Paul Bley
Solo In Mondsee

I have a particular theory about the way to listen to some solo piano recitals...

You need to pretend to be the protagonist of the recital, sitting in the performer's place, in front of the black and white keyboard, thinking about the recipients of your message. Only then can you truly internalize the abstractions, make some atonal passages your own, render a percussive moment lyrical and sweet; in the silence and darkness of the recording (or concert) hall, try to imagine, from the control room (or the audience), the figures you have loved the most in your life, the most important ones, as if you have to address your last words of farewell to them. The last chance for the most intimate, most secret confessions. Words of love, words of anger, words never spoken, to bring memories to life, to allow them to surface and drift away, transfigured. Or just imagine what could have been, savor your own melancholies, your regrets. Rediscover the sensual charm, the charisma, the brilliance you are capable of in order to overcome your challenges, to assert yourself in life. Feel life itself flowing beneath the crystalline notes, being infinitely small creatures of flesh and blood coming into contact with the unknowable, the infinitely large. To produce with the piano the emotion of beauty, the exaltation of our own passion, sometimes naïve and childlike, sometimes dark and evil. Raise your voice to be understood, if necessary. Tickle, tease. Savor the praise of those who are proud of us, knowing that we have earned it.

Paul Bley has the remarkable gift of being able to inspire these endless journeys in the minds of those who wish to prepare themselves for free flight. He manages to transport the listener into a world of his own, where the melody, always present, is almost never explicit and well-defined, but rather vaporous, hinted at, to be discovered through derivative means, oblique, incomplete. The blues, the song form, the various structures upon which his pianism rests, all converge into a free form, a “total” style within which reminiscences of Chopin coexist with Cecil Taylor-like clusters and other sonorities to which even Jarrett's style owes a great debt.

Indeed, the sounds. The sound. Here the sound is FUNDAMENTAL. If it is already true that in a rendezvous with music like solo piano, the sound itself becomes signified from being a signifier, it is even more true with an artist of Paul Bley's caliber, who is so attentive to tone, spaces, and dynamics. And even more so considering the record label, ECM, always keen on recording quality, impeccably as always here. Last but not least, the instrument. A superb Bosendorfer Imperial, truly regal and aristocratic. High notes that sound like raindrops, low notes like thunder.

Of the ten “variations” that make up the 55' of “Solo In Mondsee” (which are not variations), one in particular obsesses me; I am capable of putting it on repeat 4-5 times and each time I find myself closing my eyes tightly, furrowing my brow, and shaking my head as a victim of lyrical involvement. The fourth one.

Undoubtedly one of the best releases of 2007 (though recorded in 2001, with a sixty-nine-year-old Paul Bley), this wonder deserves, demands, and requires numerous passionate listens. Perhaps with the “technique” I suggested. Safe travels!