Paul Bley - Open, To Love (1973 Original German ECM LP, ECM 1023, Pallas)

Vinyl: NM
Sleeve: EX

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Paul Bley - Open, To Love | Vinyl LP - 1973 Original German ECM First Pressing (ECM 1023 ST, Pallas)

• Paul Bley's solo piano masterwork for ECM, recorded 1972 and produced by Manfred Eicher; the third solo piano album in ECM's catalogue, after Chick Corea's Piano Improvisations and Keith Jarrett's Facing You
• One of the most influential solo piano recordings in jazz history, and certainly one that defined the sound of the German label ECM
• Original first German pressing, lacquer cut and pressed at Schallplattenfabrik Pallas GmbH; ECM 1023 ST

Paul Bley recorded Open, To Love on 11 September 1972 at Arne Bendiksen Studio in Oslo, under Manfred Eicher's production. He was 39 and had been a significant figure in jazz since the mid-1950s — he had run the Hillcrest Club in Los Angeles where Ornette Coleman first performed with a piano rhythm section, led early recordings for EmArcy and Savoy, and worked with Charles Mingus. By 1972 he had arrived at a point of maximum economy: minimal notes, extended silence, the sustain pedal used to let overtones breathe and decay. Seven tracks are the whole album. Five of them were written by Carla Bley and Annette Peacock — the two composers who had also been his partners. Carla's "Ida Lupino," named for the British-born Hollywood actress and film director, is the album's centrepiece: seven and a half minutes of lyrical improvisation that remains among the most beautiful performances in Bley's discography. Her "Closer" opens the record and "Seven" closes Side B. Peacock's title track and "Nothing Ever Was, Anyway" flank the two Bley originals on the second side.

Bley's own "Started" and "Harlem" are contrafacts — compositions that work from and against earlier jazz material, dismantling familiar harmonic structures until they become something new. "Started" draws on the chord sequence of "I Can't Get Started"; both pieces are described by ECM as "unspooling and reconfiguring jazz standards." This is the third solo piano album ECM released, after Chick Corea's Piano Improvisations and Keith Jarrett's Facing You. All three were produced by Eicher, all three recorded in the same period, and the three together constitute a founding document of ECM's aesthetic approach to solo piano. This is the original first German pressing, lacquer cut and pressed at Schallplattenfabrik Pallas GmbH.