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Sonic
Temples
(GM Recordings 3046CD, 2001) |
Down
Beat (January 2002):
"Ran
Blake is so hip it hurts. At 66, he is still a pianist who can
make you laugh at his wry humor one second and wring a tear the next.
His playing and composing is so richly idiosyncratic and his interplay
with the Schuller brothers bassist Ed and drummer George so varied
that
Sonic Temples could have been recorded at any time in the last 45
years." - James Hale
Chicago
Tribune (December 11, 2001):
Also carried on the AP/Knight Ridder wire to other papers
Top 10 Jazz Recordings of 2001 (#8)
"...indispensable...Blake in effect takes [jazz standards] apart
and
puts them back together in exotic and alluring ways. The standard
tunes, therefore, simply become vehicles for tracing the arcane and
fantastically eccentric ways in which Blake thinks." - Howard
Reich
Signal
to Noise: The Journal of Improvised & Experimental Music (Winter
2002):
"This is the sound of lives fully connected and committed.
Everything matters and nothing is taken for granted - what a fine
way to make music."
AllAboutJazz.com
(November 2001):
"Sonic Temples is a profusely elegant affair that shines
forth with the reverence of a coveted museum piece. Strongly recommended."
LA
Times (November 25, 2001):
"Original voices are so hard to come by in jazz pianism that
a two-CD set such as this amounts to a signal event. To say that [Ran
Blake] alters the harmonies of 'Black Coffee' or brings interesting
colors to 'Stormy Weather' would be like contending that Michaelangelo
did a nice touch-up job on the Sistine Chapel. — Howard Reich
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
"4
1/2 stars. Ran Blake has never been so powerful or so quiet, the restraint
and space here is almost mystical. This is in many ways just the next
chapter in an already wildly fruitful and profound career...it is
also a reinvention of the artist in a portrait of himself."
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Horace
Is Blue: A Silver Noir
(hatOLOGY 550, 2001) |
JazzTimes
(May 2001):
"It takes a real individualist to make such well-known material
sound new, but Ran Blake certainly fills the bill on the excellent
Horace Is Blue." — Duck Baker
Down
Beat (March 2001):
"[‘Soulville’ and ‘The St. Vitus Dance’]
are two of Horace Silver’s better known tunes, and when Ran Blake
retools them to fit his own singular sound, we get a dose of both
disclosure and breakthrough. If you thought Blake’s stuff was
a bit to erudite in the past, here’s a great place to get on
board." — Jim Macnie
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Duo
En Noir w/ Enrico Rava
(Between the Lines 004, 1999) |
Boston
Phoenix (January 13-20, 2000):
"This live concert of piano and trumpet improvisations triumphs
by imaginatively expressing the spirit of film noir. There’s
a deep spiritual and musical empathy between these two artists, who
seem thrilled at the chance to bring a sense of cinematic surprise
to well-worn jazz chestnuts." — Norman Weinstein
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Something
to Live For
(hatOLOGY 527, 1999) |
JazzTimes
(October 1999):
"Blake’s harmonic sense is perhaps his most interesting
asset. He consistently finds chords and sequences that are not quite
what you expect." — Duck Baker
Tower
Records’ Pulse! (August 1999):
"There is no jazz pianist as dramatic as Blake, who has developed
a startling and unsettling approach merging Monkisms with a cinema
verite sensibility. Every tune possesses the visionary clarity of
a surrealistic film."
