocular, these tracks suggest why the taciturn Sanders soon went on his own. MORE
March 14, 2011
ECM 40th Anniversary Catalogue
Edited by Kenny Inaoka
Tokyo Kirarasha
Tell No Lies Claim No Easy Victories
Edited by Phillipp Schmickl
Impro 2000
As globalization intensifies, American-birthed popular music forms – most especially Jazz and Improvised Music – have evolved far beyond their initial audiences, confirming one of the hoariest of clichés, that music is a universal language. Creative music of many stripes has for many years been often treated more seriously in Europe and Asia than in North America. Consequently to be truly informed about the breadth of musical sounds it helps to understand other languages besides English. That’s the challenge related to the valuable books here. Neither is published primarily in English, but both can serve as resources for followers of Jazz and Improvised Music, no matter their native tongues. MORE
July 9, 2008
12+6 In A Row
hatOLOGY 649
Lisle Ellis
Sucker Punch Requiem
Henceforth Records 104
Radio I-Ching
The Fire Keeps Burning
Resonant Music 004
Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet
One Dance Alone
Songlines SGL SA1571-2
Mark O'Leary/Eyvind Kang/Dylan van der Schyff
Zemlya
Leo Records CD LR 507
Expatriate – and Homebody – Sounds
Extended Play
By Ken Waxman
Geographic proximity is responsible for the migration of gifted Canadian artists to the United States. Plus Canadian improvisers down south quickly find eager collaborators. MORE
July 9, 2008
Sucker Punch Requiem
Henceforth Records 104
Paul Bley
12+6 In A Row
hatOLOGY 649
Radio I-Ching
The Fire Keeps Burning
Resonant Music 004
Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet
One Dance Alone
Songlines SGL SA1571-2
Mark O'Leary/Eyvind Kang/Dylan van der Schyff
Zemlya
Leo Records CD LR 507
Expatriate – and Homebody – Sounds
Extended Play
By Ken Waxman
Geographic proximity is responsible for the migration of gifted Canadian artists to the United States. Plus Canadian improvisers down south quickly find eager collaborators. MORE
July 9, 2008
The Fire Keeps Burning
Resonant Music 004
Paul Bley
12+6 In A Row
hatOLOGY 649
Lisle Ellis
Sucker Punch Requiem
Henceforth Records 104
Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet
One Dance Alone
Songlines SGL SA1571-2
Mark O'Leary/Eyvind Kang/Dylan van der Schyff
Zemlya
Leo Records CD LR 507
Expatriate – and Homebody – Sounds
Extended Play
By Ken Waxman
Geographic proximity is responsible for the migration of gifted Canadian artists to the United States. Plus Canadian improvisers down south quickly find eager collaborators. MORE
July 9, 2008
Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet
One Dance Alone
Songlines SGL SA1571-2
Paul Bley
12+6 In A Row
hatOLOGY 649
Lisle Ellis
Sucker Punch Requiem
Henceforth Records 104
Radio I-Ching
The Fire Keeps Burning
Resonant Music 004
Mark O'Leary/Eyvind Kang/Dylan van der Schyff
Zemlya
Leo Records CD LR 507
Expatriate – and Homebody – Sounds
Extended Play
By Ken Waxman
Geographic proximity is responsible for the migration of gifted Canadian artists to the United States. Plus Canadian improvisers down south quickly find eager collaborators. MORE
July 9, 2008
Mark O'Leary/Eyvind Kang/Dylan van der Schyff
Zemlya
Leo Records CD LR 507
Paul Bley
12+6 In A Row
hatOLOGY 649
Lisle Ellis
Sucker Punch Requiem
Henceforth Records 104
Radio I-Ching
The Fire Keeps Burning
Resonant Music 004
Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet
One Dance Alone
Songlines SGL SA1571-2
Expatriate – and Homebody – Sounds
Extended Play
By Ken Waxman
Geographic proximity is responsible for the migration of gifted Canadian artists to the United States. Plus Canadian improvisers down south quickly find eager collaborators. MORE
March 15, 2008
Portrait of creative alto saxophonist François Carrier in mid-career
By Ken Waxman
CODA Issue 338
Riven like much of the rest of Quebec by long-standing divisions among its population, Montreal’s jazz scene includes a variety of cliques and factions that rarely mix. Standing slight apart from this set of circumstances is saxophonist François Carrier, 46, whose focus is decidedly inward, spiritual and universalistic.
Although un vrai québécois, the Chicoutimi-born Quebec City-raised, Montreal resident decidedly goes his own way, only playing his own music. Leading his own bands since the early 1990s, Carrier’s singular vision has led him to recorded and live collaborations with such non-Québeçois as Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson, American violist Mat Maneri and French bassist Jaean-Jacques Avenel – to name only three of many. MORE
March 15, 2008
Portrait of creative alto saxophonist François Carrier in mid-career
By Ken Waxman
CODA Issue 338
Riven like much of the rest of Quebec by long-standing divisions among its population, Montreal’s jazz scene includes a variety of cliques and factions that rarely mix. Standing slight apart from this set of circumstances is saxophonist François Carrier, 46, whose focus is decidedly inward, spiritual and universalistic.
