Paul Bley Quartet, The - Paul Bley Quartet (The)

Advantages: Fantastic display of Jazz composition
Disadvantages: Jazz isn't for everyone

...with Paul Bley on piano with rolling snare in the background. The piano sets a slow mood for around a minute but then is blown away by a mass introduction of six other musicians. This is obviously the beginning of the reincarnation. This formula is then repeated through the song, a slow part followed by a fast part followed by a slow part again… Vassarlean is the first really slow track of the album. It makes full use of Eric Dolphy on the Bass clarinet setting the sombre mood and the slow, purposeful steps taken by Mingus on Bass. This song could feature as the soundtrack to a depressed, drunken, falling-up-the-road scene in a fifties movie. Track four, "Stormy Weather", is the longest track of the album sitting at 13min 25sec and includes a three minute long bass solo that is quite different to most bass solos. It is slow and plodding... Read review

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Advantages: New facets of rock's greatest
Disadvantages: Not for the casual fan

...Anthology 3 documents the fractious Beatles years from 1968 to the end. Apple Records was launched ironically as the quartet were splintering into different units; to put it one way, they were increasingly solo artists appearing as session musicians on each others songs, or to look at it another way, they were already peering over the horizon at the post-Beatle world. There were no reconstructed and heavily overdubbed demos from which to create 'new' singles, but plenty of alternate takes from the white album, "Abbey Road", and "Let It Be" (with John spoiling the seriousness of a run-through of the title track by cheerfully calling Paul a bounder and a cheat!) as well as early versions of "All Things Must Pass" and "Not Guilty", which George wrote and later recorded properly on two of his solo albums in the 70s; and Paul's versions... Read review

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Advantages: Great introduction to Jazz
Disadvantages: None

...I think I first heard this CD when I borrowed it from my local library. The only tune I'd heard was Take 5 (actually a Paul Desmond composition) Listening to the CD was something of a revelation for me. It was as though I had finally discovered the kind of jazz music I'd been looking for for ages. Not overly technical in a "look how good I am with my 10 minute self congratulatory solo" kind of way, which I tire of very quickly. Brubeck & Co are very tuneful and very understated in their approach, yet remain very technically good. I like clever jazz and clever melodies, and that's what this is. This cd has a nice little collection of songs from various albums, including a few from their album 'Time Out' which uses untypical time signatures like 3/4 and 5/8 (take 5) and 7/8 etc. It also has the wonderful track called "I'm in a dancing... Read review

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