Open, To Love cover

Open, To Love

Released

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

Recommended by

Suggestions
Tangier Sessions cover

Tangier Sessions

Richard Bishop
The  Transitory Poems cover

The Transitory Poems

Vijay Iyer, Craig Taborn
Freedom Suite cover

Freedom Suite

David S. Ware Quartet
Cantilena cover

Cantilena

First House
Seriously Deep cover

Seriously Deep

David Axelrod
Renegade Heaven cover

Renegade Heaven

Bang on a Can
Goats cover

Goats

Xylouris White
I, Eye, Aye cover

I, Eye, Aye

Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Supertrios cover

Supertrios

McCoy Tyner