BOB MOVER TRIO ft. PAUL BLEY & JOHN ABERCROMBIE - The Night Bathers (1986-1991) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

When one considers the instrumentation (alto, piano and guitar) and the personnel (Bob Mover, Paul Bley and John Abercrombie), it is not surprising that this date is full of thoughtful, chance-taking and often lyrical improvisations. Most of the selections are either duets or unaccompanied solos, and although there are some melodies, the music was pretty much all improvised on the spot. An intriguing set. by Scott Yanow
Tracklist :
1    The Night Bathers    6:10
2    Berg-Like    3:31
3    Hélène    1:21
4    Suite In 4 Parts    10:13
5    We Burn    1:36
6    Beach Music    6:33
7    Randomland    5:01
8    John's 1st Synthony    2:02
9    Fathoms    3:07
10    Sonny Claws    1:51
11    Angelica    3:20
Credits :
Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Bob Mover
Electric Guitar, Guitar [Guitar Synth] – John Abercrombie
Piano – Paul Bley

PAUL BLEY - Introducing Paul Bley (1953-1992) RM / FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Pianist Paul Bley's debut as a leader features the 21-year old in a trio with bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Art Blakey for Mingus' Debut label. The CD reissue, which adds four performances to the original program, finds Bley developing his voice within the bebop tradition. Mixing together stimulating originals such as "Opus 1" and "Spontaneous Combustion" with a few standards, Horace Silver's "Split Kick" and a surprisingly effective version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town," Paul Bley may not have been distinctive this early on but he clearly had a potentially strong future. by Scott Yanow
Tracklist:
1. Opus 1
2. Opus 1 (Alternate Take) *
3. (Teapot) Walin'
4. Like Someone In Love
5. Spontaneous Combustion
6. Split Kick
7. Can't Get Started
8. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
9. The Theme *
10. This Time The Dream's On Me *
11. Zootcase
* Bonus tracks
Credits:
Bass – Charles Mingus
Drums – Art Blakey
Piano – Paul Bley

 

PAUL BLEY - Open, To Love (1972) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Despite the fact that pianist and composer Paul Bley had been a renowned and innovative jazzman for nearly 20 years, 1973 saw the release of his most mature and visionary work, and one that to this day remains his opus. This is one of the most influential solo piano recordings in jazz history, and certainly one that defined the sound of the German label ECM. Consisting of seven tracks, five of which were composed by Carla Bley (his ex-wife) and Annette Peacock (soon to be his ex-wife), and two originals, Bley showcased his newfound penchant for the spatial pointillism and use of silence that came to define his mature work. In Carla Bley's "Ida Lupino," the pianist took the song's harmonics and unwound them from their source, deepening the blues elements, brushing the Errol Garnerish ostinato with pastoral shades and textures of timbral elegance, and reaching the tonic chords in the middle register just as he forced the improvisation just barely into the abstract with his right hand, percussively slipping in one or two extra notes to highlight the deep lyricism in the tune's body. On his own "Started," Bley illustrates brazenly the deep influences of the Second Viennese School on his sense of harmony and counterpoint. Recalling Arnold Schöenberg's solo piano pieces in their engagement of dissonance and glissando placement, it's still Bley playing jazz and improvising, vamping on his own theme while turning melody and timbre back on themselves for the purpose of complete tonal engagement in the middle register. And in Annette Peacock's "Nothing Ever Was, Anyway," which closes the album, Bley makes full use of an element he employs throughout the recording: space and its ability to create the notion of consonance or dissonance from the simplest of melodies. Here notes appear, related, but just barely, to one another in a more or less linear sequence, and Bley stretches that connection to the breaking point by using his sense of spatial relationship in harmony to silence. He elongates the tonal sustain and allows it to bleed into his next line just enough, as if it were a ghostlike trace of another melody, a another distant lyric, attempting to impose itself on the present one, though it had just since ceased to exist. Ultimately, what Bley offers is jazz pianism as a new kind of aural poetics, one that treats the extension of the composer's line much as the poet treats the line as the extension of breath. Sheer brilliance. by Thom Jurek
Tracklist:
1 Closer 5:51
Composed By – Carla Bley
2 Ida Lupino 7:31
Composed By – Carla Bley
3 Started 5:13
Composed By – Paul Bley
4 Open, To Love 7:10
Composed By – Anette Peacock
5 Harlem 3:22
Composed By – Paul Bley
6 Seven 7:21
Composed By – Carla Bley
7 Nothing Ever Was, Anyway 6:02
Composed By – Anette Peacock
Credits
Piano – Paul Bley
Producer – Manfred Eicher

PAUL BLEY / FRANZ KOGLMANN / GARY PEACOCK - Annette (1992-2001) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

 

