A rare solo performance by one of jazz’s great originals, Canadian pianist Paul Bley, recorded live at the Oslo Jazz Festival in 2008 by Jan Erik Kongshaug and Manfred Eicher. There is nothing else quite like a Paul Bley concert. As the New York Times noted, “Mr. Bley long ago found a way to express his long, elegant, voluminous thoughts in a manner that implies complete autonomy from its given setting but isn’t quite free jazz. The music runs on a mixture of deep historical knowledge and its own inviolable principles." Here Bley, encouraged by an attentive and enthusiastic Norwegian audience shapes music in the moment, plays his own compositions, and brings the music to a fine conclusion in a performance of Sonny Rollins’s “Pent-Up House”.
Play Blue - Oslo Concert
Paul Bley
Eine rare Solo-Aufnahme von einem der großen Individualisten des Jazz: der kanadische Pianist Paul Bley, von Manfred Eicher und Jan Erik Kongshaug beim Oslo Jazz Festival 2008 live aufgenommen. Paul-Bley-Konzerte sind Ereignisse ganz eigener Art - wie die New York Times schrieb: „Bley hat schon vor langer Zeit seine ganz eigene Art gefunden, seine eleganten, umfangreichen Ideen in einer Manier auszudrücken, die komplette Autonomie von…und doch nicht wirklicher Free Jazz ist. Die Musik wird von einer Mischung aus profundem historischem Wissen und ihren eigenen unverletzbaren Prinzipien getragen.“ Ermutigt vom aufmerksamen und enthusiastischen norwegischen Publikum erschafft Bley hier Musik aus dem Moment heraus, spielt seine eigenen Kompositionen und bringt schließlich mit seiner Interpretation von Sonny Rollins’ „Pent Up House“ alles zu einem krönenden Abschluss.
- 1Far North
17:00 - 2Way Down South Suite
15:21 - 3Flame
07:47 - 4Longer
10:16 - 5Pent-Up House
06:06
Play Blue documents a rare solo performance by one of jazz’s great originals, Canadian pianist Paul Bley, recorded live at the Oslo Jazz Festival in 2008 by Manfred Eicher and Jan Erik Kongshaug.
The solo medium is one that Bley first broached on ECM. The 1972 recording Open, To Love was to prove one of the defining works in the unaccompanied genre, and at least as influential in its way as Paul’s classic jazz trio albums of the 1960s’s – such as Footloose!, Touching, Closer – had been. 35 years would elapse before the release of a ‘sequel’ at ECM, Solo at Mondsee, with Bley’s kaleidoscopic transformations of standard themes in a series of variations.
Bley’s vision of musical freedom – as Play Blue again makes plain – is inclusive. Even at the height of the 1960s free jazz movement, Bley argued that the aesthetics of earlier jazz could and should be incorporated by a revolutionary art form. His discography and his live appearances have made the case ever since, with radical, intelligent music whose phrases can reference the blues or bebop, Berg or Bird, Ayler and atonality. In or out of the tradition he still sounds like irreducible Bley in every line. His touch is instantly recognisable.
“I’ve tried to maintain all the advances of jazz,” Bley told biographer Arrigo Cappelletti, “while adding the ability to also play them all free.”
There is nothing else quite like a Paul Bley concert. As the New York Times noted, “Mr. Bley long ago found a way to express his long, elegant, voluminous thoughts in a manner that implies complete autonomy from its given setting but isn't quite free jazz. The music runs on a mixture of deep historical knowledge and its own inviolable principles." Solo in Oslo, Bley, encouraged by an attentive and enthusiastic audience, shapes music in the moment, plays his own compositions, and brings the performance to a fine conclusion in an inspired interpretation of “Pent-Up House”, composed by his one-time employer Sonny Rollins.
The solo medium is one that Bley first broached on ECM. The 1972 recording Open, To Love was to prove one of the defining works in the unaccompanied genre, and at least as influential in its way as Paul’s classic jazz trio albums of the 1960s’s – such as Footloose!, Touching, Closer – had been. 35 years would elapse before the release of a ‘sequel’ at ECM, Solo at Mondsee, with Bley’s kaleidoscopic transformations of standard themes in a series of variations.
Bley’s vision of musical freedom – as Play Blue again makes plain – is inclusive. Even at the height of the 1960s free jazz movement, Bley argued that the aesthetics of earlier jazz could and should be incorporated by a revolutionary art form. His discography and his live appearances have made the case ever since, with radical, intelligent music whose phrases can reference the blues or bebop, Berg or Bird, Ayler and atonality. In or out of the tradition he still sounds like irreducible Bley in every line. His touch is instantly recognisable.
“I’ve tried to maintain all the advances of jazz,” Bley told biographer Arrigo Cappelletti, “while adding the ability to also play them all free.”
There is nothing else quite like a Paul Bley concert. As the New York Times noted, “Mr. Bley long ago found a way to express his long, elegant, voluminous thoughts in a manner that implies complete autonomy from its given setting but isn't quite free jazz. The music runs on a mixture of deep historical knowledge and its own inviolable principles." Solo in Oslo, Bley, encouraged by an attentive and enthusiastic audience, shapes music in the moment, plays his own compositions, and brings the performance to a fine conclusion in an inspired interpretation of “Pent-Up House”, composed by his one-time employer Sonny Rollins.
