Improvisations: Introducing Paul Bley

1. Opus One

2. (Teapot) Walkin'

3. Like Someone in Love

4. Spontaneous Combustion

5. Split Kick

6. I Can't Get Started

7. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

8. Opus One [Alternate Take][*]

9. Theme [*]

10. This Time the Dream's on Me [*]

11. Zootcase [*]

Improvisations: Introducing Paul Bley,Paul Bley Trio,Ojc,Avant-Garde,Avant-Garde Jazz,Free Jazz,Jazz,Pop

Jazz

Music

jazz

music

Average customer rating: understated, laid back, lovely Chet & Paul show how it's done. Late Night Chet some of the finest late-period Chet

Diane: Chet Baker and Paul Bley Chet Baker with Paul Bley Manufacturer: Steeplechase ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music Cool Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music Modern Postbebop | Jazz | Styles | Music Vocal Jazz General | Vocal Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Vocal Pop | Pop | Styles | Music Jazz | Imports | Stores | Music Similar Items: The Last Great Concert: My Favorite Songs, Vol. 1 & 2 The Touch of Your Lips Someday My Prince Will Come Chet's Choice She Was Too Good to Me ASIN: B000027U8J Release Date: 1994-05-24

Tracks:

1. If I Should Lose You
2. You Go to My Head
3. How Deep Is the Ocean?
4. Pent-Up House
5. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye
6. Diane
7. Skidadidlin'
8. Little Girl Blue [#]

Customer Reviews:

understated, laid back, lovely.......2007-02-18

This album creeps up on you. Its quiet, soulful melodies get me nodding my head and feeling mellow, and I like it more on each replaying. Highly recommended.

Chet & Paul show how it's done........2007-01-14

Masterful display of trumpet and piano standards, played by the soulful Chet Baker, beautifully enhanced by Paul Bley's sumptuous voicings.
Miss it at your peril...

Late Night Chet.......2005-12-11

For those who are looking for a collection of smokey late night ballads by Chet Baker, this is the CD to pick up. It's a stripped down duet collection of just piano and trumpet. Cool jazz for the night owl!

some of the finest late-period Chet.......2002-07-06

A great combination, a very fluid piano style with the
emotionally naked expression by Chet.
Beautifully recorded too, you hear the wonderful sound of Chet's trumpet.

Average customer rating:

Emphasis & Flight, 1961 Jimmy Giuffre Manufacturer: Hatology ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music Jazz | Imports | Stores | Music Similar Items: 1961 Free Fall Sound of Love Full of Life Garden of Eden ASIN: B00015T1QS Release Date: 2007-01-30

Tracks:

1. Whirrrr
2. Emphasis
3. Sonic
4. Venture
5. Jesus Maria - Paul Bley, , Jimmy Giuffre, Jimmy Giuffre, Steve Swallow
6. Stretching Out (Suite for Germany)
7. Carla
8. Cry, Want

Tracks:

1. Call of the Centaur
2. Postures
3. Sonic
4. Goodbye
5. Stretching Out (Suite for Germany)
6. Cry, Want
7. Flight
8. That's True, That's True
9. Trance
10. Whirrrr

Average customer rating: Intuitive yet intelligent musicmaking

Time Will Tell Paul Bley , Evan Parker , and Barre Phillips Manufacturer: Ecm Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music Modern Postbebop | Jazz | Styles | Music ECM Classical | ECM Records | Amazon.com Label Stores | Stores | Music ECM Jazz & World | ECM Records | Amazon.com Label Stores | Stores | Music Similar Items: Lenox Avenue Breakdown Short Life of Barbara Monk Sonny's Dream (Birth of the New Cool) Ellington Is Forever, Vol. 1 Sound of Love ASIN: B000007XK5 Release Date: 2000-03-07

Tracks:

1. Poetic Justice
2. Time Will Tell
3. Above The Tree Line
4. You Will, Oscar, You Will
5. Sprung
6. No Question
7. Vine Laces
8. Clawback
9. Marsh Tides
10. Instance
11. Burlesque

Customer Reviews:

Intuitive yet intelligent musicmaking.......2000-08-05

This disc documents the results of a spontaneous encounter between Paul Bley, Evan Parker & Barre Phillips in ECM's studio; the men hadn't met before, nor did they plan out anything in advance. It's a tribute to their musicianship & unexpected kinship that the music turned out as harmoniously & beautifully as it did; while all three players are "free" players, Bley & Parker have worked at virtually opposed ends of the music--Bley the quieter, melodic end, Parker the options left in the wake of Coltrane & Sanders. The music (perhaps not surprisingly given its appearance on ECM) mostly adheres to Bley's territory--it's delicate, & often warmly emotional rather than abstract. There are touches of Tristanoesque interplay--including "Marsh Tides", a tribute to Warne Marsh--& generally the feel is slightly "jazzier" than one expects from an album on which Evan Parker plays. There are spots where he sounds like Steve Lacy or even Lester Young. But there are pricklier spots too, like the terrific "Sprung", where Bley's scrabbling on the keyboard is the perfect reply to Parker's furious soprano line, or the bass-and-tenor "Vine Laces", where Parker & Phillips keep unspooling the same motif without stop....