Boston
Globe (August 5, 1999):
"Few musicians can cover more musical ground using fewer notes
than Blake, who again proves that rue virtuosity is a matter of playing
only the notes that matter." — Bob McCullough
Northeast
Performer (June 1999):
"There is a part of the imagination that won’t be touched
until the musings of Ran Blake find it. The same way one feels when
Jimmy Stewart sees Kim Novak in a stark green dress for the first
time, or when he climbs up a stool amid undergarment designs—if
that moment could live alone on a piano." — Jonathan Babu
Cadence
(June 1999):
"Ran Blake is a rare kind of musician, a keen-eyed visionary
whose view takes in an immense range of seemingly disparate musics
and whose mind combines them like mosaics to create a coherent and
panoramic whole. It’s not just the piano’s gravity and Blake’s
sometimes ominous use of sustain; the music itself resonates long
after the CD has stopped playing." — Stuart Broomer
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A
Memory of Vienna
(hatOLOGY 505, 1997) |
JazzTimes
(Jan/Feb 1998):
"Time and again, Blake and Braxton pull at the edges of familiar
compositions like "Round Midnight," Yardbird Suite"
and "Just Friends," creating the type of unexpected contours
usually found in a lengthy collaborative process. Yet, what is most
amazing about this album is that it languished in Uehlinger’s
vaults for so long." — Bill Shoemaker
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
"Blake,
who has always been an expert at contrasting sound with silence in
dramatic fashion, keeps an implied beat going during the songs, but
throws in plenty of surprising curves, consistently stimulating Braxton.
They swing whenever they feel it best serves the music; however, they
do not let the tradition restrain their improvising and creativity."—Scott
Yanow
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Unmarked
Van: Tribute to Sarah Vaughan
(Soul Note 121227-2,
1997) |
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
"This
moody and melancholy yet strangely celebratory set will stay in one's
memory long after the CD has been played."—Scott Yanow
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Round
About (w/vocalist
Christine Correa)
(Music & Arts CD807, 1994) |
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
"Thought-provoking
music."—Scott Yanow
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Epistrophy
(Soul Note 121177-2, 1992) |
Penguin
Guide to Jazz:
"Blake
is a scholar, and something of a gentleman, with an approach to music
very far removed from the seat-of-the-pants gigging mentality of most
jazz musicians. His solo performances—and he has generally preferred
to work without sidemen—are thoughtful, precisely articulated,
but always intriguingly varied, combining jazz standards, original
compositions of great interest, ethnic musics from all over the world."
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That
Certain Feeling
(Hat Art 6077, 1991) |
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
"Blake
has been among jazz's least acclaimed players for years, and that
probably won't change, but this should refute the notion that his
work is too obsessed with cerebral concerns rather than emotions."—Scott
Yanow
Penguin
Guide to Jazz:
"The
music is full of oblique, inverted and sometimes probably imaginary
references to Gershwin's corpus. It's a record to be swallowed whole,
then nibbled and digested over time."
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You
Stepped Out of A Cloud (w/ vocalist Jeanne Lee)
(Owl R279238, 1989) |
Penguin
Guide to Jazz:
"Lee's
voice has a sweet indistinctness that really does suggest she has
only recently descended with Blake from some great stack of cumulo-nimbus
far above what we'd normally call jazz."
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Painted
Rhythms:
The Compleat Ran Blake Volumes 1 & 2
(GM
Recordings 3008,
1988)
(GM
Recordings 3007,
1987)
|
Cadence
(July 1989):
"Ran Blake is a true original…[his] music is directly from
his soul and does not require later corrections or 'sweetening.' Isn't
that what jazz is supposed to be about?"—Scott Yanow
Boston
Globe (March 23, 1989):
Painted Rhythms Vols. 1 & 2 (GM Recordings)
"There is no pianist alive, except possibly Cecil Taylor, who
can elicit so many colors from the keyboard as Ran Blake, and Blake,
it should be quickly noted, paints from a broader, more accessible
palette." —Fred Kaplan
NPR's
"Fresh Air with Terry Gross" (March 1989):
Painted Rhythms Vol. 2 (GM Recordings)
"To borrow Duke Ellington's favorite compliment, Ran Blake is
beyond category."—Kevin Whitehead
Down
Beat (May 1988):
Painted Rhythms Vol. 1 (GM Recordings)/The Short Life of Barbara Monk
(Soul Note)
"A Blake album is not merely a collection of performances, but
a matrix of essences of implications; 'Painted Rhythms' and 'The Short
Life of Barbara Monk' are no exceptions. Blake's deft touch and honed
harmonic sensibility enable him to shift the narrative voice within
a composition and plumb new depths of meaning."—Bill Shoemaker
Philadelphia
Inquirer (December 15, 1988):
Painted Rhythms Vol. 2 (GM Recordings)
"…Blake's music has reached such a level of personal integration
that everything he does is worthy of the highest rating. He's an original,
and there have never been as many of these in American music as you've
been led to think."
