| Play Blue: Oslo Concert | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Live album by | ||||
| Released | March 28, 2014 | |||
| Recorded | August 2008 | |||
| Venue | Oslo Jazzfestival Oslo, Norway | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Length | 50:24 | |||
| Label | ECM 2373 | |||
| Producer | Manfred Eicher | |||
| Paul Bley chronology | ||||
| ||||
Play Blue: Oslo Concert is a live solo album by pianist Paul Bley recorded at the Oslo Jazzfestival in August 2008 and released on ECM in March 2014. [1]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| The Guardian |   [2] |
| The Buffalo News | [3] |
| Tom Hull | B+ (  ) [4] |
JazzTimes stated "Hearing Bley in action, applying his own sense of order to various approaches, still feels electrifying." [5]
The Guardian review by John Fordham awarded the album 4 stars noting "Expat Canadian piano star Paul Bley, the man with the vision to hire the unknown Ornette Coleman back in the 1950s, was 75 when this solo concert was recorded by ECM's Jan Erik Kongshaug and Manfred Eicher at the Oslo jazz festival—still exposing his profound knowledge of jazz to unflinching spontaneous reexamination." [2]
The Buffalo News review said "Listen to this disc a few times, if you can. It’s a great jazz pianist playing for you how he was never pent up in anyone’s house in jazz—how he became a great and thorny and weirdly lovable jazz maverick in his old age, a kind of link between Bill Evans and Cecil Taylor." [3]
All About Jazz enthused "Bley's music rambles. He never plays anything twice, not even on a fifteen or seventeen minute tune. Every second of his music is a voyage of discovery. On Play Blue he has created a profound and timeless beauty. A career highlight." [6]
All compositions by Paul Bley except as indicated
Time/Life (subtitled (Song for the Whales and Other Beings)) is an album by Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra arranged by composer and pianist Carla Bley and released on the Impulse! label in 2016. It features two tracks from Haden's final live performance with the Orchestra along with additional studio recordings completed after his death.
Paul Bley, CM was a Canadian jazz pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing and his early live performance on the Moog and ARP synthesizers. His music has been described by Ben Ratliff of the New York Times as "deeply original and aesthetically aggressive". Bley's prolific output includes influential recordings from the 1950s through to his solo piano recordings of the 2000s.
Stephen Paul Motian was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, and composer. Motian played an important role in freeing jazz drummers from strict time-keeping duties.
The Köln Concert is a live recording of solo piano improvisations performed by Keith Jarrett at the Opera House in Cologne on 24 January 1975. The double-vinyl album was released in 1975 by ECM. It became the best-selling solo album in jazz history and the best-selling piano album with sales of around 4 million. According to music critic Tom Hull, the album "cemented his reputation as the top pianist of his generation".
Manfred Eicher is a German record producer and the founder of ECM Records.
Bradford Alexander Mehldau is an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
Facing You is the first solo piano album recorded by pianist Keith Jarrett, the first of his voluminous collection to be produced by Manfred Eicher and his first work to be released by ECM Records. It features eight solo piano pieces and it was recorded in the studio. It marked the beginning of Jarrett's innovative and successful career in spontaneous and improvised performance on solo piano, and it constitutes a landmark in his fruitful association with ECM Records.
4 x 4 is an album by American composer, bandleader and keyboardist Carla Bley with a chamber ensemble recorded in Oslo in 1999 and released on the Watt/ECM label in 2000.
Fragments is an album by Canadian jazz pianist Paul Bley recorded in 1986 and released on the ECM label.
The Paul Bley Quartet is an album by Canadian jazz pianist Paul Bley, recorded in 1987 and released on the ECM label.
Sankt Gerold is a live album by pianist Paul Bley, bassist Barre Phillips, and saxophonist Evan Parker recorded in April 1996 and released on ECM in October 2000.
Amaryllis is an album by pianist Marilyn Crispell, featuring bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian, recorded in February 2000 and released on ECM March the following year.
Avenging Angel is a solo piano album by American jazz pianist and composer Craig Taborn recorded in July 2010 and released on the ECM label.
Swept Away is a studio album by a quartet led by double bassist Marc Johnson and pianist Eliane Elias, with tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and drummer Joey Baron, recorded in February 2010 and released on ECM in September 2012.
Trios is an album by American composer and pianist Carla Bley with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bass guitarist Steve Swallow, recorded in April 2013 and released on ECM later that year. This was the first occasion on which these longtime collaborators had worked as a trio since 1994's Songs with Legs.
About Time is a solo album by pianist Paul Bley recorded in 2007 and released on the Justin Time label in 2008.
Break Stuff is an album by the Vijay Iyer Trio recorded in June 2014 and released on ECM February the following year. The trio features rhythm section Stephan Crump and Marcus Gilmore.
Andando el Tiempo is an album by American composer and pianist Carla Bley with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bass guitarist Steve Swallow released on the ECM label. Though the musicians are longtime collaborators, this is their third album as a trio and second on the ECM label. It is Bley's first complete album of new compositions in eight years and is titled after a three part meditation on addiction and recovery, inspired by a friend's struggle with alcoholism.
Life Goes On is a studio album by American composer and pianist Carla Bley recorded in May 2019 and released on ECM on February 14, 2020. The trio features saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bass guitarist Steve Swallow.
To Whom It May Concern: Piano Solo Tonhalle Zürich is a live solo piano album by Irène Schweizer. It was recorded on April 11, 2011, at Tonhalle, Zürich in Zürich, Switzerland, in celebration of the pianist's 70th birthday, and was released later that year by Intakt Records. The music includes originals plus tunes composed by Jimmy Giuffre, Carla Bley, Thelonious Monk, and Dollar Brand.
