• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The Paul Bley fonds at the Music Division of the Library and Archives of Canada By David Fraser Music Division, Library and Archives of Canada n March 2001, the Music Division of the included are sigtllficant bodies of textual National Library of Canada (now the records (including business files, scrapbooks, ILibrary and Archives of Canada (LAC)) sheet music, promotional material such as acquired the fonds of the Montreal-born jazz posters and programmes, and personal pianist Paul Bley. Bley has had an correspondence), photographs, videos, and an extraorduxtry career in jazz, performing ova extensive collection of Bley 'S issued the years with such diverse artists as Charlie recordings. The latter has been separated from Parker, Lester Young, Omette Coleman, and the fonds, and is catalogued as part of the Sun Ra. With its transfer to the LAC, the Paul Music Division's issued sound collections, Bley fonds has joined that of another major although its provenance in the Bley fonds has Canadian jazz artist, Oscar Peterson (whom, been noted in the catalogue records. incidentally, Bley replaced at the Alberta Lounge when Peterson left Montreal in 1949 A good case can be made that the most to join "Jazz at the Philharmonic"). Peterson important record in the fonds of a jazz and Bley, born respectively in 1925 and 1932, musician is the archival sound recording of a are among the few Canadian jazz artists of performance, since that is the most original their generation to have achieved international record of the performance and of the creative recognition and stature; contemporaries of and improvisational process that occurs similar renown would include the trumpeters between artists in a jazz group. The Bley Maynard Ferguson (also a Montrealer) and fonds is exceptionally strong in this regard, Kenny Wheeler. Of this foursome, it is with a comprehensive collection ofhis live and probably fair to say that Bley is the one who studio performances, including the historic has most pushed the boundaries of jazz and sessions in Montreal with Charlie Parker in improvised music into new areas such as free 1953, his 1958 quintet that included Ornette jazz and fusion. Coleman, the Paul Bley Synthesizer Show of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his many The Bley fonds is now being sorted, other acoustic and electric group and solo arranged, and described, and for this reason projects. It is clear that Bley has been details such as the total extent or outside meticulous and thorough in collecting and (earliest and latest) dates cannot yet be given preserving an audio record of his career as a precisely. This first transfer includes performing and recording artist; prior to its documents dating back as far as the 1940s transfer to the LAC in 2001, the audio tapes (and even a few items from the 1930s), and and other parts of the fonds were maintained continues well into the 1990s. Well over 1,000 in a building near Bley's home in Cherry audio tapes of performances by Bley and other Valley, New York. artists were acquired with the fonds. Also The audio tapes in the Bley fonds document willingness to jump from the mainstream (such the various stages of the recording and as bop, or playing straight tirne) into uncharted publishing process. For many studio and live waters (such as hafmonically free jazz, or sessions, there are tapes fkom several stages, playing free time) is indicative of the including unmixed masters (sometimes edited), restlessness and the openness to innovation unmixed copies, assemblies of unmixed that have characterized his career. masters or of copies, and mixed masters. Bley's detailed notes on the audio tape boxes In addition to Bird, Lester Young, Ornette, often provide his assessments of the and Sun Ra, Bley has performed and recorded performance, the instruments, or the technical with hundreds, if not thousands, of other quality of the recording. They also provide a musicians ova the years. A few names stand wealth of information on subsequent artistic out for the duration and frequency of their decisions such as editing, mixing, and the collaborations. These would include the selection of performances for issue; and bassists Gary Peacock and Steve Swallow, the sometimes they document the evolution of drummers Barry Altschul and Paul Motian, composition titles and the assignment of and the reed playerlflautist Jimmy Giufie. composer credits. While much of the music on The following list of other major artists with these tapes has been published, the great whom Bley has shared the bandstand or the majority is unissued. recording studio demonstrates the range and diversity of his career, encompassing One set of recordings of exceptional (stylistically) swing, bop, fiee jazz, fusion, and historical interest pertains to an edition of the beyond, and (geographically) North America Paul Bley quintet