Paul Bley - Closer

ESP 1021

Paul Bley’s brief residency on the ESP roster yielded a pair of stylistically disparate vinyl platters. Bolstered by the aggressive horn tandem of Marshall Allen and Dewey Johnson Barrage was firmly in fire music territory in its focus on volcanic interplay. Closer followed a more impressionistic course borne in part out of the pianist’s earlier tenure with Jimmy Giuffre. Bassist Steve Swallow shared a deep rapport built from that association as well. The broad dynamics of Barry Altschul’s traps play worked as a sturdy and flexible bridge between the two Bley ESP styles. The drummer plays forcefully and free-minded, but also with temperance and detail depending on the dictates of a given piece. The tracks, ten in all combining to just under a half hour, evince another difference. Bley’s two muses Carla and Annette contribute all but two, one of which is the interpretation-friendly Coleman ditty “Crossroads”. Even in that beautifully stacked deck, the pianist’s own “Figfoot” stands out.

Bley’s ruminative piano work mixes ripe melodicism with rhythmic flourishes and fractures. Altschul keeps loose syncopated time on the opening piece “Ida Lupino” while Swallow practically strums his string to sustain a warmly capitulating pulse. “Start” hits like a thunderclap in its sudden dissonance with all three players cranking tension from their respective corners. The title piece slides back into calmer currents, piano and bass limning minimalist lines. “Sideways in Mexico” works off a jagged string of knotted chords, dropping out for a zeroing in on the tight communication between bass and drums before a curt coda. Subsequent compositions cycle by in short order and the semblance of an overarching suite begins to solidify. As with Bley’s ECM album coupling material from a few years prior and after, the only possible complaint to levy is the brevity of the program. Then again, that economy also works in the trio’s favor with the lean pieces leaving nothing in the way of filler to weigh the album down. A word too on the fresh mastering, which gives all three instrumentations clean presentation and presence in a manner past editions haven’t. Bley had a discography numbering well into the double digits ahead of him, but this relatively early effort still ranks highly in the sum.

~ Derek Taylor