The New Jazz Musings

paul bley by Len Dobbin. In 1950 Paul Bley went to NYC to study composition and conducting at Juilliard. He did quite a bit of jamming around town while he was in NY. My first meeting with Paul came in 1952 when the executive of the Emanon Jazz Society was meeting at Pat Sorrentino's home in the town of Mt. Royal. I had heard about Paul but had neither met nor heard him play. We lived in the same general direction and had a long conversation on the way home on the bus. He left inviting me to drop in on a rehearsal of his group. The next day after school was out I wended my way down to the Latin Quarter where Paul was rehearsing with Bob Roby, tenor sax, Neil Michaud, bass and Billy Graham, drums. The group was an excellent one and I was looking forward to dropping down to hear them in action but fate stepped in with a fire at the club and they never opened. Around this time Paul recorded some mambos which were released on the local Silver label. One was a very melodic original call...

Paul Bley was an important activist and musician in the Free Jazz movement, playing in some pivotal groups. He was a key player in the 1964 October Revolution, and founder of the Jazz Composers Guild. He also became an important proponent of improvised synthesiser music in the early 1970s. The New Jazz Musings - The Jazz Composers Guild AN INTRODUCTION BY KEITH KNOX PAUL BLEY was born on November 10th, 1932, in Montreal, Quebec and commenced his music studies early, playing violin at five and piano at the age of eight. When eleven he obtained a junior music diploma from the McGill Conservatory. At high school he led his own school band, but his first professional job came in 1945 when he took a quartet into the Chalet Hotel, Montreal, for a residency lasting some three years. In 1949, when Oscar Peterson left Canada for the U.S.A. and eventual fame, Paul Bley took over Peterson’s abandoned bassist and drummer, Ozzie Roberts and Clarence Jones, to form a highly successful cockta...