Canadian jazz pianist Paul Bley died at 83 in Florida, according to Pitchfork. His record label, ECM, did not announce the cause for his death. Bless was recognized for his acclaimed contributions to the 1960s’ free jazz movement and his impact on trio playing.
Born in Montreal, Quebec in 1932, Bley began his study of the violin at 5 and the piano at 8. As a teenager, he performed professionally as Buzzy Bley before leaving for Julliard School in 1950. Bley launched his career playing bebop, a style of jazz characterized by its fast tempo and instrumental virtuosity, before becoming a dominant force in experimental jazz.
Bley organized Montreal’s musician-run organization the Jazz Workshop Keeping and later accompanied Charlie Parker for a recorded concert. Nine months later, Bley released his first album with a trio that included bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Art Blakey.
Bley played effortlessly with a melodious, sparse, and deliberate style. He crafted an influential voice for phrasing and harmony, eagerly articulating himself at his own tempo and in his own timing. Bley’s original musical language drifted from ponderous, intimate movement to vivid intonation and persistent expression.
In the 1981 documentary “Imagine the Sound,” he that due to his “disdain for the known”, he would not practice or depend on established traditions. In 2002, he elaborated:
I’ve spent many years learning how to play as slow as possible and then many more years learning how to play as fast as possible. I’ve spent many years trying how to play as good as possible. At the present I’m trying to spend as many years learning how to play as bad as possible.
In 1958, Bley performed at a gig with Ornette Coleman and his quartet. There, he noticed that rather than adhering to the standard 32-bar AABA song pattern, Coleman’s compositions followed what Bley called an “A to Z form.” In his 1999 memoir “Stopping Time,” he stated that “it didn’t take more than a second to understand that this was the missing link between playing totally free, without any givens, and playing bebop with changes and steady time.” The 1958 performance led Bley to be recognized as ‘‘the man who headed the palace coup that overthrew bebop’’.
Throughout his career, Bley played with Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Donald Byrd, Art Blakey and Chet Baker, alongside other talented artists. He recorded dozens of albums for ESP-Disk, ECM, and Improvising Artists, the label he founded. Bley was one of the first jazz pianists to experiment with electronic synthesizers
He is remembered as one of the outstanding modern jazz pianists in the past 50 years.
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