There have already been a few anomalies in the BYG Actuel
catalog so far: the avant classical of Michel Puig, the psychedelic proto-prog
of Gong, and the never-issued blues rock of Alan Jack Civilization. Number 13
in the Actuel catalog is also an anomaly, although not primarily on stylistic
grounds. Unlike almost all of the fifty-three albums in the label’s catalog,
Paul Bley’s Ramblin’ was not recorded
in the Actuel summer in 1969. It wasn’t even recorded in France. Instead, it
was an unused recording that Paul Bley’s trio made in Rome in 1966 that Bley
licensed to Actuel three years later. As such, it is missing that particular
adventurous spirit that marks so much of the rest of that catalog.
By the time he recorded Ramblin’,
Bley had already been an important figure in boundary-pushing jazz for thirteen
years. His debut album as leader, Introducing
Paul Bley, was released on Debut in 1953, and he somehow managed to wrangle
Charles Mingus and Art Blakey to be his sidemen. He was one of the first
respected jazz musicians to really get behind what Ornette Coleman and his band
were doing, and he brought Coleman, Don Cherry, Billy Higgins, and Charlie
Haden to perform with him in California in 1958. After his work with Coleman,
he got around quite a bit, performing with Jimmy Giuffre, Sonny Rollins, and a
few prominent members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, among others. By 1964, he was
firmly entrenched in the free jazz movement and he was one of the major
participants in the October Revolution in Jazz. After the October Revolution
he, his wife Carla Bley, and Bill Dixon spearheaded the Jazz Composers Guild,
an admirable but flawed attempt to unify out jazz musicians in order to help
them get stage time and fair record contracts. Infighting and the individual
success of some members (most notably Archie Shepp, who violated Guild bylaws
by signing with Impulse! without consulting the others) caused the JCG to
splinter quickly. After the JCG ceased to be, Bley traveled to Europe with his
trio, which at the time included Mark Levinson on bass and Barry Altschul on
drums. While in Rome on July 1, 1966, the group convened at Studio RCA to
record one Paul Bley song along with five compositions by Carla Bley, Annette
Peacock, and Ornette Coleman.