This trio date is dedicated to the music of Annette Peacock, former wife of both pianist Paul Bley and bassist Gary Peacock. While Bley is the undisputed leader on this date (as he has recorded many of these pieces before), it is flügelhorn and trumpet player Franz Koglmann who arranged them in such an exquisite manner. The majority of the pieces included here were originally composed as songs. They were vehicles for expressing the interior, haunted world that Ms. Peacock inhabits and featured her lilting, edgy voice, which slips and slithers through her deceptively simple melodies before erupting into a shriek of ecstasy or pain. Her music is the undercarriage -- the skeletal structure-- for her poetry to hang itself on. This trio treats these 12 compositions in much the same way. The music is so sparse, so lacking in adornment, that at times, tension replaces the subtle dynamic shifts in Ms. Peacock's compositions. The harmonic construction employed by Bley on this recording is used nowhere else in his vast oeuvre. The set begins with a solo piano rendering of "Touching." An open minor chord (strung with spare notes for accent) gives way to more modal chords, creating a sonic architecture that doesn't reach, but burrows deeply into itself. (It's also interesting to note that the record ends with the same tune, but played with Peacock's bass as a foundation for the terse improvisation.) Next is Koglmann's opportunity to reveal his ability for understatement with "El Cordobes." The trumpet comes off playing a tango line joined note for note by Bley, stating a theme evoking distance and melancholy before melding fully into Ms. Peacock's sad song. Koglmann also briefly quotes several selections from Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain before allowing Peacock's bass to lead him back toward the original melody. Bley shades each of the trumpet lines almost imperceptibly as Peacock takes the trio down the labyrinth of this song's subtle complexity. Bley enters fully about midway through, changing tempo and mode to carry the improvisation off into yet another songlike structure before the trio fades into silence. "Kid Dynamite" is an example of Ms. Peacock's humor and interest in cultural Americana. The opening theme stated by Bley comes straight out of Copland filtered through Fats Waller. The blues are jubilant here, spiked and adorned with all manner of swing and flourish. Each chorus pushes the threshold a bit until "Kid Dynamite" concludes with a collage of smattered notes and chords from the entire trio. But perhaps "Albert's Love Theme" best defines the lyrical and emotional concerns that Ms. Peacock's songs deal with. Here, Koglmann's lonely flügelhorn introduces a lyric phrase so fraught with melancholy and tenderness that it nearly disintegrates as Peacock's bass enters the tune. Breadth, range, and harmony are all contained in these simple lines. The tension held between both Koglmann and Peacock is nearly unbearable before the track whispers to a close, completely unresolved. As the record closes with the second take of "Touching" (this time with just Koglmann and Peacock), the listener has encountered a world of musical sound so completely focused within that, for a few moments, it is difficult to hear or see anything outside of its muted colors and textures. There isn't anything else to play after Annette that wouldn't seem superfluous or bombastic. With this album, the trio of Bley, Peacock, and Koglmann has created more than just a tribute to a great artist -- it has offered a look deep inside the musical psyche of a true original. by Thom Jurek
 Tracklist:
1 Touching 5:52
Annette Peacock
2 El Cordobes 8:30
Annette Peacock
3 Cartoon 6:26
Annette Peacock
4 Albert's Love Theme 3:46
Annette Peacock
5 Kid Dynamite 4:26
Annette Peacock
6 Miracles 6:47
Annette Peacock
7 Blood 5:03
Annette Peacock
8 Annette 6:26
Paul Bley / Franz Koglmann / Gary Peacock
9 Both 4:26
Annette Peacock
10 Blood 2:46
Annette Peacock
11 Mister Joy 8:37
Paul Bley / Annette Peacock
12 Touching 1:45
Annette Peacock
Credits:
Double Bass – Gary Peacock
Piano – Paul Bley
Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Franz Koglmann
Written-By – Annette Peacock (tracks: 1 to 7, 9 to 12)

PAUL BLEY / GARY PEACOCK - Partners (1991-2001) RM / FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Paul Bley had known and collaborated with Gary Peacock since 1962, so by the time this duo session was recorded, one could expect that a certain degree of musical empathy would be in play. And yes, here there is plenty of the give and take of two old friends who do not go along with the mainstream jazz program. Yet one could also call this an album of twin monologues, for ten of the 15 tracks here are solo improvisations for each player, with the five duo numbers interspersed between them. Twice, a pair of Peacock's bass solos form a sandwich around a Bley solo track, setting up a symmetry that is fulfilled by the subsequent duo numbers. Moreover, on the first five minutes of the lengthy duo track "Who's Who Is It?," Bley and Peacock play their passages separately, one after another, before Peacock's free basslines stiffen sufficiently to provide a walking, swinging partner for Bley. As for other duo tracks, the CD opens with a lovely duet bearing the significant title "Again Anew," and they put together a great Latin-flavored workout on Ornette Coleman's "Latin Genetics." The parting shot "No Pun Intended" is a humorous, atonal, avant-garde, extended-techniques adventure at the opposite stylistic pole of the opening track. Without slighting Bley's contribution in the least, it is Peacock who makes the most inventive impression on this disc; his solos sustain high interest throughout -- a tough thing to pull off on the bass -- and his instrument is beautifully captured by the engineers. by Richard S. Ginell  
Tracklist:
1    Again Anew 6:32    
Paul Bley / Gary Peacock
2    Pleiades Skirt 2:12    
Gary Peacock
3    Octavon 2:13    
Paul Bley
4    Latin Genetics 5:07
Ornette Coleman
5    Workinoot 4:37
Gary Peacock
6    Afternoon of a Dawn, Pts. 1-3 5:33
Paul Bley
7    Hand in Hand 4:44
Paul Bley / Gary Peacock
8    Satyr Satire 2:41
Gary Peacock
9    Lull-A-Bye 3:31
Paul Bley
10    Twitter Pat1 1:35
Gary Peacock    
11    Who's Who Is It? 11:37
Paul Bley / Gary Peacock
12    Gently, Gently 2:11
Gary Peacock
13    Majestique 3:06
Paul Bley
14    Pot Luck 2:48
Gary Peacock
15    No Pun Intended  3:08
Paul Bley / Gary Peacock
Credits:
Bass – Gary Peacock (tracks: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 to 12, 14, 15)
Composed By – Gary Peacock (tracks: 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 to 12, 14, 15), Ornette Coleman (tracks: 4), Paul Bley (tracks: 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15)
Piano – Paul Bley (tracks: 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15)