The Squid's Ear Magazine


Thomas, Pat / Dominic Lash / Tony Orrell: BleySchool: Where? (577 Records)

The followup to their 2020 album titled BleySchool, the trio of Pat Thomas on piano, Dominic Lash on double bass and Tony Orrell on drums revisit and further explore the music of Paul and Carla Bley, here in a 2022 live performance at London's Cafe OTO focused on early Bley compositions, and also a cover of "Monk's Mood" which Bley included on his solo album Basics.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Pat Thomas-piano

Dominic Lash-double bass

Tony Orrell-drums


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UPC: 755491307748

Label: 577 Records
Catalog ID: CD-577R-5927
Squidco Product Code: 34886

Format: CDR
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack
Recorded at Cafe Oto, in London, UK, on June 8th, 2022, by Billy Steiger.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Jazz music is flush with tributes, but few are as vigorous as the homage that UK pianist Pat Thomas has paid to the late Paul Bley. It's a group filled out with double bassist Dominic Lash and drummer-percussionist Tony Orrell, both fellow Brits. The first record in the project, simply titled BleySchool, was released by 577 Records in 2020, with vinyl copies still available. On August 2, its follow-up BleySchool: Where? arrives, also via 577, on compact disc in a limited edition digipak (100 copies) and digital through Bandcamp. The set's seven pieces beautifully extend Thomas' celebration of Bley and reinforce that there's still plenty of gas in the piano trio tank.

It's important to note that the music on BleySchool: Where? continues to be more than just a tribute to Paul Bley, while never losing focus on the Canadian pianist's multifaceted artistry. As on the first set, the trio tackles "Ida Lupino," a composition by Bley's ex-wife Carla Bley, which was introduced to the record buying public as the opening track on his 1966 album Closer. It was his second of two records for ESP-Disk, a trio date that featured Steve Swallow on bass and Barry Altschul on percussion.

That "Ida Lupino" is heard on both BleySchool releases isn't a bit unusual. Bley recorded it again on his very next album following Closer, the 1967 BYG Actuel release Ramblin' with Altschul and bassist Mark Levinson. It's also doubly appropriate that BleySchool dig into "Ida Lupino" on a Bley homage, as the song was itself a tribute to the great actress and trailblazing film director.

Bley's playing of "Ida Lupino" on those albums is gorgeous and concise, staying true to the melody, the first version clocking in at 2:55 and the second 3:30. For Thomas, Lash, and Orrell the piece is a launching pad for improvisation and a source of expansion, deconstruction and rebuilding, rather than a mere copy (imitation flatters, but is ultimately shallow).

The "Ida Lupino" on the first BleySchool album (recorded in 2018) clocks in at just over 12 minutes and the take on Where? (from 2022) breaks 16; both are considerably abstract in nature with clear similarities to the European free improv tradition, especially early on. Thomas emerges gradually and does engage with the melody, but it's more like putty in his hands.

There are even more Carla Bley compositions on Where? as the focus of Thomas and his crew largely lingers on the early Paul Bley trio recordings. There's a boisterous reading of "King Korn" from the 1962 Savoy LP Footloose! with Swallow and drummer Pete LaRoca, and from the same record, "Syndrome," which is the second half of a medley excursion that's fronted by Annette Peacock's composition "Gesture Without Plot."

It can't be a coincidence that these two pieces are heard back to back (but in reverse order) on the 1973 album Paul Bley & Scorpio, a trio session released by Milestone featuring bassist Dave Holland and Altschul, just as the two standards that are included on Where?, "All the Things You Are," which opens Where?, was part of Bley's book.

Bley cut "All the Things You Are" while backing Sonny Rollins and Coleman Hawkins (and later in trios), and although it doesn't appear that he ever recorded "There Is No Greater Love," the chances that he didn't know the tune (a composition long associated with Duke Ellington, composed by Isham Jones and Marty Symes) are slim. Thomas obviously knows both songs well enough that he can take them apart, reassemble and reinvigorate them, the group steering far wide of the typical piano trio model.

