A fine overview! Paul’s ECM catalog alone merits a deep dive, but I would raise my hand for the solo Open, To Love, which is exquisitely recorded, and which I return to frequently in these days when, like you, I listen more than I collect. Cheers!
Thank you so much! There is so much important information in your article that is new to me. I love Paul Bley and feel very much honoured to have once recorded with him in 1982. Our album is called This Earth! (ECM 1264) and was meant to be a contribution for more conscious ecology, also with the help of words, sang by Maggie Nichols.
Thank you so much for this comment, Alfred. I'm planning a piece on Maggie Nichols and Feminist Improvising Group. I'll be sure to add in this album. I just listened to your composition Transformate, Transcend Tones And Images. Wonderful!
Is that a soprano sax you are playing in the background on that song?
I saw Paul Bley play duets with Lee Konitz at a sort of mini festival when they were both in their '80s, still playing with a great deal of invention if not quite the technical brilliance of their younger selves. I once had an album entitled Quiet Song, which was on Improvising Artists and featured the trio of Bley, Giuffre, and Bill Connors playing acoustic guitar. The label wasn't around for very long, but along with those Sun Ra albums, Improvising Artists issued a number of cool discs, Virtuosi with Bley, Peacock and Altschul, a couple of LPs of Sam Rivers with Dave Holland and Marion Brown's album with Gunter Hampel.
Nice hearing a shout out for Marion Brown. You probably already know that Sweet Earth Flying is the third part of a trilogy which includes Geechee Recollections and Afternoon of a Georgia Faun. I like all three of those, but even on earlier work like Porto Novo, with Han Bennink and Maarten Altena, and the ESP album with Stanley Cowell, Sirone and Rashid Ali he's very much his own man.
Ida Lupino kind of bucked the system, something of an early maverick, perhaps why Carla Bley admired her so much. She appeared in several notable noir films. Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground comes to mind, for which Lupino is said to have been the uncredited co-director. She also directed a creepy noir entitled Hitch Hiker from a script she co-wrote, with the fellow who later portrayed Hamilton Burger, William Talman, as a psychotic killer.
I had the pleasure to enjoy a solo gig by Bley, at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague, late 80s probably. I was early to arrive at the Piano Room, so was Paul who was trying to adjust the bench. He wasn’t happy with it and left the room to return with a big old telephone book. He put it on the bench and sat down. He smiled for now he had the perfect angle. A few minutes later Paul Bley commenced to play a beautiful set.
Apparently the George Russell and Giuffre jobs - and maybe even the Space Age gig - were down to Bley showing up at the Lenox School of Jazz, where Ornette and Don had gone, for the very last jam session on the last night that year. He said he played as if life depended on it, then slept under John Lewis’s piano.
Thanks for writing about Paul Bley; I’m a big fan of his. I did not know that after the Ornette group, he had a trio with Bobby Hutcherson and Scott LaFaro! (Btw, you spelled it Hutchinson in your article). I wish I could have heard that trio. I wonder if they played standards, or more experimental free playing…
One other typo - I think in a paragraph you said Bley didn’t record for 10 years after Free Fall, but I think that is supposed to say Giuffre didn’t record for 10 years after Free Fall...
A fine overview! Paul’s ECM catalog alone merits a deep dive, but I would raise my hand for the solo Open, To Love, which is exquisitely recorded, and which I return to frequently in these days when, like you, I listen more than I collect. Cheers!
Thank you so much! There is so much important information in your article that is new to me. I love Paul Bley and feel very much honoured to have once recorded with him in 1982. Our album is called This Earth! (ECM 1264) and was meant to be a contribution for more conscious ecology, also with the help of words, sang by Maggie Nichols.
Thank you so much for this comment, Alfred. I'm planning a piece on Maggie Nichols and Feminist Improvising Group. I'll be sure to add in this album. I just listened to your composition Transformate, Transcend Tones And Images. Wonderful!
Is that a soprano sax you are playing in the background on that song?
That's nice, thank you Tyler, am looking forward.
Background is my tenor, though I also played soprano sax...
Maggie Nichols for that LP project brought in words of her friend Vicky Scrivener.
Let me add that on this album, Maggie reminds me of Tina Marsh, whom I wrote about in three parts last year.
I saw Paul Bley play duets with Lee Konitz at a sort of mini festival when they were both in their '80s, still playing with a great deal of invention if not quite the technical brilliance of their younger selves. I once had an album entitled Quiet Song, which was on Improvising Artists and featured the trio of Bley, Giuffre, and Bill Connors playing acoustic guitar. The label wasn't around for very long, but along with those Sun Ra albums, Improvising Artists issued a number of cool discs, Virtuosi with Bley, Peacock and Altschul, a couple of LPs of Sam Rivers with Dave Holland and Marion Brown's album with Gunter Hampel.
Nice hearing a shout out for Marion Brown. You probably already know that Sweet Earth Flying is the third part of a trilogy which includes Geechee Recollections and Afternoon of a Georgia Faun. I like all three of those, but even on earlier work like Porto Novo, with Han Bennink and Maarten Altena, and the ESP album with Stanley Cowell, Sirone and Rashid Ali he's very much his own man.
Ida Lupino kind of bucked the system, something of an early maverick, perhaps why Carla Bley admired her so much. She appeared in several notable noir films. Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground comes to mind, for which Lupino is said to have been the uncredited co-director. She also directed a creepy noir entitled Hitch Hiker from a script she co-wrote, with the fellow who later portrayed Hamilton Burger, William Talman, as a psychotic killer.
Great stuff, Lenny. We think alike. Brown's trilogy is epic.
I had the pleasure to enjoy a solo gig by Bley, at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague, late 80s probably. I was early to arrive at the Piano Room, so was Paul who was trying to adjust the bench. He wasn’t happy with it and left the room to return with a big old telephone book. He put it on the bench and sat down. He smiled for now he had the perfect angle. A few minutes later Paul Bley commenced to play a beautiful set.
Great stuff.
Apparently the George Russell and Giuffre jobs - and maybe even the Space Age gig - were down to Bley showing up at the Lenox School of Jazz, where Ornette and Don had gone, for the very last jam session on the last night that year. He said he played as if life depended on it, then slept under John Lewis’s piano.
I really like these overviews of the work of individual artists. I learn a lot from them.
Thanks for writing about Paul Bley; I’m a big fan of his. I did not know that after the Ornette group, he had a trio with Bobby Hutcherson and Scott LaFaro! (Btw, you spelled it Hutchinson in your article). I wish I could have heard that trio. I wonder if they played standards, or more experimental free playing…
One other typo - I think in a paragraph you said Bley didn’t record for 10 years after Free Fall, but I think that is supposed to say Giuffre didn’t record for 10 years after Free Fall...
I really appreciate your writing :)
Thanks for correcting me, I appreciate that. I have corrected those errors.
Great article, but I thought Carla Bley wrote Ida Lupino!
She did! Thanks for correcting me. I have updated the article.