Paul Bley has died. His daughter Vanessa issued a statement on behalf of the family:“I’m deeply saddened to tell you that my father passed yesterday [3 January]. He was at home and very comfortable with family at his side.”

Bley was one of the early exponents of free jazz. Born in Montreal on 10 November 1932 the biography his daughter has issued along with the statement of his passing continues: “He began music studies at the age of five. At 13, he formed the Buzzy Bley Band. At 17, he took over for Oscar Peterson at the Alberta Lounge, invited Charlie Parker to play at the Montreal Jazz Workshop, which he co-founded, made a film with Stan Kenton and then headed to NYC to attend Julliard.” 

Bley’s last new record released during his lifetime was 2014's Play Blue: Oslo Concert [see video top] an album recorded at the Oslo Jazz Festival in 2008 inside a 19th-century neogothic church building used as a venue, material featured included Bley’s own compositions for the most part, with Sonny Rollins’ ‘Pent-Up House’ also added. Play Blue lived up to the initial high expectations surrounding this release operating as it does at Everest-like altitude on the same slopes as fellow sonic mountaineer Keith Jarrett’s solo concerts and records.

In recent years Bley’s Complete Remastered Recordings on Black Saint & Soul Note covering 1983-1994 of his long recording career were also reissued in a 10-CD set. 

One of the early pioneers of free-jazz, there at the birth, going back to Ornette Coleman’s Hillcrest days, Bley was hugely influential on a range of much younger pianists such as Ethan Iverson, Aaron Parks, and Kit Downes. He will be remembered for many reasons: his interest in synthesizers, for those groundbreaking early recordings with Coleman, for his tenure in the Jimmy Giuffre 3 [see video above] and for his trio and solo records.