When Will the Blues Leave
| When Will the Blues Leave | ||||
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| Live album by Paul Bley , Gary Peacock , Paul Motian | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | ECM records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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jazz |
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Title (number) |
8th |
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running time |
56:10 |
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Manfred Eicher , Paolo Keller |
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When Will the Blues Leave is a jazz album by pianist Paul Bley with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian . The recordings recorded and broadcast by Radiotelevisione Svizzera at a concert in the large auditorium of the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano in March 1999 were released on May 31, 2019 on ECM Records . When Will the Blues Leave marks the pianist's first posthumous release of new material since his death in 2016.
background
Paul Bley's trio with Gary Peacock first made groundbreaking recordings in 1963 and had a classic quartet session with John Gilmore the following year . Paul Bley, Gary Peacock and Paul Motian were musical partners for over 30 years when they recorded the 1998 studio album Not Two, Not One for ECM. A tour followed the following year; the present music is the Swiss radio recording of a performance by the trio in March 1999 in Lugano.
Some of the material came from the long-standing repertoire of Bleys (or Peacock); so Bly's “Mazatlan” was recorded for the first time for the album Touching (1965, with Kent Carter and Barry Altschul ). The current version is already a freely laid-out "number, the introduction of which is framed by changes in the beat number. It starts with a short thematic piano statement, followed by a short, swinging, elegant solo by Motian. During the ensemble play, Bley paints the middle and upper registers with his pointillist [operating] broom while Peacock rumbles the neck of his double bass and exchanges quarter and eighth notes with him to explore the harmonies while Motian cuts the gap. "
"Flame" is an improvisational extrapolation of the jazz ballad form - especially for Peacock and Bley. The following “Told You So”, a long bley piano solo, begins as a blues before it turns to the modal style of playing , then as a lullaby for children before it returns to the blues. Peacock's "Moor" is a track that first appeared on the 1970 album Paul Bley with Gary Peacock . This version “is soaked in a modernist appropriation of bop . Motian's hi-hat and cymbal have a call-and-response dialogue before turning to free play. This version of “Dialogue Amor” ”- a track that originally appeared on Not Two, Not One -“ is looser, with Motian's ride cymbal in the foreground, while Bley articulates melodic fragments that Peacock instinctively embellishes before entering Leads towards development, and Bley quotes Charlie Parker's " Ornithology " in his solo. "
The title track "When Will the Blues Leave" is a composition by Ornette Coleman ; Bley worked with Coleman at the Hillcrest Club in California for a few weeks in 1958, and their recordings from that engagement also include this tune. Bley continued to record them throughout his career. In the present version, it is “a hard swinging post-bop exploration that is powerfully directed by the rhythm section and artistically illustrated by the pianist.” George Gershwin's “ I Loves You, Porgy ”, performed solo by Bley, “crosses the piano tradition of New Orleans, Tin Pan Alley , the New York cabaret stages and even Stephen Foster's songbook in its elegant and smart display of lyrical harmony and textural space ”.
Track list
- Paul Bley / Gary Peacock / Paul Motian: When Will the Blues Leave (ECM Records - ECM 2642, 774 0423)
- Mazatlan (Paul Bley) 11:35
- Flame (Paul Bley) 5:37
- Told You So (Paul Bley) 9:48
- Moor (Gary Peacock) 7:14
- Longer (Paul Bley) 5:33
- Dialogue Amour (Gary Peacock, Paul Bley) 6:01
- When Will the Blues Leave ( Ornette Coleman ) 5:26
- I Loves You, Porgy ( Du Bose Heyward , George & Ira Gershwin ) 4:56
reception
The album received consistently positive reviews; Thom Jurek gave the album four (out of 5) stars and wrote: " When Will the Blues Leave is a remarkable archival document that underscores how much potential this trio had and what it might have achieved if they had played together more often."
Roland Spiegel ( Jazz thing ) points out that “When Will The Blues Leave”, a piece by Ornette Coleman, is “an amusing album title”, because one inevitably wonders “whether Bley ever had the blues” the "Prince of Abstraction" did discover the standards for himself from time to time in later years, but the trio played almost exclusively original music at the concert in Lugano, with Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" at the end of the guest performance, which gives him a "conciliatory and for this trio almost classic note".
