Barrage (Paul Bley album)

Barrage is the fifth album led by jazz pianist Paul Bley. The album was recorded by Bley's quintet in 1964, released by ESP-Disk, and features saxophonist Marshall Allen in a rare appearance outside the band of Sun Ra.^[1][2]

Barrage
Studio album by Paul Bley Quintet
Released	1965
Recorded	October 20, 1964
Studio	New York City
Genre	Jazz
Length	29:27
Label	ESP-Disk
Producer	Fred Mendelsohn
Paul Bley chronology
Footloose! (1963) Barrage (1965) Touching (1965)

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[3]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz	[4]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide	[5]
DownBeat	[6]

Allmusic gave the album four stars, calling it "a lost free jazz classic".^[3] Reviewing the 2009 re-release, All About Jazz 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"^[7] The Penguin Guide to Jazz 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".^[4]

Track listing

All compositions by Carla Bley

1. "Batterie" - 4:19
2. "Ictus" - 5:24
3. "And Now the Queen" - 4:21
4. "Around Again" - 4:15
5. "Walking Woman" - 4:18
6. "Barrage" - 5:31

Personnel

• Paul Bley – piano
• Dewey Johnson – trumpet
• Marshall Allen – alto saxophone
• Eddie Gómez – double bass
• Milford Graves – percussion