Solo In Mondsee (2007)

Uit de lange rij albums die de Canadese pianist in een carrière van ruim een halve eeuw opnam, koost Allmusic dit album als 'album pick' binnen het oeuvre van de artiest. "Fully 35 years after "Open, To Love", Bley's seminal solo piano recording for ECM (which stands as a watermark both in his own career and in the history of the label), the pianist returns to the label for another one. Recorded in Mondsee, Austria, in 2001, and not issued until Bley's 75th year, these numbered "Mondsee Variations" were played on a Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano, an instrument that is, like its player, in a class of its own. While Bley has recorded other solo albums, none is more diverse and tender in its sparseness than this one. Bley is a poet of sound. For anyone interested in either the piano or improvisation, this recording, like its predecessor, will mystify, delight, and satisfy in ways that cannot really be imagined until this recording is actually encountered." (Thom Jurek, Allmusic)