1932 - 2016
"In the final reckoning,
PAUL BLEY's influence over the last 50 years of jazz -
and it continues -
will be enormous....
Deeply original and aesthetically agressive,
Mr. Bley long ago found a way to express
his long, elegant, voluminous thoughts
in a manner that implies complete autonomy
from its given setting but isn't quite free jazz.
The music runs on a mixture of deep historical knowledge
and its own inviolable principles."