Although un vrai québécois, the Chicoutimi-born Quebec City-raised, Montreal resident decidedly goes his own way, only playing his own music. Leading his own bands since the early 1990s, Carrier’s singular vision has led him to recorded and live collaborations with such non-Québécois as Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson, American violist Mat Maneri and French bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel – to name only three of many. MORE
October 3, 2007
Florida
ILK 131 CD
More separates legendary Canadian expatriate pianist Paul Bley, 75, and Danish percussionist Kresten Osgood, 30, than the almost 45-year age-spread. Although the CD, recorded on one day this year in West Palm Beach, Fla. – hence the title – appears to be a duo session, only the three longest tunes feature both men. The rest showcase either Bley’s or Osgood’s solo strategies. Truth in packaging aside, the results are rather engaging.
Osgood has previously recorded with such older improvisers as saxophonists Sam Rivers and John Tchicai and was part of Manhattan-based Canadian saxophonist Michael Blake’s trio. With Bley he’s suitably diffident, sticking to brush-wiped rumbles, rim shots and pops plus cymbal resonation. This is especially apparent on “Arches”, where Bley moves from behind-the-beat phrasing in a theme that resembles Edith Piaf’s “Les Trio Cloches” to slyly accelerate the line as a swinging ballad. With a martial beat and ruffs as the introduction to “All The Things You Are”, the drummer’s emphasis leads the pianist to recast the overly familiar standard with passing chords and tremolo dynamics. MORE
November 14, 2005
Travelling Lights
Justin Time
Stitch Wynston’s Modern Surfaces
Transparent Horizons
TCB
By Ken Waxman
November 14, 2005
So unfamiliar are most Americans with Canada that they think of the giant land mass north of them as a puny area with one culture and a single conception.
True, most Canadians live close to the United States border, including those in the northern country’s three largest population centres that surpass most American cities in sophistication and multiculturalism. This accident of geography makes it fairly straightforward for Canadians –comedians including Mike Meyers and Martin Short, actors including Keifer Sutherland to Kim Cattrall and entertainers including Celine Dion Young and Avril Lavigne – to list the most recent examples – to covertly become part of the American entertainment fabric. Even committed jazz fans sometimes forget that stylist as varied as trumpeter Maynard Ferguson and pianist Paul Bley, to cite two of many instances, are from Canada. MORE
April 26, 2004
Furnace
Wobbly Rail 013
JIMMY GIUFFRE/PAUL BLEY/STEVE SWALLOW
Fly Away Little Bird
Sunnyside/Owl SSC 3504
Named for the LP that presented the fullest realization of clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre’s chamber-avant garde in 1962, the band Free Fall shows how the structured freedom of the trio can be adapted to the 21st Century.
Yet FURNACE succeeds on its own terms because the musicians involved -- American reedist Ken Vandermark and Norwegians, pianist Håvard Wiik and bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten -- haven’t gone the neo-con route of recreation. Instead nine new compositions have been recorded, with the performance of the three as influenced by the subsequent 40 years plus of improv experimentation as the original Giuffre trio’s sound. MORE
April 12, 2002
Seven
Jazz in Motion JIM 75086
VIJAY IYER
Panoptic Modes
Red Giant RG011
Practically a jazz cliché, the sax and rhythm quartet has been a staple of the music since the late 1940s and early 1950s, when it became the favored compact configuration for modernists to tour from town to town.
Since that time every major improviser, definitely including such iconoclastic figures as John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and, surprisingly, even Anthony Braxton, David Murray and Evan Parker has played and recorded in that formation from time to time. So the challenge facing someone is how best to adjust the quartet setting to his or her own ends. MORE
April 24, 2001
PAUL BLEY/EVAN PARKER/BARRE PHILLIPS
Sankt Gerold
ECM 1609 012 157 899-2
Recorded at the spectacularly-situated Propstei Sankt Gerold, monastery in the Austrian alps, this follow up to the trio's lavishly praised TIME WILL TELL CD, offers a disparate vision of how the participants view sound.
Imbued with a chamber jazz essence, the first CD was also, extraordinarily, the first time British saxophonist Evan Parker and Canadian pianist Paul Bley had recorded together, despite having been involved with improvised music for, at that point, about 35 years each. Veteran American bassist Barre Phillips was the common link, and the success of the session not only set new standards of literate blending, but two years later, also allowed the three to embark on their first-ever -- and so far only -- trio tour including this date. SANKT GEROLD pinpoints the group's singularity as well as its cohesiveness. Unlike TIME's seven trio and four duo selections, this CD is divided between five trio selections and a basket full of solo spots for each member.
MORE