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Paul Bley

"Since the Montreal-born, long-US resident Bley's 50's debut with Mingus and Blakey, he's worked with more first-rate, wide ranging original musical minds than anyone but Miles..." —Howard Mandel, Downbeat, April 1995

Bley gave violin recitals at age five. By age seven he was studying piano. He went through numerous classical teachers—including one Frenchman that had him play, balancing filled water glasses on the tops of his hands. At age 11 he graduated from the McGill Conservatory—having taken on their musical curriculum in addition to his public school education. Bley, who was known as "Buzzy" in his early adolescence, formed a band and played clubs and summer hotel jobs in the Laurentian Mountains at age 13. Four years later he replaced Oscar Peterson at the Alberta Lounge. Bley founded the Montreal Jazz Workshop and brought Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Brew Moore and Alan Eager to Montreal inorder to perform with them.

In 1950 Bley left for New York City. He studied at the Julliard School of Music from 1950-54. While at Julliard, Bley had a band with Jackie MacLean, Donald Byrd, Arthur Taylor, Doug Watkins. In this period he toured with Lester Young, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge and Bill Harris. He was a frequent visitor at the famed Saturday night sessions at Lenny Tristano's studio. Bley served as president of the Associated Jazz Societies of New York in 1952, which led to Charlie Mingus hiring Bley to conduct his ensemble. Mingus also recorded Bley's debut album, along with himself and Art Blakey, on his label, Debut Records.

In 1957, Bley went to California where his bands included: Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgens, Bobby Hutchinson, Scotty LaFaro, Lawrence Marable, and Dave Pike. In 1959 Bley returned to New York, where he played with Roland Kirk, Oliver Nelson, and Jimmy Giuffre at the Five Spot Cafe. This group evolved into the Jimmy Giuffre 3, including Bley and Steve Swallow, which brought Bley to Europe for the first time in 1961. They recorded for Verve and CBS.

In 1963 Bley and Herbie Hancock were invited to play with the bands of Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, who were performing on a double bill on a Monday night at Birdland. Both pianists were offered both jobs. Hancock gave Bley first choice. Bley chose to join the Rollins quartet for a year to record and go to tour Japan. Bley's own trio with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian of the 1960's became the standard by which other trios would be measured.

In 1964, Bill Dixon invited Bley to become a member of the Jazz Composer's Guild, which included: Archie Shepp, Sonny Rollins, John Tchicai, Roswell Rudd, Carla Bley, Mike Mantle, Cecil Taylor, and Burton Greene. By 1968 Bley was working with audio synthesis. He gave the first live performance to date on synthesizer at Philarmonic Hall in New York City. He released several synthesizer albums recorded on the original Arp 2500.

In 1972, Bley made his first solo piano recording for ECM records. In 1973 Bley met video artist, Carol Goss, and together they created Improvising Artists (IAI). In 1978 a Billboard Magazine cover story credited IAI for creating the first "music video", as a result of the recorded and live performance collaborations it produced between jazz musicians and video artists.

Bley continued his work with electric quartets. In 1974, IAI brought Jaco Pastorious to New York for his debut recording. Mysteriously, these sessions, produced Pat Metheney's debut recording as well. Though Metheney had never been hired to play with the band, he sat in at a gig prior to the recording date and then stayed with Bley's quartet, which also included drummer, Bruce Ditmas.

Bley has released close to 100 CD's. Some of the artists he's recorded with include: Ben Webster, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Giuffre, John Scofield, John Abercrombie, Bill Frisell, Chet Baker, Bill Connors, Steve Swallow, Gary Peacock, Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny, Red Mitchell, Marc Johnson, Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen, Arild Andersen, Kent Carter, Barre Phillips, Paul Motian, Barry Altschul, Han Benninck, Billy Hart, Tony Oxley, Bruce Ditmas, Cecil McBee, Gary Burton, Marion Brown, Jane Bunnet, Hans Koch, John Surman, John Gilmore, Evan Parker, Lee Konitz, Sam Rivers, Herbie Spanier, and Bill Evans.