CMJ
New Music Report (February 26, 1988):
Painted Rhythms Vol. 1 (GM Recordings)
"Few pianists this side of Thelonious Monk have made more telling
use of space than Ran Blake."
The
Philadelphia Inquirer Weekend (January 8, 1988):
Painted Rhythms Vol. 1 (GM Recordings)
"On material ranging from Scott Joplin's 'Maple Leaf Rag' to
Ray Charles' 'Hallelujah, I Love Her So,' he demonstrates an eloquence
of touch and a sense of improvisational design surpassed only by Thelonious
Monk."
Cadence
(December 1987):
Painted Rhythms Volume I (GM Recordings):
"And what a marvelous sense of economy he has, best exemplified
perhaps on the on the title track where a full sense of theme, exposition,
orchestration and improvisation takes place in but 2 minutes and 19
seconds. He’s an acquired taste and for me this is delicious."
— Bob Rusch
Penguin
Guide to Jazz:
Painted
Rhythms Vol. 1 (GM Recordings)
"Like
trumpeter Franz Kogelman, Blake takes a highly personal stance on
the jazz tradition, reinterpreting classic material with a curious
mixture of respectful precision and free-floating innovation."
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
Painted
Rhythms Vol. 1 (GM Recordings)
"Highly
recommended, as are most of Ran Blake's unique recordings."—Scott
Yanow
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Short
Life of Barbara Monk
(Soul Note 1127, 1986) |
Penguin
Guide to Jazz:
"This
is a truly marvelous album…[the title track is a] complex and
moving composition that shifts effortlessly between a bright lyricism
and an edgy premonition; Blake plays quite beautifully, and his interplay
with the young but supremely confident rhythm section is a revelation."
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Vertigo
(Owl K741, 1985) |
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
Ran Blake's
follow-up to his 'Film Noir' album of 1980 is just as extraordinary.
This set makes for fascinating listening and is particularly recommended
to movie fans. *****."—Scott Yanow
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Suffield
Gothic
(Soul Note 1077, 1984)
|
Jazziz
(Jan/Feb 1985):
"The iconoclastic Third Stream pianist, Blake, proves he’s
gotta lotta soul when he joins forces with tenorman Houston Person—who
proves he’s gotta lotta technique."
Boston
Phoenix (January 1, 1985):
Top 10 Jazz Albums 1984
"Ran Blake caught a bit of the hard bop spirit on Suffield Gothic
(Soul Note), the most visceral and blues-drenched recital of his career,
as well as the worthiest showcase to date for tenor saxophonist Houston
Person, who turns this mostly solo album into a duo recital on three
tracks." — Bob Blumenthal
Washington
Post (August 17, 1984):
"Ran Blake was putting out albums of highly personal solo piano
music when Keith Jarrett and George Winston could barely touch the
pedals with their toes. If Blake were a painter, he might take a masterpiece
and paint it white before judiciously and abstractly suggesting its
original form through entirely new coloration." — Richard
Harrington
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Duke
Dreams
(Soul Note 1027, 1982)
|
Down
Beat (September 1982):
"…this is a haunting and rather remarkable set of performances
by a genuine American original. He can thrill you with the passion
of pure reason; he can give ideas substance, make them seem real and
moving. *****." — Francis Davis
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
While
hinting at Duke's piano style, Ran Blake often reharmonizes and greatly
reinvents his music, including such pieces as 'Drop Me Off In Harlem,'
'It Don't Mean A Thing' and "Take The A Train.' Highly recommended.
*****."—Scott Yanow
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Improvisations
(w/ pianist Jaki Byard)
(Soul Note , 1981)
|
Penguin
Guide to Jazz:
"Piano
duos can be messily unsatisfactory affairs; one thinks of the Cecil
Taylor/Mary Lou Williams imbroglio in particular. This, though, is
exceptional."
