Barrage

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The ESP reissue programme seems finally to have got underway in earnest (after previous attempts by the German ZYX label and the Smithsonian Institute) thanks to Calibre's acquisition of it's back catalogue, and this Paul Bley album is a welcome addition to say the least. Recorded in 1964, 'Barrage' is a stunning blast of free jazz which both builds on Ornette Coleman's innovations and presages some of the achievements of the Jazz Composers Orchestra in its fusions of compositional and improvised elements.

Bley is joined by longtime Sun Ra alumnus Marshall Allen (one of his two appearances on record outside of the Arkestra) on alto saxophone, trumpeter Dewey Johnson, bassist Eddie Gomez and the great Milford Graves on drums. It's a weird lineup, but it works. Compositions are by Bley's then wife Carla, and it's instructive to compare the versions on 'Barrage' with some of the others that he's recorded, both solo and with the likes of Jimmy Guiffre and Paul Motian. The interpretations here are pretty full on and in a lot of cases show explicitly the influence Ornette Coleman had on Carla's writing at the time (Paul Bley had also played with Coleman some six years before). These are punchy, intricate, compacted tunes that have Ornette's rhythmic rough and tumble and melodic immediacy, though the sound of the group seems to be almost a blueprint for Coleman's 70's work, replacing the supple, open swing of his classic Atlantic records with a nervier polyrhythmic sense. That's mainly due to Graves, whose percussive shitstorms and stop start punctuations give this recording an irresistible visceral energy.

The then 20 year old Gomez is the most adventurous I've heard him and locks with Graves in a suitably muscular fashion; his solos are bluesy ruminations alternated with more abstract scrabbles which come on like a hyperactive Charlie Haden. Bley (as you might expect) reists the temptation to go bonkers and instead picks out well placed chords like he's treading through a minefield or bows out of the combat altogether, then occasionally breaks out into solo statements that bridge the gap between Cecil Taylor and Bill Evans, alternating fast atonalities with almost lush, rippling arpeggios. Allen is typically fantastic, all wide intervallic leaps a la Dolphy (and certainly prefiguring a lot of Anthony Braxton's work), yet even at his most frenetic displaying absolute control over his instrument (again, much like Braxton). Johnson is less immediate and often sems to be firmly in Don Cherry mode, though his lyricism on the beautiful 'And Now the Queen' is deeply affecting, and his handling of the tricky ensemble passages with Allen is admirable. The closing 'Batterie' is stunning; Carla gets her splicing block and chinagraph pencil out and edits fragments of the group's performance(s) of this hideously difficult piece into a cut and paste approximation of her ideal interpretation of it. The effect is at once exciting and disconcerting, and Graves's short solo statement is one of the most thrilling I've ever heard by any drummer. A must for anyone interested in the work of the Bleys and/or 60's jazz in general. Nice packaging too.