in Los Angeles that included and Europe: Chet Baker, Eric Dolphy, Bill the free-jazz pioneers Omette Coleman and Evans, John Gilrnore, Coleman Hawkins, Dave Don Cherry. Having left Montreal for New Holland, Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, Pat York in the early 1950s, Bley arrived in Los Metheny, Charles Mingus, Evan Parker, Niels- Angeles in 1957 as a successll and much-in- Henning Orsted Pedersen, Jaco Pastorius, Sam demand jazz pianist playing in the predominant Rivers, Sonny Rollins, and Lester Young. bop idiom. Bley was nevertheless one of the Many, but not all, of these artists are first influential musicians to recognize the documented in the sound recordings in the importance of the fi-ee-jazz innovations of Bley fonds. In recent years, Bley has recorded Ornette Coleman (John Lewis of the Modern with notable Canadian musicians including Jon Jazz Quartet being another). During a lengthy Ballantyne, Jane Bunnett, Sonny Greenwich, engagement at the Hillcrest Club in Los Geordie McDonald, Yannick Rieu, the late Angeles, Bley led a quintet that included Herbie Spanier, Kenny Wheeler, and Stich Omette Coleman (alto saxophone), Don Wynston. Bley's concert tours have taken him Cheny (trumpet), Billy Higgins (drums), and to Europe, Japan, North and South America, Charlie Haden (bass), and the surviving tapes the Caribbean, and elsewhere. are among the earliest known recordings of Omette. Naturally enough, it has been The fonds also documents Improvising remarked that the classic Omette Coleman Artists Inc. (IAI), a company established in quartet actually began its existence as four- 1974 by Paul Bley and his wife, the video artist fifths of the Paul Bley quintet. Bley's Carol Goss. IAI has produced and distributed an impressive catalogue of recordings by Bley Goss is a video artist, and has created videos and other jazz artists, and in the 1970s IAI (both documentaries and more abstract also organized a roster of live performing interpretations) of performances by Bley and artists that was a remarkable who's who of other IAI recording artists, and these videos creativejazz musicians working in that decade. are distributed as part of the IAI catalogue. It Groups from the performing roster often is noteworthy that Billboard magazine once toured under the collective name "IAI credited IAI with creating the music video Festival." In addition to Bley himself, some of genre. Goss and Bley are also partners in the the musicians who recorded or toured with IAI running of IAI as a business. were Barry Altschul, Lester Bowie, Marion Brown, John Gilmore, Jimmy Giuffie, Dave While the arrangement and description of Holland, Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, Oliver Lake, the Paul Bley fonds are still ongoing, the LAC Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Gary Peacock, anticipates that the Bley finding aid will be Sam Rivers, Perry Robinson, and Sun Ra. made available as a link from Music Archives at the National Library of Canada: A Guide, An interesting aspect of Bley's life and published on the National Library section of career is his close artistic collaboration with all the LAC joint Web site (www.nlc-bnc.ca). three of his spouses. His first wife, Carla Bley, More information on the life and career of is a celebrated jazz composer. In the mid- Paul Bley is available in his autobiography, co- 1960s, she and Paul Bley were members of the written with David Lee, Stopping Time: Paul Jazz Composers Guild, an artist-controlled Bley and the Transformation of Jazz group that presented concerts of avant-garde (Montreal: Vkhicule Press, 1999). A and free jazz in New York, including one comprehensive discography covering the billed as "The October Revolution." Some of period 1952-94 is Henk Kluck's Bley Play: the Bleys' associates in the Guild were Bill The Paul Bley Recordings (Emmen, The Dixon, Roswell Rudd, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Netherlands: H. Kluck, 1996). Another book, and Cecil Taylor. Bley's second wife, Annette Time Will Tell: Conversations with Paul Bley, Peacock, is a noted composer, lyricist, and written by Paul Bley and Norman Meehan, is vocalist; she and Bley performed together scheduled for publication in September 2003 eequently from the mid- 1960s until the early by Berkeley Hills Books of Albany, California. 1970s, and they were among the first major artists to adopt the Moog synthesizer and to use this new instrument in live performance. Compositions by both women (such as Carla Thispaper is based on apresentation made at Bley's "Ida Lupino" and "Olhos de Gato", and the CAMLKUMS Conference at Dalhousie Annette Peacock's "Blood" and "Mister Joy") University on May 29, 2003, for the session have constituted a major part of Paul Bley's on Canadian Archival Jazz Collections. repertoire. Paul Bley and Carol Goss became partners around 1973 (they later married). .

Load more

  3

Copy Link