This is a fine disc--one of the best of the 1990s, I think. One can only hope that these musicians record again (they did tour as a group after the recording was made).

Average customer rating:

Out of Nowhere Lee Konitz , and Paul Bley Quartet Manufacturer: Steeplechase ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music Bebop General | Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music Cool Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music Modern Postbebop | Jazz | Styles | Music Jazz | Imports | Stores | Music Similar Items: Nothing to Declare ASIN: B000003UVM Release Date: 1998-02-03

Tracks:

1. I'll Remember April
2. Lover Man
3. Sweet And Lovely
4. I Can't Get Started
5. Out Of Nowhere
6. Don't Blame Me
7. I Want To Be Happy

Average customer rating:

Open, To Love Paul Bley Manufacturer: Universal ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music Jazz | Imports | Stores | Music ASIN: B0009J8CZ2 Release Date: 2005-07-11

Tracks:

1. Closer
2. Ida Lupino
3. Started
4. Open, To Love
5. Harlem
6. Seven
7. Nothing Ever Was, Anyway

Average customer rating:

Indian Summer Paul Bley Manufacturer: Steeplechase ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music Modern Postbebop | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music Avant-Garde | Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music Modern Post Bop | Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music Similar Items: Lucky Strikes ASIN: B000027U1B Release Date: 1994-08-01

Tracks:

1. Black And Blue
2. Blue Waltz
3. Lisbon Lights
4. Long Ago And Far Away
5. Goodbye
6. The More I See You
7. Diane
8. Blues
9. Indian Summer

Average customer rating:

Footloose! Paul Bley Manufacturer: Savoy Jazz ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music Modern Postbebop | Jazz | Styles | Music ASIN: B000001CQZ Release Date: 1994-07-24

Tracks:

1. When Will the Blues Leave?
2. Floater
3. Turns
4. Around Again
5. Syndrome
6. Cousins
7. King Korn
8. Vashikar

Average customer rating:

Introducing Paul Bley Paul Bley Trio Manufacturer: Ojc ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music Modern Postbebop | Jazz | Styles | Music Similar Items: Bebopbebopbebopbebop Bill Frisell, Ron Carter, Paul Motian Complete Studio Recordings How My Heart Sings! Brilliant Corners ASIN: B000000YBB Release Date: 1991-07-01

Tracks:

1. Opus 1
2. Opus 1 (Alternate take)
3. (Teapot) Walkin'
4. Like Someone In Love
5. Spontaneous Combustion
6. Split Kick
7. I Can't Get Started
8. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
9. The Theme
10. This Time The Dream's On Me
11. Zootcase

Average customer rating: NOT a "Jazz Opera" And it's Again Mind Your Step Your Mind Your Step Your Mind Your Step Wonderous Food for Musical Thought A Long Strange Trip

Escalator Over the Hill Carla Bley and Paul Haines Manufacturer: Ecm Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music Bebop General | Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music Modern Postbebop | Jazz | Styles | Music Contemporary Big Band | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music ECM Classical | ECM Records | Amazon.com Label Stores | Stores | Music ECM Jazz & World | ECM Records | Amazon.com Label Stores | Stores | Music Similar Items: Social Studies Nefertiti, the Beautiful One Has Come Electric Bath Free Jazz (A Collective Improvisation) Carla Bley Live ASIN: B0000241DG Release Date: 2000-06-27

Tracks:

1. Hotel Overture
2. This Is Here...
3. Like Animals
4. Escalator Over The Hill
5. Stay Awake
6. Ginger And David
7. Song To Anything That Moves
8. EOTH Theme
9. Businessmen
10. Ginger And David Theme
11. Why
12. It's Not What You Do
13. Detective Writer Daughter
14. Doctor Why
15. Slow Dance
16. Smalltown Agonist

Tracks:

