Paul Horace Plimley (16 March 1953 – 18 May 2022) was a

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ...

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

and

vibraphonist The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...

. He was one of the doyens of the Canadian jazz avant-garde, a co-founder of the New Orchestra Workshop Society and frequent collaborator with the bassist

Lisle Ellis Lisle Ellis, (born November 17, 1951) is a Canadian jazz bassist and composer who is known for his improvisational style and use of electronics. Biography Ellis was born in Campbell River, British Columbia. Ellis began playing electric bass in ...

. He was well-versed in classical music and in all styles of jazz; he was one of the first and most convincing interpreters of

Ornette Coleman Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Colle ...

's music on the piano (an instrument usually seen as antithetical to Coleman's music). Born in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, Plimley studied classical piano under

Kum-Sing Lee Lee Kum-Sing () is a Canadian classical pianist and piano pedagogue originally from Sumatra. Biography Lee Kum-Sing studied with Gerhard Puchelt and Hans Richter-Haaser in Berlin and with Julius Katchen and Magda Tagliaferro in Paris. He ...

at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

(1971–73). In 1978–79 he studied with

Karl Berger Karl Hans Berger (born March 30, 1935 in Heidelberg, Germany) is a German jazz pianist, composer, and educator. Career Berger played piano in Germany when he was ten and worked in his teens at a club in Heidelberg. He learned modern jazz from v ...

and

Cecil Taylor Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex ...

at the

Creative Music Studio The Creative Music Studio (CMS) was a premier study center for contemporary creative music during the 1970s and 1980s, based in Woodstock, New York. Founded in 1971 by Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso, and Ornette Coleman, it brought together leading i ...

Woodstock, NY Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, NY. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 in 2000 ...

. In 1977, he founded the New Orchestra Workshop (NOW), and he has been active in many of the ensembles associated with NOW, including the NOW Orchestra. His work with Lisle Ellis is extensive, and includes the duo CD ''Both Sides of the Same Mirror'' (Nine Winds, 1989); ''When Silence Pulls'', with

Andrew Cyrille Andrew Charles Cyrille (born November 10, 1939) is an American avant-garde jazz drummer. Throughout his career, he has performed both as a leader and a sideman in the bands of Walt Dickerson and Cecil Taylor, among others. AllMusic biographe ...

(

Music & Arts Music & Arts is a classical and jazz record label founded in Berkeley, California by Frederick Maroth. It began in 1984 as a classical music label before adding jazz and world music. The catalog includes classical composers and musicians Milto ...

, 1990); ''Noir'', with Bruce Freedman and

Gregg Bendian Gregg Bendian (born July 13, 1963) is an American jazz drummer, percussionist, pianist, and composer. Early life Born in Englewood, New Jersey, Bendian was raised in Fairview and Teaneck. Bendian began playing drums at the age of nine and stu ...

(Victo, 1992); ''Density of the Lovestruck Demons'' with Donald Robinson (Music & Arts, 1994); and ''Safecrackers'' with

Scott Amendola Scott Amendola (born February 6, 1969) is an American drummer from the San Francisco Bay Area. His styles include jazz, blues, groove, and rock.Andrew Gilbert"Exploring New Degrees In Drumming" ''sfgate.com'', October 3, 2004. Amendola is origi ...

(Victo, 1999). He made two recordings for Hat Art: the collection of Ornette Coleman interpretations, ''Kaleidoscopes'' (1992), and (under

Joe McPhee Joe McPhee (born November 3, 1939) is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist born in Miami, Florida, a player of tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, the trumpet, flugelhorn and valve trombone. McPhee grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, and is ...

's leadership), a revisiting of

Max Roach Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz Jazz drumming, drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in h ...

's ''

Freedom Now Suite ''We Insist!'' (subtitled ''Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite'') is a jazz album released on Candid Records in 1961. It contains a suite which composer and drummer Max Roach and lyricist Oscar Brown had begun to develop in 1959 with a view to its perf ...