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
"This
very interesting release matches together Ran Blake and Jaki Byard
in a set of piano duets. In other words, this matchup works."—Scott
Yanow
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Film
Noir
(Arista/Novus 3019, 1980)
|
Stereo
Review (November 1981):
"Although six of the compositions are not his own, it is not
at all inappropriate to refer to everything on this album as Blake’s
music, for every measure bears his distinct stamp. Ran Blake is a
very talented music maker—I have said that before, and I repeat
it with emphasis after hearing this album."
Contemporary
Keyboard (August 1980):
Film
Noir (Arista/Novus)
"Here Blake’s ice-cold cluster chords and jagged phrasing
come to the fore. Elsewhere they serve as splashes of color in more
normal ensemble work—sometimes swinging but still darkly colored
and at times nearly atonal. Recommended without hesitation."
— Jim Aiken
Boston
Phoenix (June 17, 1980):
A Movie Fan’s Notes
"’Film Noir’ is also a testament to Blake’s achievements
as NEC’s Third Stream chairman. Today Blake uses Third Stream
to connote the blending of any two disparate musics, a universalist
approach he stresses by making his students learn pieces by ear instead
of through printed scores." — Bob Blumenthal
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
"Ran
Blake's dark piano style and dramatic improvisations make for a perfect
match with the mood of film noir. Utterly fascinating interpretations
that add up to a memorable gem. *****."—Scott Yanow
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Rapport
(Arista/Novus 3006, 1978)
|
Down
Beat (September 6, 1979):
"His grab bag of tricks—jarring seconds, tangled, angry
snatches of melody that pounce then etherize, burning bass forays—this
whole arsenal can easily be mistaken for Blake’s ‘meaning,’
since it’s easy enough to hang critical handles on them and in
doing so to make Blake into a kind of supercharged Monk/Bley amalgam,
neatly avoiding what Blake, the burglar/artificer, is all about. Meaning
here eludes chord by chord, lick by lick analysis and is to be found
instead in the constant commingling of the two musical traditions.
*****."
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
"In
general, this music is fairly sparse and very much in the pianist's
unique style, a strong addition to his discography."—Scott
Yanow
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Breakthru
(IAI 373842, 1976)
|
All
Music Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
"The
unique pianist is heard on this album performing brief versions of
a colorful variety of standards and originals. Intriguing music."—Scott
Yanow
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Blue
Potato & Other Outrages
(Milestone 9021, 1969)
|
All Music
Guide to Jazz (3rd Edition):
"A
very emotional improviser (whose unexpected explosions of sound sometimes
punctuate otherwise introspective performances), Blake is a true original.
On this solo piano date, Blake makes political (if nonverbal) statements
on many of these pieces, improvising off the titles rather than the
chord changes."—Scott Yanow
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Performance
& Miscellaneous Reviews
Atlanta
Journal Constitution (November 13, 1989)
Pianist Ran Blake Rolling Along On Strength of His Third Stream
"Schooled in the classics but imbued with the fire-tongued gospel
of the black Pentecostal church he attended as a child, Mr. Blake
has, in his own life, practiced the musical fusion that lies at the
heart of Third Stream. Under his guidance, the term has expanded."
— Bo Emerson
Boston
Globe (November 19, 1987):
Jordan Hall performance
"Whether accompanying or soloing, Blake’s piano playing
sent up unmistakable signs of intense passion as well as shimmering
slivers of incandescent beauty."
High
Fidelity (August 1986):
"Blake is a grand American eccentric in the dual tradition of
Charles Ives and Thelonious Monk, content to travel his own path and
let the world catch up when and if it chooses." — Francis
Davis
Seattle
Post-Intelligencer (June 26, 1986):
Concert at Western Front, Vancouver, B.C. (du Maurier International
Jazz Festival)
"Imagine a pianist with the artistic courage to present an imaginary,
miniaturized film score of Alfred Hitchcock’s "Vertigo."
