Paul Bley Quotes

When I first went to Juilliard I encountered something called The New Jazz Society in New York City. It was a group of people who met at a club on West 54th Street that Charlie Parker played at. Barry Ulanov organised it, he was working for a magazine called Jazz. Mingus was also working at this club on certain nights, Bird would work weekends and Mingus would work other nights. I had occasion to sit in at the club. Mingus was very friendly and when I went back to Montreal for one of the holidays I was offered two jobs in Montreal, which meant that I was making a great deal of money, as I was living at home, and it seemed that I was never going to get back to New York. The phone rang one day and there it was � Charlie Mingus was on the other end of the phone, saying, �Paul, you�ve got to help me out, I need a conductor for an octet.� It was quite complex and he felt that he wasn�t able to do the conducting and would I do that, and �by the way would I also do a trio date with him and Art Blakey?� Which was my first record.
Paul Bley

When I arrived in New York I was definitely the worst player in town! It was just a measure of how far I had to go. It took years, while I was at Juilliard I worked different weekends with different people.
Paul Bley

There�s a tradition in New York that for twelve months you�re supposed to be seen and not heard. It�s very presumptuous to think that you can come in being the hot flash from Cleveland and expect to impress anybody in New York. So you�re supposed to just very quietly make friends and do a great deal of listening. It took me four years of listening before I was really ready to jump on a great deal of the bandstands. At Juilliard Phil Woods was a student, Teo Macero was a student, there was a band there I had an opportunity to play for John Higgins� class. I had a chance to do a lot of work as a leader at that time.
Paul Bley