The closest Where? gets to piano trio mode is late in the record, with a version of "Monk's Mood," thunderous, angular and energetically paced, that's still recognizably Monk-ian. Bley included "Monk's Mood" as the only non-original on his 2001 solo piano set Basics. For BleySchool: Where?, the group takes the opposite approach; the closing title piece is the only original, credited to the trio, a real key banger that retains its compositional fortitude. If Thomas, Lash, and Orrell dished a Bley-inspired disc every four years until the world stopped spinning, that'd be just fine."-Joseph Neff, The Vinyl District


Get additional information at The Vinyl District

Artist Biographies

"Born 27 July 1960; Piano, electronics. Pat Thomas started playing at the age of 8 and studied classical music and played reggae. He began playing jazz at sixteen after seeing Oscar Peterson on television then listened to snatches of jazz on the radio before, in 1979, playing his first serious improvised gigs. From 1986 he played with Ghosts which was Pete McPhail and Matt Lewis.

In addition to programming his keyboards, Pat Thomas also utilises prerecorded tapes. He told Chris Blackford (1991), 'As far as the tapes are concerned I'll probably just sit in front of the TV and tape whatever's going on and so some editing afterward to decide what might be useful. ...But I don't actually put a label on each tape saying what's on there, so when I come to use them I don't know what I'm going to be playing. That obviously prevents me from setting things up. I pick them at random and see what happens. So I'm just as surprised as anybody else at what comes out'.

In 1988 he was awarded an Arts Council Jazz Bursary to write three new electroacoustic compositions for his ten-piece ensemble, Monads: Roger Turner and Matt Lewis, percussion; Pete McPhail, WX7 wind synthesizer; Neil Palmer, turntables; Phil Minton, voice; Phil Durrant, violin; Marcio Mattos, bass; Jon Corbett, trumpet; Geoff Searle, drum machines. The intention was to feature different aspects of electronics using improvisation so, for example, one piece - Dialogue - featured Pete McPhail and Neil Palmer, another concentrated on the interaction of percussionists and drum machines, and a third piece had Phil Minton and Jon Corbett improvising with a computer. The pieces were performed at the Crawley Outside-In Festival of new music in 1989.

Pat Thomas was invited by Derek Bailey to play in Company Week in 1990 and 1991 and he also took part in the Ist International Symposium for Free Improvisation in Bremen with the guitarist. He has been a member of the Tony Oxley Quartet (documented on Incus CD 15) and played in Oxley's Angular Apron along with Larry Stabbins, Manfred Schoof and Sirone at the 8th Ruhr Jazz Meeting and in the percussionist's Celebration Orchestra. He plays with Lol Coxhill in a range of combinations from duo to being a member of 'Before my time', is a member of Mike Cooper's Continental Drift, and he has a well established duo with percussionist Mark Sanders and a trio with Steve Beresford and Francine Luce. In 1992 Pat Thomas formed the quartet Scatter with Phil Minton, Roger Turner and Dave Tucker; funded by the Arts Council they toured the UK in 1993 and again at the beginning of 1997.

On the 'Festival circuit', Pat Thomas has appeared at: the Young Improvisors Festival at the Korzo Theatre, Den Haag (with Jim O'Rourke, Mats Gustafsson and Alexander Frangenheim); Angelica 95 in Bologna, Italy; the Stuttgart 5th Festival of Improvised Music 96 (with Fred Frith, Shelly Hirsch, Carlos Zingaro and others); and the 3rd International Festival 96 in Budapest (with Evan Parker, Phil Minton, John Russell and Roger Turner).

-EFI (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mthomas.html)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Born Cambridge, England, in January 1980; played bass guitar since 1994; studied with Hugh Boyd and Pascha Milner and at Basstech (London) with Rob Burns, Terry Gregory and others. Played double bass since 2001; basically self taught, with grateful thanks to Simon H. Fell. First class BA in English Literature from Oxford University (2002). Received MA Composition from Oxford Brookes University in 2003, having studied with Paul Whitty, Ray Lee and others. Received PhD from Brunel University in 2010, having studied the work of Derek Bailey, Helmut Lachenmann and JH Prynne and been supervised by Richard Barrett and John Croft."

-Dominic Lash Website (http://dominiclash.blogspot.com/p/dominic-lash_5.html)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

UK drummer Tony Orrell is a long-time collaborator with saxophonist Paul Dunmall, having played together in the 70's band Spirit Level in Bristol. They have continue to play together over the years. Orrell is also known for the band The Jellilalas.

-Squidco 10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. All The Things You Are 7:05

2. Gesture Without Plot / Syndrome 8:14

3. There Is No Greater Love 5:33

4. Ida Lupino 16:12

5. King Korn 5:30

6. Monks Mood 3:34

7. Where? 4:33

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Jazz
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Trio Recordings
Jazz & Improvisation Based on Compositions
Piano Trio (Piano Bass Drums)
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Improvised Music
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