In 1994 Bley received 5 stars from Downbeat for a solo synthesizer album recorded for Postcards Records and toured with Giuffre and Swallow. Bley tour Europe, Japan and North America as a solist and with duos and trios.

In 1998 the American Physical Society contacted Bley and asked if they could publish his photo in the Century of Physics Time Line Wall Char and Web Site. They said that he is the only musician to be included with a century of Noble Prize winners in physics because of his innovations in adapting the audio synthesizer for the first live performance, which Bley gave at Philarmonic Hall on December 26, 1969. The 22 foot APS Time Line wall chart will be printed and distributed to every physics classroom in the USA and will appear on the internet at the end of March 1999. The American Physical Society's website for the Time Line.

An exhaustive discography, over 220 pages long, of Bleys released and unreleased recordings is available from Henk Gluck.

In 1998 a one hour long biographical television program was made for BRAVO! and ARTE and an autobiographical book, entitled STOPPING TIME: Paul Bley and the Transformation of Jazz, was published in the autumn of 1999 by Vehicule Press. Show less

Paul Bley Trios: Play Annette Peacock Revisited

Read "Play Annette Peacock Revisited" reviewed by Maurizio Comandini

by Maurizio Comandini
June 26, 2023

Questi bellissimi quattordici brani sono stati registrati nel 1966 (i primi otto) e nel 1968 (i restanti sei). Tutti sono stati scritti da Annette Peacock e registrati dal trio di Paul Bley, assieme a brani di altri compositori, per poi essere pubblicati nei mesi successivi alla registrazione stessa. Questo eccellente CD della Ezz-Thetics estrae e raggruppa in un unico album i brani scritti dalla compagna di Paul Bley con una iniziativa geniale che mette in grande evidenza la singolarità della ...

Album Review

Paul Bley: Touching & Blood Revisited

Read "Touching & Blood Revisited" reviewed by Vic Albani

by Vic Albani
May 2, 2022

Credo che la maggior parte degli appassionati e ascoltatori di musica jazz che hanno progressivamente conquistato la materia durante i primi anni di ascolto, si sia presto resa conto della immensa peculiarità che un trio-jazz porta con sé, specialmente dopo gli anni in cui un certo Bill Evans portò agli onori della cronaca le particolari geometrie che caratterizzano una delle più emblematiche formazioni della musica afroamericana. Paul Bley è un maestro del piano-trio. Le sue prime registrazioni accanto ...

Album Review

Jimmy Giuffre: Free Fall Clarinet 1962 Revisited

Read "Free Fall Clarinet 1962 Revisited" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
March 14, 2022

Cosa scrivere, ancora, di un capolavoro assoluto, che magari chi legge conosce quanto e meglio di chi scrive, un disco che personalmente annovereremmo fa i tre massimi di quello straordinario, originalissimo musicista che fu Jimmy Giuffre, con Clarinet e Western Suite (o se preferite, di analogo contesto e periodo, Four Brothers Sound)? Per esempio quali sensazioni ha destato questo nuovo ascolto, dopo i numerosi precedenti, ma con in mezzo un intervallo di tempo che ci ha fatto percepire come nuovi ...

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 ...

Video / DVD

Paul Bley: Early Trios

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
May 12, 2020

Pianist Paul Bley is often thought of today as a free-jazz trailblazer and avatar of the avant-garde. But in the beginning, in the early 1950s, Bley was a swinging modernist, leaning heavily on bop. Bley led a trio in New York and recorded three albums—Introducing Paul Bley (Debut), Autobiography in Jazz (Debut) and Paul Bley (Emarcy). The two 10-inch albums for Charles Mingus's Debut label were recorded in November 1953 and featured Bley (p), Mingus (b) and Art Blakey (d). ...
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Obituary