Olie Brice ( London Jazz News ) praised: “This album is a beautiful recording of an evening in the long musical relationship between three absolute music masters. There is nothing in it that will surprise anyone familiar with their work, but the opportunity to hear three such wonderful improvisers at the peak of their respective playing should not be missed. ”Like most Bley Trio recordings, the recording is extensive Solo and duo sections, with all three musicians having plenty of room to develop for themselves. The author quotes Paul Bey's: “ If the music sounds good, why does it spoil? So only add your voice if you need help, ”and that philosophy suits you here with fantastic solos from all three.
According to Jackson Sinnenberg ( JazzTimes ), When Will the Blues Leave is both sonically and performatively very intense, as Bley, Peacock and Motian “improvise dizzying shapes, textures and melodic ideas” in each of the eight tracks. With numbers like “Told You So ”and“ I Loves You, Porgy ”the rhythm section is almost completely eliminated, which enables the pianist to wander over the keys at his own pace and think about moods and timbres for as long as he wants. "In these moments, Peacock and Motian show how restraint can strengthen a collective musical vision, and not just technical ability."
Karl Ackermann ( All About Jazz ) said, “The sophistication and creative abilities of Peacock and Motian are fully demonstrated in these pieces as they establish the exchange, break off and come back with new ideas. The title track, by Ornette Coleman, is an astonishingly gnarled and energetic prelude to the closing melody, a wonderfully bizarre 'I Loves You, Porgy'. “It is difficult for piano trios to differentiate themselves in the most common jazz formations, but When Will the Blues Leave has one decisive moment for this unity. Their juxtaposition of lyric poetry and free improvisation in individual pieces and in real time is a challenge for the listener, but this elite group of artists has left us with an album with amazing ideas.
Ulrich Steinmetzger ( Leipziger Volkszeitung ) also praised the recording: “All in all, it's brittle melancholy, then picks up the pace again, briefly stops at blues, bebop and other traditional forms and adds up to detailed conversations between three absolutely equal masters of their instruments . There is no post or muscle play here, there is the highest game culture, with the musical material, sometimes ballad-like, sometimes grabbing like in a big ping-pong, passed back and forth between the three players as a big flow in a clever question- and answer game. ”It was precisely this dialogic principle that Paul Bley raised to a new level with the changed means of free jazz . “Again and again, unexpected improvisational answers to questions from the other open up new horizons, which are explored playfully.” According to the author, it is not about the grandiose solo play of the individual, “but about the common ground achieved in airy interlocking in this finally elevated one Treasure. ”It is worth highlighting how the trio around Bley“ deconstructed and reassembled Gershwin's 'I Loves You, Porgy' as the finale for five minutes, without ever abandoning the given gesture and making the original unrecognizable. A stroke of genius and a lesson in group improvisation . "
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Karl Ackermann: Paul Bley / Gary Peacock / Paul Motian: When Will The Blues Leave. All About Jazz, May 22, 2019, accessed October 7, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c d Review of Thom Jurek's album at Allmusic (English). Retrieved October 1, 2019.
- ^ A b Olie Brice: Paul Bley / Gary Peacock / Paul Motian - When Will the Blues Leave. London Jazz News, July 30, 2019, accessed October 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Paul Bley / Gary Peacock / Paul Motian: When Will the Blues Leave at Discogs
- ^ Roland Spiegel: Bley, Peacock, Motian: "When Will The Blues Leave". Jazz thing, May 6, 2019, accessed October 7, 2019 .
- ↑ The author quotes from Time Will Tell , a book of Bly's conversations with Norman Meehan (2003).
- ↑ Jackson Sinnenberg: Paul Bley / Gary Peacock / Paul Motian: When Will the Blues Leave (ECM). JazzTimes, July 15, 2019, accessed October 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Ulrich Steinmetzger: "When Will the Blues Leave" by Paul Bley, Gary Peacock and Paul Motian. Leipziger Volkszeitung , July 18, 2019, accessed on October 7, 2019 .