Paul Bley Luminessence

ECM Releases Paul Bley’s Open, To Love on Vinyl as Part of its Audiophile Luminessence Series

Available Today

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ECM’s audiophile vinyl-reissue series Luminessence continues with Paul Bley’s Open, to Love, available today.

The Luminessence series is a kaleidoscope, shedding light on the jewels of the label’s deep catalogue in elegant, high-quality editions. The hallmarks of the series: original and evocative music, imaginatively played and sensitively produced. The recordings underline the scope and variety of ECM’s world of sound and the LPs are presented in different formats.

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After Chick Corea’s Piano Improvisations, and Keith Jarrett’s Facing You, Paul Bley’s Open, To Love was the third fabulous chapter in ECM’s quietly revolutionary solo piano manifesto, whose impact endures and continues to influence improvisers today. In the liner notes to this Luminessence vinyl edition, Bley biographer Greg Buium writes, “After more than fifty years, Open, To Love remains an imperishable gem, lodged forever in the present tense, and among the great masterpieces in ECM’s vast catalogue.”

Produced by Manfred Eicher in Oslo in September 1972, the Canadian pianist’s album brilliantly integrates three strands of material into a sweeping and emotionally powerful narrative arc. Repertoire is comprised of songs by Carla Bley and Annette Peacock (Carla’s “Closer”, “Ida Lupino” and “Seven”, and Annette’s “Open To Love” and “Nothing Ever Was, Anyway”), plus two pieces by Paul which unspool and reconfigure jazz standards. In “Harlem” and “Started”, Bley fragments motivic material from “I Remember Harlem” and “I Can’t Get Started”, pieces he had played through the bebop years, until the music acquires a surrealistic dreamlike character, meshing perfectly with new visions of free balladry.

“On his own, Bley is even more sombre and introspective, but the music has a rare freshness and clarity, and it’s perhaps the deepest glimpse yet into the way his mind works. [The first three pieces] unfold slowly, unbroken in mood, conveying a beauty which must speak clearly to everyone. His gracious melodies, sometimes broken up by his redoubtable technique like smoke-rings, giving way almost imperceptibly to the next. The shifts of emphasis and direction are tremendously subtle, and his fine touch etches them with a stained-glass clarity. Practically all his albums are important documents on a remarkable mind, and this is one of the best.”

— Richard Williams, Melody Maker (1973, Month’s Best)

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Further titles to be released as part of the Luminessence series are Chick Corea’s Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 and Bennie Maupin’s long out of print The Jewel and the Lotus. More will follow.

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