Jazz Articles about Paul Bley

About Paul Bley

Album Review

Paul Bley Trios: Touching & Blood Revisited

Read "Touching & Blood Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 21, 2021

Pianist Paul Bley (1932—2016) wasn't just a witness to jazz history, he was a key contributor. Bley performed with Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Sonny Rollins, yet his true sound was set in motion when he performed with Ornette Coleman in California, evidenced by Live At The Hillcrest Club 1958 (America Records, 1971). While Coleman eschewed a piano in his ensembles until he made the Sound Museum (Harmolodic / Verve, 1996) sessions in the 1990s, Bley kept Ornette's ...

Album Review

Paul Bley: When Will The Blues Leave

Read "When Will The Blues Leave" reviewed by John Ephland

by John Ephland
June 26, 2019

Ornette Coleman recorded “When Will The Blues Leave" in early 1958, released the next year on Something Else!!!! (Contemporary). Paul Bley played Coleman's blues four years later on The Floater Syndrome (Savoy Records), a trio recording with bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Pete La Roca. Both versions--Coleman's in a quintet with trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Don Payne, drummer Billy Higgins and pianist Walter Norris--suggest more release than lament, their up-tempo swing treatments dwelling in a kind of blow-through-the-blues attitude, in ...

Album Review

Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, Paul Motian: When Will The Blues Leave

Read "When Will The Blues Leave" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
June 8, 2019

The first posthumous Bley release since his passing in 2016, When Will The Blues Leave is a true dance of inquisitive equals. Recorded live at Lugano's Aula Magna in Switzerland in March of 1999, Paul Bley, Gary Peacock and Paul Motian celebrate their decades-long friendship and the virtuoso inspiration first heard on the trio's ever-exquisite reunion of sorts Not Two, Not One (ECM, 1998). It is a reunion of sorts, for the trio can be heard on five tracks from ...

Album Review

Paul Bley / Gary Peacock / Paul Motian: When Will The Blues Leave

Read "When Will The Blues Leave" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
May 22, 2019

Had Paul Bley, Gary Peacock and Paul Motian recorded together more consistently, they would have been considered among the best piano trios in modern jazz history. The three first recorded on the ECM collection Paul Bley with Gary Peacock (1970), a compilation from the 1960s where three of the eight tracks had Billy Elgart on drums. It would be decades before the trio reunited in the studio, and again, ECM captured the session, Not Two, Not One (1998). When Will ...

Radio & Podcasts

A Focus on Paul Bley

by Bob Osborne
April 18, 2019

This week we focus on the work of master pianist Paul Bley, including examples of the ground-breaking music he created with Jimmy Giuffre and Steve Swallow. During the rest of the show we feature some fascinating recent releases and some other classic cuts. Playlist James Brandon Lewis “Sir Real Denard" from An Unruly Manifesto (Relative Pitch) 00:00 Paul Bley “There Will Never Be Another You" from Early Trios (Fresh Sounds) 09:52 Jimmy Giuffre “The Five Ways" from ...

Year in Review

Dan McClenaghan's Best Releases of 2014

by Dan McClenaghan
December 15, 2014

It's that time to wrap it up and make some choices on the top jazz releases of the year. Here are my picks for the best of 2014, in no particular order, with the exception of the first listing, pianist Paul Bley's disc, which stands out. I do love piano jazz. Paul BleyPlay Blue ECM Records Pianist Paul Bley's career got started in the 1950s, and he has recorded scores of albums--many of them ...

Album Review

Paul Bley: Play Blue

Read "Play Blue" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 17, 2014

Pianist Paul Bley, born in 1932, began his jazz career in the 1950's, working with every one from saxophonists Charlie Parker, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, and Ornette Coleman, as well as clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre and trumpeter Chet Baker, and more legends of the time than can be listed here. He has, under his own name, made over a hundred recordings, in every style. The most often mentioned of these scores of recordings are two solo piano sets for ...