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Bley School: Where?

By John Sharpe
January 9, 2025
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Punningly recalling beloved British children's TV programme Play School, the name Bley School neatly encapsulates what is afoot on this album, representing an open-minded and irreverent fondness for tunes, especially those associated with the groundbreaking Canadian pianist

Paul Bley

piano
1932 - 2016

" data-original-title="" title="">Paul Bley. Responsible for this is the threesome of pianist

Pat Thomas

piano
b.1960

" data-original-title="" title="">Pat Thomas, bassist

Dominic Lash

bass, acoustic
b.1980

" data-original-title="" title="">Dominic Lash and drummer

Tony Orrell

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Tony Orrell. Captured live at north London's Cafe Oto in 2022, Where? constitutes the band's second album following its eponymous 2019 debut also issued by Brooklyn's adventurous 577 Records.

All three protagonists are seasoned free improvisers, but hail from broad hinterlands. Thomas, whose backstory takes in iconoclastic guitarist

Derek Bailey

guitar
1932 - 2005

" data-original-title="" title="">Derek Bailey as well as drum maestro

Tony Oxley

drums
1938 - 2023

" data-original-title="" title="">Tony Oxley, is finally reaping the recognition his talents deserve, most especially with the combustive quartet [Ahmed]. Lash has worked extensively with saxophonist

John Butcher

saxophone
b.1954

" data-original-title="" title="">John Butcher, clarinetist-guitarist

Alex Ward

multi-instrumentalist
b.1974

" data-original-title="" title="">Alex Ward and pianist

Alexander Hawkins

piano
b.1981

" data-original-title="" title="">Alexander Hawkins, as well as moving within contemporary classical circles, while Orrell has recorded frequently with reed man

Paul Dunmall

saxophone
b.1953

" data-original-title="" title="">Paul Dunmall among others. Incidentally it is Orrell who also has the strongest, albeit indirect, connection with Bley, through a long collaboration with saxophonist

Andy Sheppard

saxophone
b.1957

" data-original-title="" title="">Andy Sheppard, who toured regularly with the pianist's wife Carla.

Three of her charts sit alongside one by Bley's second wife

Annette Peacock

vocals

" data-original-title="" title="">Annette Peacock, two standards, a

Thelonious Monk

piano
1917 - 1982

" data-original-title="" title="">Thelonious Monk piece and a collective improvisation. No familiarity with the songs is needed to enjoy this wide ranging set however. Thomas takes a characteristically robust approach to the material, isolating and repeating particular phrases as motifs, stuttering haltingly as he alternately stretches and compresses the fabric. For much of the time Lash furnishes a responsive counterpoint while Orrell lays down a clattery pulse rather than a steady beat, although both shift in and out of time at will, as the moment dictates.

Thomas begins "There Is No Greater Love" with a series of clipped notes outlining Monkish intervals, before launching into stride piano, prompting a jaunty two-step rhythm, while when the real thing arrives with "Monks Mood," it becomes an emphatic stomp. Among the other highlights is "Gesture Without Plot/Syndrome," (a mash up of two pieces that appear consecutively on Paul Bley & Scorpio (Milestone, 1973)), which evolves from a pointillist dialogue of muted clanking and woody clip-clop, into a ruminative refrain and then lastly a breathless dash. Also notable is the extended rendition of

Carla Bley

piano
1938 - 2023

" data-original-title="" title="">Carla Bley's "Ida Lupino," mysterious and droney before unveiling the haunting melody and subsequent staccato interaction.

Demonstrating the trio's capacity for both on-the-hoof invention and ensuing satisfying deconstruction, with its extemporized riff and syncopated bass, the final "Where?" boasts more of a structure than many of the preceding compositions. By turns radical, intimate and joyous, in about equal proportions, few groups possess such a fluid yet cohesive identity.

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Track Listing

All The Things You Are; Gesture Without Plot / Syndrome; There Is No Greater Love; Ida Lupino; King Korn; Monks Mood; Where?

Personnel

Pat Thomas

piano

Dominic Lash

bass, acoustic

Tony Orrell

drums

Album information

Title: Where? | Year Released: 2024 | Record Label: 577 Records

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