![]() It is discontinuous and continuous, cold and sentimental. It is neither tonal, nor atonal, it is free and at the same time respecting tradition it does not move within one determined tempo but continuously suggests the idea of tempo. So that even if you are playing it super passionate and romantic, if balanced equally with intellectual content then you will be able to have the whole gamut of expression available.ĪC: Your music can hardly be labeled. Can you reveal some trick to achieve this?īLEY: Every musical expression must be balanced with contrasting material. A bit like Mozart, you are able to be expressive without being sentimental, to handle a special filter which enhances, purifies and crystallizes the expression and avoids falling into expressionism. This is what I envy about you most of all because I am a strongly lyrical musician. The question is “why?”, and after “why?” comes “what?” and after “what?” comes “when?” So these questions are food for thought for the improvisation.ĪC: Your music, in spite of being very expressive and lyrical, is not easily captured by feelings and more often demonstrates a certain aloofness. My solo piano playing is a question in itself. That is what makes the music continue: the questions and their answers. Questions lead to answers, which lead to more questions. Is there any other reason why you like this word so much?īLEY: If music is conversation then questions will come up because in conversation there are many questions that come up. This has much to do with the traditions of jazz, but it also suggests a deep feeling of unrest. ![]() The discussion remains suspended, in a continuous tension. Maybe because your phrases, often being immersed into the spell of silence, do not sound affirmative but problematic, full of mystery. Silence is just a frame around the next notes that are coming.ĪC: Another key word suggested by you is “questions.” Your music is strongly interrogative. At the present I’m trying to spend as many years learning how to play as bad as possible. I’ve spent many years trying how to play as good as possible. What is the function of this silence or, perhaps it is better to say, quasi-silence in your music?īLEY: I’ve spent many years learning how to play as slow as possible and then many more years learning how to play as fast as possible. ![]() Your compositions often conclude with long moments of apparent silence, in the anticipation for all the vibrations of one single note or accord to fade away. So the percentage of failure drops and risk-taking is pretty much no longer that risky.ĪC: You enjoy enveloping your notes and phrases in an aura of silence. If the risks you take turn out to be useful and successful then you accumulate some of the knowledge of what to do in the case of a risk. One you explicitly use is “adventure.” By using this word do you simply refer to the taste for risking, making and playing music “without a net”, or are you generally attracted to the sense of mystery, the exploring of new lands, inherent in the meaning of this word?īLEY: When you take risks, over time you develop a certain instinct and judgment. Everything was blues for them.ĪC: There are a number of key words to describe your music. They came up to Montreal and did an act, a show business act, and I got to sit in with them before I knew how to play. When I was very young I got a chance to play with Al Cowen’s Tramp Band, in which the musicians were from New York and were former sidemen with Duke Ellington and so forth. It helps if you spent the first part of your life in great pain and suffering. So when you play blues-oriented phrases you’re pretty certain that you will be on the jazz track. ![]() Could you comment on this somehow?īLEY: Well, the blues is a very good point of departure to be able to play all forms of jazz. My impression is that your relationship with tradition, especially with blues, is not at all ironic or purely instrumental, but really loving, a bit like that of Archie Shepp, for example. It’s okay to steal, but only from oneself.ĪC: The profound freedom of your music means also the freedom to sometimes prefer tradition to the avant-garde at all costs. But, as for unknown references, you may quote all you like. How do you combine this with the idea of total improvisation having an obvious charm over you?īLEY: Well, total improvisation just simply means that you’re not going to quote any known references. The author interviewed Paul Bley, and briefly, Carol Goss, by e-mail, December 27, 2002.ĪC: In spite of the free and unpredictable nature of your music, you are still very attached to certain patterns and typical phrases. By Arrigo Cappelletti Translated from the Italian by Gregory Burk ![]()
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