1. End Of Head
2. Over Her Head
3. Little Pony Soldier
4. Oh Say Can You Do?
5. Holiday In Risk
6. Holiday In Risk Theme
7. A.I.R. (All India Radio)
8. Rawalpindi Blues
9. End Of Rawalpindi
10. End Of Animals
11. ...And It's Again

Amazon.com

There's no easy way to describe Escalator over the Hill, one of the most ambitious works in 20th century music and one that seems to sum up much of the creative energy that was loose between 1968 and 1972, when it was conceived, composed, and recorded. Beginning with a collection of Paul Haines's distinctive poems--brief, wittily surreal, sometimes aphoristic or elliptical--Carla Bley set out to arrange them as a continuous musical-theater piece, giving specific characters to them as well as melodies. In the process, she drew on available musical genres from Kurt Weill's theater music to free jazz and rock to create her own style, dispensing pieces among several instrumental groupings, from jazz orchestra to "hotel lobby band" to an electronic "phantom band." Bley then drew on an extraordinary collection of singers and musicians to realize the score, casting Jack Bruce and Linda Ronstadt as the lead voices, with appearances by jazz singers Sheila Jordan and Jeanne Lee. The soloists include Don Cherry, Gato Barbieri, Roswell Rudd, and Charlie Haden, while the fusion-oriented "Jack's traveling band" features Bruce and John McLaughlin. Bley's closing comment in the notes--"Anything not told, wasn't yet known"--is a fitting summary. Escalator's accomplishment is even more remarkable than its ambitions, creating syntheses of music and language that hadn't appeared before (and haven't since), and blazing a trail that few have had the creativity or energy to imagine following. As durable as it is visionary, its first public performances took place on European tours mounted in the late 1990s. --Stuart Broomer

Customer Reviews:

NOT a "Jazz Opera".......2006-11-03

I have long considered this the one recording that I would have to have if stranded on a desert island.

The musicians on the recording got my attention some 30+ years ago when I originally bought this as a 3-lp set: Jack Bruce, John McLaughlin, Linda Ronstadt (for god's sakes!), Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, Paul Motian, Don Preston!!! And on and on.

This is not a piece that can be listened to in segments. One has to hear it all in a single sitting. The dadaist lyrics and Bley's composition, which draws on a huge range of styles (there's even a caliope involved) make this far too interesting and challenging to merely sample it here and there.

The opening segment has a blistering sax solo by Gato Barbieri that I would venture to say is the closest thing to making an instrument sound like a human voice (a very distressed voice at that). Think of Pete Cosey's guitar on Miles Davis' Agartha CD.

The second half of the production features a trio of John McLaughlin, Jack Bruce and Paul Motian in a very Mahavishnu-sounding electric trio.

Linda Ronstadt appears only briefly, but you quickly pick her out of this talented crowd. Jack Bruce's vocals were dubbed in as Carla mailed the tape to England with an open track for him and a set of lyrics to sing. He's in great form!

The original album never ended if you had a manual turntable as the pressing plant closed the lead-out groove so that a hum of human voices continued indefinitely. The CD version extends the same ending for some time, but it DOES end.

I'm not the only one to say this, so I have to repeat what others have written. This is the single best recorded composition ever. And I've thought that since the first time I ever heard it.

And it's Again .......2006-09-06

This is a monumental work of art and must be recognised as extremely significant in the history of music. If you are fond of jazz from the perspective of Miles Davis' electronic work or Jazz Fusion you should definitely consider buying this due to the sheer density and scope that the music is presented. In true musical, rock opera (Jazz Opera) tradition the opus starts with an overture, it has its fair amount of squealing and free soloing. The scene is then set for a type of musical theatrical concept LP with parts played by significant voices of the time, the songs are a lot more accessible than you might think being a jazz work, surreal dream like excursions in a Burroughsesque 'Interzone' that initially takes place in 'Cecil Clark's Old Hotel' and moves out into the desert with different bands for different locations. You could see it as an unfolding, re contextualizing of the history of Jazz through big band, bop, eastern modal fusion and minimalism taking place in a surreal dreamscape that is no place, with an abstract libretto by Paul Haines, Brion Gysin like cut-ups reporting sensations of the time, dealing with relationships, thoughts and expressions. What makes this significant for me is the two main points where the work becomes electronic with the amplified guitar work of Mahavishnu John McLaughlin. The most significant of these is the whole suite of A.I.R (All India Radio), Rawalpindi Blues and End of Rawalpindi. There is nothing I have heard that sounds like this and if you buy this work for one reason this should be it. It is a kind of duet between McLaughlin and Trumpeter Don Cherry, although both were not recorded together and unfortunately never got to work with one another. This is where everything changes, this is where John Coltrane's spiritual quest is realised, a truly transcendental piece of quite incendiary music with the most amazing cosmic atmosphere generated by Don Cherry. I have been listening to this work for over 14 years and still do not tire of it, losing myself in a work really takes you on a major dreamlike journey that sounds like nothing else. Because of it's length it is a bit of an excursion to take time out to listen to it. It is part Music Hall, part Kurt Wiell, part ethnic, part fusion and part avant-garde. If you open yourself up to it you might even start singing along to the songs. This is a work of unfathomable genius and ambition from a great composer and band leader.

