It’s damned near impossible to pick and choose only a handful of Paul Bley records as being the essential few, he’s been so prolific and readily moves from one idea to the next, constantly evolving along the way. It couldn’t hurt to start with Bley’s mid-sixties output, though, around the time he went headlong into the avant-garde side and signed up with the most avant-garde label of the time, ESP-Disk. We earlier examined one of those crucial recordings of that time with a horn-led quintet, Barrage and about five years later, are ready to dissect his ESP-Disk follow-up, Closer, culled from a studio date at the end of 1965.
Closer is a follow-up in the sense that Bley is using then-wife Carla Bley’s songs again (with a few tunes by others this time, including future wife Annette Peacock) but aside from that, Bley proceeded to make this record as if he had forgotten about the prior one. A complete turnover in personnel lands Barry Altschul in the drummer’s chair and Steve Swallow at acoustic bass. Today, these rhythm section specialists are considered among the most innovative and intuitively melodic in their instruments, but their association with Bley is part of where they got those reputations to begin with.
In stripping down to a trio, Bley opened up the expanse of these compositions, trading the raw energy of Barrage for the subtle manipulation of melody of rhythm to create something of unusual euphony. Like that slightly earlier record, the performances are kept short and succinct, ten tracks that collectively run about a minute short of half an hour.
There’s no better track that illustrates the major differences between Barrage and Closer than “Batterie,” which is performed on both albums. On the earlier album Carla Bley’s composition is attacked with a cluster of notes, chords and beats. With Swallow and Altschul, Bley elects to let time and space dominate, along with allowing Altschul to leave footprints of the main melodic line on his snare, a trust rewarded with a truly originative way of approaching the drumming to that song. Even where the Trio gets a little rowdy, as on Paul’s own “Pigfoot,” it’s spacious and swinging.
Paul makes Carla’s pretty “Ida Lupino” an object of simple beauty, finding sensitive phrasing that doesn’t mimic what anyone else would do, including Bley’s own influences of Bill Evans, Bud Powell and fellow Canadian piano great Oscar Peterson. “And Now The Queen” is another instance where Blew abstracts a pretty melody but keeps the prettiness intact. For those accustomed to hearing Swallow’s electric bass but haven’t explored his acoustic 60s past, the title song is revelatory; hearing how he closely follows Bley in his ruminations with countering ruminations of his own, with round figures that confirm his renowned high sense of lyricism was already well developed.
Though still not Rudy Van Gelder quality, Closer gets a much welcome remastering from ESP-Disk The biggest beneficiary seems to be Altschul, whose logical drumming is better defined, not the sometimes muddled clatter of the original mix. Bley’s piano is dialed back just a little in recognition that this is a egalitarian trio recording where each player’s role of equal importance. But Closer is also an archetypal Paul Bley record in his clever utilization of open ended melodies, an improvisational zeal that’s tightly tethered to older forms of jazz and his symbiotic interaction with his supporting musicians no matter who they are and what they play. There are only two Bley ESP-Disk albums and they are both essential…for mostly entirely different reasons.
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Closer was reissued July 31 by ESP-Disk as part of the label’s 50th Anniversary Remaster Edition series.
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