From "Credits" to "Nightmare and the Tower of San Juan
Bautista," Blake’s mini-masterpiece vibrated with the obsessive
passion of that film, moving quickly, as so all of his pieces, from
one dense, evocative scene to the next."
The
Patriot Ledger (April 26, 1986):
Same as above, but six months later
"On the evidence of Thursday’s late show at the Kenmore
Square club, there is a mellow, fluent side of Blake’s musicianship
which clothes his unique freshness of approach to standard materials
in a broadly melodic style appealing to both traditional and avant-garde
ears all at once." — David Noble
Boston
Herald (November 9, 1985):
Performances at the Starlight Roof
"Often brooding, [Ran Blake’s music] is never pretentious.
It is brilliant music, carefully worked out yet ever-surprising."
— Daniel Gerwertz
Boston
Globe (November 9, 1985):
Performances
at the Starlight Roof
"Ran Blake’s piano playing is brash, dramatic and uncompromising,
full of deep, rumbling chords, ghostly overtones and rushing staccato
passages that seem to evaporate almost as they’re being played."
— Michael Ullman
Boston
Globe Magazine (May 5, 1985):
"Clearly, Blake knows harmonic theory and all the other elements
of conservatory study, inside and out. His sounds, though, don’t
follow established patterns; they seem to come out of nowhere, to
flow directly from his visions." — Fred Kaplan
Boston
Globe (November 17, 1984):
Variations on "Vertigo"/The Cinematic Ear (solo performance
at the Brattle Theater)
"Blake’s imaginative use of surprise, stabbing staccatos—particularly
on the same upper-register notes—shifting dynamics, dissonant
harmonies and occasionally menacing tremolos filled his musical canvas
with mostly somber grays and placid blues. The audience was so rapt
that nary a candy-wrapper rattle intruded at the Brattle."
Washington
Post (August 14, 1984):
"’Third Stream’: Flowing Strong"
Pianists Louis Gottschalk, Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington, John Lewis
and Ran Blake have each contributed, unwittingly or by design, to
a century-old idiom that was not given a name until the 1950’s
when it became a self-conscious effort dubbed ‘third stream’
by Gunther Schuller, its chief proponent." — W. Royal Stokes
International
Herald Tribune (June 13, 1984):
"Introverted, concise, sometimes chilling, always well constructed,
his music can, perhaps too generally, be classified with Keith Jarrett’s
and George Winston’s, both of whom are criticized with ‘not
playing jazz,’ though Blake preceded them and never approached
their fame and fortune." — Mike Zwerin
Chicago
Tribune (October 30, 1983):
Jazz Showcase at the Blackstone Hotel
"Describing Blake’s music is no easy task, because there
are few precedents in jazz, or anywhere else, for what he tries to
do when he sits down at the keyboard. For one thing, it is almost
totally improvised and can refer quite naturally to black gospel music
and to a host of other ‘native American’ sounds—movie
soundtracks, old pop tunes, and the compositions of such jazz masters
as Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and George Russell—not to
mention the non-American music of Greek composer Mikas Theodorakis
and the tangos of Argentina." — Larry Kart
New
York Times (June 28, 1983):
Abraham Goodman House
"His harmony shares Bill Evans’ love of dense, lustrous
extended chords, and his melodic lines usually revert in the end to
the delicate ornamental filigree of blues pianism. He is certainly
a beautifully grounded musician, and his scrupulous avoidance of brilliance
for its own sake showed him to be a modest and sincere one as well."
— Bernard Holland
Down
Beat (February 1980):
Ran Blake’s Third Stream
"To say that Ran Blake is not your typical jazz pianist would
be as colossal an understatement as saying that Lenny Bruce was not
your typical comedian. Blake’s esthetic is an outgrowth of an
incredibly cosmopolitan blend of sources old, new, borrowed and blue.
He’s as comfortable with Debussy as with Mahalia Jackson, with
Bud Powell as Ravi Shankar, with Stevie Wonder as Mikis Theodorakis—and
his diverse and prodigious repertory reflects his wide-ranging and
unclassifiable musical tastes." — Art Lange
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Last updated:
January 14, 2002
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