Mind Your Step Your Mind Your Step Your Mind Your Step .......2006-03-28

Escalator Over The Hill is a Herculean, magnificent accomplishment. As music, one doesn't merely enjoy it, one revels it, like swimming in the ocean at midnight. Here is a rare instance of popular culture and high art intersecting, creating something totally new and unrepeatable. Originality on this order of magnitude thrashes everything that has come before it and informs everything that follows.

The details of this epic achievement are too long to summarize, even listing the all-star cast of players would consume too many words. For the best review I've managed to find, track down "Stranded Escalator Over The Hill" by Marcello Carlin, published in Stylus Magazine. Mr. Carlin offers a thorough and highly intelligent perspective on the work, my goal is much less ambitious. I merely want to point you towards the Up escalator, which, according to Heraclitus, is the same as the Down escalator.

Imagine it's late and you've wandered into a crummy bar/nightclub in a derelict section of some nameless, grimy city. The nation and year are unknown. You're transfixed by a tall cigarette girl with a massive shock of blonde hair. She moves easily between the patrons and performers. In the corner, Kurt Weill plays piano, doom and decadence haunt each jolly note. At the bar, Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller, and William Burroughs scribble words on notebook paper, tear the pages into scraps, stuff the scraps unceremoniously into an overturned black bowler hat, (helpfully supplied by a taciturn Rene Magritte), retrieve said scraps randomly, and lay them on the bar with care.

Tristan Tzara and Marcel Duchamps ascend and descend the stairs, in that order. On the bandstand, the twelve known ghosts of Charlie Parker play in unison except when they let each other solo. The bartender insists on listening to an Indian radio station, no one complains. Several rock musicians drag their amplifiers in out of the rain; some of them do or do not get killed while plugging in and tuning up. The singer cries, wails, and moans like there's no tomorrow, like tomorrow's already all used up. So many ingredients, no room for a spoon.

Wonderous Food for Musical Thought.......2005-01-11

When I was in college my roommate bought this album. It was pretty newly released. We were not only thrilled by the beauty of the musical passages, and captivated by trying to figure out the unfigurable lyrics, but we were also astounded by the sheer imagination on display here. How in the world did she ever even think to try to think up some of these ideas?

When one of us bought a portable cassette player for the first time, it was a tape of this album that we tried first, out on the lawn of the college quad. Wow, could music like that ever exist in such ordinary surroundings?

Yes, I can understand that this music is not for everybody. In some ways it reminds me of some of those ballets by Stravinsky. Not everyone is up to listening to those, either, but no one disputes the genius that is there for those who take the time to really listen. Escalator Over the Hill is just like that, and, like Stravinsky, is fully eclectic while maintaining its roots in the musical styles of the composer - in this case, jazz and other popular music of the time.

Anyway, when college was over, it was the last I heard of the album for a very very long time, until this week when I bought another copy of it at my local Amoeba store. I guess what prompts me to write this review is how much I realize, now that I hear it again, how much this work influenced the way that I have been listening to music over the years, as well as the way I play music, on those rare occasions when I get to play music any more.

It really is that special.

A Long Strange Trip.......2003-06-18

Boy the late 60s and early 70s were a heady time. The sense of possibility, of creative energy running around the great urban centers of the world must have been truly amazing. Popular culture and popular arts were never taken more seriously than at this time, and there was a sense that anything was possible. Maybe it was something in the brownies at the time, but more amazing work was carried out simultaneously in all fields of the arts than at anytime since. Many of these works have dated rather badly, but others still crackle with the brilliance that characterized them when they were first created. Carla Bley's magnum opus, Escalator Over the Hill falls into this latter category. Enormous, unwieldy, and perhaps even over ambitious, the work still manages to stun, even in its excesses, and produce a powerful overall impression. And the performances are beyond belief.

