About Time

Album review

Pianist and composer Paul Bley has been making records now for more than 50 years. His solo recordings encompass a great deal of his generous catalog. Bley has studied so many different aspects of jazz, and improvisational music both American and European, that these recordings always offer a revealing, no-holds-barred glimpse of where he's at as a musician at any given time. About Time, released on the Montreal label Justin Time, contains just two pieces: the 33-plus-minute title track and the Sonny Rollins tune "Pent-Up House," which lasts another ten. They reveal the entire range of Bley's considerable gifts as a pianist and improviser. Indeed, "About Time" literally runs the gamut of Bley's interests throughout his entire career: there is the now trademark pointillism, and improvisation that seeks elongated microtones, but that is just the beginning. The subtle expressionism he brought to listeners on his monumental ECM recording Open, to Love in 1972 is abundant here; however, this is not an introspective look at one subject but at the rainbow of musical and even philosophic ideas that jazz is able to put forth inside an improvised work. Blues, ragtime, the gorgeous and mysterious tonal investigations of Darius Milhaud and Erik Satie, and explorations of the jazz history book on his chosen instrument -- the ghosts of Jelly Roll Morton, Teddy Wilson, Bud Powell, Ray Bryant, Mal Waldron, Andrew Hill, and Randy Weston -- all leave their mark here. But Bley pulls this enormous monolith off not by merely jamming things together, but warmly and humorously incorporating his own sonic personality into each of his tropes and ideas, so that the artist shines through directly, and yes, even humbly. "Pent-Up House" comes out of the gate in the upper register of the piano, weaving blues, bop, and Rollins' sense of humor -- his work from those early days revealed a deep love of show tune harmonics and melodies. Bley moves the piece into an improvisation on the theme that is tender and poetic, and flirts with melancholy but never gets there as his left hand walks the blues in a counter-rhythm with melodic investigation to his right, which is already off riffing on the original theme and creating a spellbinding space for the listener. As he returns again to the theme, extrapolating modes and moods, he makes Rollins' hard bopper something else: a sprightly improvisation that reveals all the complexities and nuances of the composer, not just the pianist. About Time is a truly worthy and elegant statement from one of the true greats in the jazz piano lineage, and these intermittently released solo offerings of his are always worth the investment of time and money, because they open up visible but usually unnoticeable sound worlds to those who will open their ears and listen. Further, his work is never that of an artist who has arrived somewhere and remains on his plateau -- Paul Bley is always reaching for higher ground.

© Thom Jurek /TiVo