We use cookies on our website to provide you with the best experience. Most of these are essential and already present.
We do require your explicit consent to save your cart and browsing history between visits. Read about cookies we use here.
Your cart and preferences will not be saved if you leave the site.
play

Paul Bley

Open, To Love (LP)

Label: ECM Records

Format: LP

Genre: Jazz

In process of stocking: Releases March 7th 2025

€39.90
+
-
After Chick Corea’s Piano Improvisations, and Keith Jarrett’s Facing You, Paul Bley’s Open, To Love was the third fabulous chapter in ECM’s quietly revolutionary solo piano manifesto, whose impact endures and continues to influence improvisers today.  In the liner notes to this Luminessence vinyl edition, Bley biographer Greg Buium writes, “After more than fifty years, Open, To Love remains an imperishable gem, lodged forever in the present tense, and among the great masterpieces in ECM’s vast catalogue.”
 
Produced by Manfred Eicher in Oslo in September 1972, the Canadian pianist’s album brilliantly integrates three strands of material into a sweeping and emotionally powerful narrative arc.  Repertoire is comprised of songs by Carla Bley and Annette Peacock (Carla’s “Closer”, “Ida Lupino” and “Seven”, and Annette’s “Open To Love” and “Nothing Ever Was, Anyway”), plus two pieces by Paul which unspool and reconfigure jazz standards.  In “Harlem” and “Started”, Bley fragments motivic material from “I Remember Harlem” and “I Can’t Get Started”, pieces he had played through the bebop years, until the music acquires a surrealistic dreamlike character, meshing perfectly with new visions of free balladry.
Details
Cat. number: ECM 1023
Year: 2025
Notes:
Recorded September 11, 1972 at Arne Bendiksen Studio, Oslo. An ECM Production ℗ 1973 ECM Records GmbH CD is manufactured by PolyGram in Hannover, West Germany Printed in W. Germany