Bley and company calls escalator a "chronotransduction". Others might call it an opera, but it is an opera without much of a sense of coherent plot. The lyrics, by poet Paul Haines, are cryptic in the extreme. Haines makes Lennon's I Am the Walrus look like Alexander Pope! An example:
Nurses dying their hair don't care,
If the horse is locked, the house still there.
It doesn't seem to matter to them,
The traces of horses and pineapple and cheese,
So many ingredients in the soup no room for a spoon.

If you can find meaning in these lyrics, then perhaps you've indulged in some of those odd brownies lately! However, despite the elliptical lyrics, Bley creates a work of power and imagination. The score is filled with a myriad of influences, 1920s European cabaret music, acid rock, electronic experiments, free jazz, the concepts of Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra, and world music. All this combines to create a stew that is rich and imaginative, surprisingly coherent and deeply effecting.

If Bley had written nothing but the Hotel Overture, the disc would be worth getting. This big band piece features solos by Rosewell Rudd, Perry Robinson on clarinet, one of the most searing and powerful solos ever by Gato Barbieri and soulful work by Charlie Haden. Other musicians who appear on the disc include Jack Bruce, who sounds amazing and carries the lion's share of vocals, as well as contributing his trademark intricate bass style to the rock sections, Linda Ronstadt, who also sounds better than I've ever heard her, Don Cherry, John McLaughlin in perhaps his best recorded work, singer Sheila Jordan, and the late lamented Jeanne Lea who electrifies the ending of the work. Bley sings much of the piece as well, in her weird and raspy voice, which is quite effective as it is used, as is the narration of Warhol stalwart Viva.

Highlights from the disc in addition to the overture include the marvelous title tune, Escalator Over the Hill, which sets the scene for the opera, a run down seedy hotel, which may be a brothel. The music has that Kurt Weill-meets-the-circus style that Danny Elfman would borrow twenty years later for his film scores. Why, Linda Ronstadt's first solo on the album is a beautifully crafted country song, in which her talents shine. Detective Writer's Daughter features some amazing vocal work by Bruce and Bley and powerfully moves the "plot" along...such plot as there is. Small Town Agonist is one of the most powerful moments in the score. It seems to depict a rape or at least a scene of great degradation for the main female character, told to ominous and powerful chords in the brass and capped by a marvel of a solo by Gato Barbieri. (His sax is almost an extra character in the work, as it rises powerfully above scene after scene). The AIR and Rawalpindi Blues cuts are electrifying, with terrific Miles-like work from Don Cherry and wonderful guitar solos from McLaughlin. And the conclusion wraps everything up elegantly, as Jeanne Lee and Bruce weave a hypnotic spell during It's Again, the same music that opened the piece almost two hours before.

One particular caveat...the work begins with a drone and ends with an "endless drone". The effect is akin to Wagner's opening E flat section in the Ring. But the "endless drone" really was meant to be that. On the original vinyl copy of the work, the grooves of the record looped, theoretically forever. On this disc, the producers decided to fill out the rest of the space of the CD with the drone to simulate the effect...then there is a little weird calliope music and the disc ends. It's kind of interesting to listen to this once as is, but the drone does get a little wearing after a while. So you may want to listen to maybe a minute or two of it and then cut it off...you won't miss much and will save yourself some aggravation.

Bley's work since has been impressive, but outside of her earlier suite, A Genuine Tong Funeral, I don't believe she has ever equaled the power of this piece. Highly recommended as one of the pinnacles of jazz and jazz/rock from this period, as well as one of the trippiest jazz works ever. Just don't try to "figure it out". As Haines says in one of his memorable lines in the work, "Stop refusing to explain. Give up explaining."

Average customer rating:

Right Time, Right Place Gary Burton with Paul Bley Manufacturer: Gnp Crescendo ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music Bebop General | Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music Modern Postbebop | Jazz | Styles | Music Bebop & Post-Bop | Compilations | Jazz | Styles | Music ASIN: B000001OXV Release Date: 1992-01-21

Tracks:

1. Ida Lupino
2. Isn't It Romantic?
3. Laura's Dream
4. Carla
5. Olhos De Gato
6. Alcazar
7. Rightly So
8. Nothing To Declare
9. You Don't Know What Love Is
10. Eidertown
11. Turn Out The Stars

Jazz Music:

1. Jammin' with Gene
2. Jazz Collection [Import]
3. Jazz of the 1920's: Greatest Hits
4. Jazz of the 1930's: Greatest Hits
5. Jazz of the 1940's: Greatest Hits
6. Jazz of the 1950's
7. Just Friends
8. Lestorian Mode [Import] [Limited Edition] [Original recording remastered]
9. Live at Newport [Import]
10. Live At Slades

Jazz Music

jazz music