Paul Bley: 1932-2016

Source: ECM Records
January 5, 2016

It is with deep regret that we share the news below from the family of the great Paul Bley: Paul Bley, renowned jazz pianist, died January 3, 2016 at home with his family. Born November 10, 1932 in jny: Montreal, QC, he began music studies at the age of five. At 13, he formed the “Buzzy Bley Band.” At 17, he took over for Oscar Peterson at the Alberta Lounge, invited Charlie Parker to play at the Montreal Jazz Workshop, ...
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Contest

Enter the "Paul Bley - Play Blue: Oslo Concert" Giveaway!

Source: All About Jazz
June 29, 2014

All About Jazz members are invited to enter the ECM Records “Paul Bley - Play Blue: Oslo Concert“ giveaway contest starting today. We'll select FIVE winners at the conclusion of the contest on July 28th. Click here to enter the contest (Tracking Paul Bley at AAJ automatically enters you in the contest.) Good luck! Your Friends at ECM Records About Play Blue: Oslo Concert A rare solo performance by one of jazz’s great originals, Canadian pianist Paul Bley, ...
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Music Industry

Other Places: Paul Bley Speaks

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
August 17, 2008

Thanks to Rifftides reader Brian Nation of the Vancouver, B.C., Jazz Society for directions to a transcribed conversation with Paul Bley. Bley was at the center of changes in jazz in the late l950s. The Canadian pianist has continued for half a century as an instigator of transformation. At the same time, he has been a gravitational force helping to restrain unstructured or loosely structured jazz from flying off into space as random noise. He is pictured recently at the right ...
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168

Recording

Mario Pavone's Trio Arc, Featuring Paul Bley and Matt Wilson, Released Today

Source: Improvised Communications
June 3, 2008

Playscape Recordings is proud to announce the June 3rd release of Mario Pavone's Trio Arc (PSR#100807), which documents the first collaboration between the veteran bassist/composer and legendary pianist, and former Pavone mentor, Paul Bley in 35 years. The release of this entirely improvised trio session, featuring frequent collaborator Matt Wilson on drums, also marks the 40th anniversary of Pavone's recorded debut on Bley's 1968 LP, Canada (Radio Canada).

“Honestly, it felt remarkably similar to our work together 40 years ago," ...
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199

Recording

Paul Bley's "About Time" on Justin Time

Source: All About Jazz
May 23, 2008

Justin Time Records is proud to announce the release of Paul Bley's About Time, the master pianist's sixth solo recording for the label. With more than half a century of recognition as one of the most innovative and forward thinking individuals in the jazz pantheon, Bley has always maintained that the personality of the player should always be readily apparent to the listener. Whether playing standards within the mainstream built upon more traditional chord changes and time; or creating pieces ...
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148

Recording

Paul Bley (12 + 6) in a Row : Hatology 649

Source: Writers House
February 18, 2008

Paul Bley (12 + 6) In A Row : Hatology 649 Paul Bley -piano Hans Koch -reeds (clarinets & saxophones) Franz Koglmann -flugelhorn Total Time DDD 59:08

As in any improvised music, there are challenges accepted, risks taken. Bley himself has suggested, as a measure of the success of free spontaneous music, asking “Is it eventful?" The next step, I propose, would be to ask oneself if each event is meaningful? (with ...
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174

Interview

Paul Bley Radio Interview Tonight at 10pm (ET) with Host Chris Comer

Source: All About Jazz
August 28, 2007

10:00 pm Tuesday, August 28 Eastern US Time Zone on 88.3 fm WAIF Cincinnati, Ohio USA listen online Chris Comer's Third Interview with Jazz Pianist, Composer and ECM Recording Artist Jazz Pianist and Free Jazz Pioneer PAUL BLEY Chris Comer has talked to the influential and iconic free-jazz pianist Paul Bley before, and tonight on Chris Comer's dime Mr. Bley discusses his new ECM ...
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