'' called ''Sweet Freedom, Now What?'' (1994). In May 2000, he recorded a live act at the 17th International Festival of New Music in Victoriaville, Quebec with John Oswald,

Marilyn Crispell Marilyn Crispell (born March 30, 1947) is an American jazz pianist and composer. Scott Yanow described her as "a powerful player... who has her own way of using space... She is near the top of her field." Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrot ...

and Cecil Taylor. The album was released at Victo Records. He was a regular performer at the

Vancouver International Jazz Festival The Vancouver International Jazz Festival is an annual summer event in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The festival grew out of a local jazz scene that centred on Vancouver Co-op Radio ( CFRO-FM), a community radio station, in the early 1980 ...

. Plimley died in Vancouver at the age of 69 on 18 May 2022 from cancer.

Discography

Solo albums

*1995: ''Everything in Stages'' (Songlines)

As band leader

With

*1991: ''When Silence Pulls'' with

(

) *1992: ''Kaleidoscopes'' ( Hat Art) *1993: ''Noir'' (Les Disques Victo) with

With

Barry Guy Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London) is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras ...

*1997: ''Sensology'' (Maya) *2012: ''Hexentrio'' (Intakt), with Lucas Niggli With

Trichy Sankaran Trichy Sankaran (born 27 July 1942) is an Indian percussionist, composer, scholar, and educator. He was awarded the Madras Music Academy's Sangeetha Kalanidhi in 2011. As a mridangam ''vidwan'', he has been called a "doyen among the percussionis ...

*1998: ''Ivory Ganesh Meets Doctor Drums'' (Songlines) With John Oswald,

and

*2001: ''

Complicité Complicité is a American theatre company founded in 1898 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. The company is based in London and uses extreme movement to represent their work, wit ...

'' (Les Disques Victo)

Collaborations

With

*1995: ''

Sweet Freedom - Now What? ''Sweet Freedom - Now What?'' is an album by multi-instrumentalist and composer Joe McPhee, recorded in 1994 and first released on the Swiss HatHut label.

'' (

Hat Hut Hathut Records is a Swiss record company and label founded by Werner Xavier Uehlinger in 1974 that specializes in jazz and classical music. The name of the label comes from the artwork of Klaus Baumgartner. Hathut encompasses the labels hat ART, h ...

) With

Henry Kaiser Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. Prior to World War II, Kaiser was involved in the construction industry; his company was one of ...

*1999: ''Passwords'' ( Spool), with Danielle DeGruttola *2012: ''The Starbreak Splatterlight'' (There), with

Weasel Walter Weasel Walter (born Christopher Todd Walter, May 18, 1972) is an American composer, improviser, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and founder of ugEXPLODE Records. Walter's work has been informed by techniques and traditions of music including Av ...

and Lukas Ligeti With

Mei Han Mei Han () is a Chinese-Canadian ''guzheng'' performer and scholar. She was born into a military family in Beijing, the youngest of four children. Her father Han Shu came from Shanxi, and her mother, who is half Miao, came from Hunan. Her matern ...

*2006: ''Ume'' (ZA Discs) With

Anthony Davis Anthony Marshon Davis Jr. (born March 11, 1993) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He plays the power forward and center positions. Davis is an eight-time NB ...

*2016: ''Past Piano Present , Live at Western Front 1985 - 2015'' (Western Front New Music), including with Al Neil and John Kameel Farah

TV appearances

* ''In the Key of Eh! Canadian Jazz Piano'' (1996) * ''Duos: the jazz sessions'' (2000) * ''Solos: the jazz sessions'' (2004)

References

External links

Official Site
*

All Music AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Plimey, Paul 1953 births 2022 deaths Avant-garde jazz musicians Canadian jazz pianists Canadian jazz vibraphonists Musicians from Vancouver 21st-century Canadian pianists Music & Arts artists Intakt Records artists