Search - Paul Bley :: Circles

What's really going down here??

Noah Young | Chatsworth, CA United States | 10/30/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As the acoustic bassist on some of the tracks taken from "The Synthesizer Show," I recall that Paul was experimenting with a lot of the electronic equipment; i.e., he was doing his best to rotate knobs, slide levers, etc. in the attempt to "compose" and "make music." At the time(some 30 or so years ago)this was some avante stuff, no doubt. The reason one reviewer took such umbrage at the sound was how primitive it sounded to him; it appeared he had no imagination, as to how to put the music in cultural and musical perspective. Also, he seemed to not be aware of who Paul Bley was/is, which I find amazing, considering his reviewer name is JAZZ REVIEWER!!?? I did appreciate the other reviewer's assessment which included technical aspects of the "equipment" Paul was using. Personally, I felt some of the sounds kind of limited what I was trying to do and at times it felt the musical dynamics were at odds, but in a strange way, one could also say that that added to the overall newness of what was being created. Shortly after this session, I was able to "stretch out" a bit more, working with Paul and the excellent drummer, Barry Altschul at Boston's Jazz Workshop for a week. There were some tapes of that week but who knows where they are!My name on the lp was: Dick Youngstein. Under that name and Richard Youngstein I recorded with Carla Bley("Escalator Over the Hill"), Peter Ivers, Annette Peacock and others.

Anyway, any jazz fan, with an open mind and some ear toward the history of the creative process, will probably get something positive from the Synthesizer Show cuts. The other cuts, with mssrs. holland and altschul are more of what Paul's fans are accustomed to and, need I remind you, all three are masters."

Historical value, but not for everyone...

C. Robinson | San Mateo, CA | 08/04/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This actually a reissue of two Milestone albums: "Sythesizer Show" from 1971 and "Paul Bley & Scorpio" from 1972. The latter features the rhythm section of Barry Altschul and Dave Holland who, among other things, played together with Chick Corea & Anthony Braxton in a band which interestingly shares a similar name to this release, and is probably why Amazon decided to recommend this to those of us who bought "Extended Play".



Anyway, the big feature of these albums is, as you might have guessed, Paul Bley on sythesizer (and Fender Rhodes, etc.). Now, the synthesizer was a fairly new invention in 1971, putting anyone recording with it in the "seriously experiemental avant-garde" category. In fact, the Arp 2600 Bley used on the 1971 release only played one note at a time. Any harmony produced by the sythesizer on this record was the product of more than one instrument or overdubbing.



Few will find this easily enjoyable listening, although the performances of Bley's sidemen is quite good despite the droning going on up front. Fans of Paul Bley's unique brand of "spacious" avant-garde piano (like myself) should find these albums interesting, but will be grateful that he's made a good deal more acoustic recordings. People who buy this only because of the Amazon recommendation will likely be perplexed."