''Barrage'' is the fifth album led by jazz pianist

Paul Bley Paul Bley, CM (November 10, 1932 – January 3, 2016) was a jazz pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing and his early live performance on the Moog and ...

. The album was recorded by Bley's quintet in 1964, released by

ESP-Disk ESP-Disk is a New York-based record company and label founded in 1963 by lawyer Bernard Stollman. History Though it originally existed to release Esperanto-based music, beginning with its second release (Albert Ayler's ''Spiritual Unity''), ESP ...

, and features saxophonist

Marshall Allen Marshall Belford Allen (born May 25, 1924) is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EWI (an electronic valve instrument made by Steiner, Crumar company). Allen is best ...

in a rare appearance outside the band of

Sun Ra Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific ou ...

Reception

Allmusic 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 databa ...

gave the album four stars, calling it "a lost free jazz classic".Campbell, A.
Allmusic Review
accessed June 19, 2014 Reviewing the 2009 re-release,

All About Jazz ''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...

stated "''Barrage'' is a gem from the ESP-Disk archives; an important document in the progress of contemporary music, as fresh today as the day it was first performed"Rose, R. D.
All About Jazz Review
February 14, 2009 ''

The Penguin Guide to Jazz ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled b ...

'' said, "much of the interest in the album, which like its successor consists entirely of Carla Bley tunes, is in hearing Johnson and Allen in a small group context. The music is fairly hard-edged and the presence of two such confrontational players (the trumpeter was to appear on Coltrane's '' Ascension'') gives the set an uncomfortable fiery complexion that tends to singe away its more subtle moments".

Track listing

''All compositions by Carla Bley'' # "Batterie" - 4:19 # "Ictus" - 5:24 # "And Now the Queen" - 4:21 # "Around Again" - 4:15 # "Walking Woman" - 4:18 # "Barrage" - 5:31

Personnel

– piano * Dewey Johnson – trumpet *

– alto saxophone *

Eddie Gómez Edgar Gómez (born October 4, 1944) is a Puerto Rican jazz double bassist, known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio from 1966 to 1977. Biography Gómez moved with his family from Puerto Rico at a young age to New York, where he was raised. ...

– double bass *

Milford Graves Milford Graves (August 20, 1941 – February 12, 2021) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, Professor Emeritus of Music, researcher/inventor, visual artist/sculptor, gardener/herbalist, and martial artist. Graves was noteworthy for his e ...

– percussion

References

{{Authority control 1965 albums Paul Bley albums ESP-Disk albums