Open, To Love album cover
Open, To Love

Paul Bley

1972
ECM Records

Two years after sowing his 1971 classic, Ballads, pianist Paul Bley reaped this rich crop of solo piano selections. Alongside his own timeless music, he pays homage to Carla Bley (his take on “Ida Lupino” is a stunner) and Annette Peacock, whose “Nothing Ever Was, Anyway” cathartically upsets the otherwise contemplative mood on a relatively aggressive note. Whatever the register, intimacy rules the day as if it were night, courting darkness into the foreground as a means of personal growth. Indeed, this is an album that evolves the more we listen to it.

Tyran Grillo

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