Paul Bley

Paul Bley's music career started in a way that befitted his improv style of play. As a teen in Montreal, he filled in for acclaimed musician Oscar Peterson at a show, which eventually led to Bley attending The Juilliard School in New York City to study music. At the age of 21, Paul Bley entered the music scene officially with his debut album Introducing Paul Bley in 1953. The young Canadian musician played the piano on his debut album, backed up by a bassist and a drummer. After releasing a few more albums in the late '50s and early '60s, Bley began to find himself musically and got more involved with the free jazz scene, leading him to help found the Jazz Composers Guild in New York. He was extraordinarily prolific over the ensuing years, releasing more than a dozen albums in the late '60s and early '70s. Bley dipped into the world of electronic music, going as far to perform live with a Moog synthesizer, the earliest known time anyone did so. Over the next 40 years, Bley continued to record and release music ranging from avant-garde jazz to synthesizer-backed electronica, producing more than 50 albums over the period. It wasn't until he reached his 70s that he started to slow down, with his last album recorded in 2008. Bley died at the age of 83 in early 2016 at his family home of an undisclosed cause.