Paul Bley pleasures

"The artists alone decide what you will hear on their ESP-disk." A label with such a motto should be cherished.  And I do, as all hardcore jazz fanatics should. But I guess Paul Bley didn't decide on the sound of this recording. Like all ESP-recordings I know, it sounds as if it was recorded under water or in a refrigerator or something.
But even then ESP (which started in the sixties when free jazz was invented and seems to have regained life in recent years) produced wonderful records. Closer is beyond doubt my favourite, since it got me to know Paul Bley, a wonderful pianoplayer, whose impact on jazz and improvisatory music cannot be over-appreciated.
Oh my god, I still remember hiring this record from the local discotheque when I was 17 years or something. I was completely stunned by the opening track, Ida Lupino (named after an actress, which I didn't realise until decades later). The track was penned by Carla Bley, then Paul's wife, although as far as I know their marriage didn't last too long. Carla wrote seven of the ten (short to very short) tracks here, and they are all terrific. Although none of the others are as melodic as Ida Lupino, I consider tracks like Start, Batterie and Closer as little gems, small pieces of art that deserve respectful accolades of all true music lovers. They are all classics to my ears.
Paul wrote one piece, and the remaining two were penned by Annette Peacock (if I'm not mistaken, Bley's partner after his marriage with Carla broke up) and Ornette Coleman, the man who changed the sound of jazz once he became member of the Paul Bley group in '58 (or was it '59?).
Bley's trio consists of Steve Swallow (then still on ACOUSTIC bass, although he's so badly recorded you can hardly hear him) and the wonderful Barry Altschul, an excellent drummer who was one of the key figures of free jazz, then disappeared for too many years, but now seems to have re-emerged on the scene.
My cd collection contains about 45 cd's by Paul Bley (and then another ten or so on vinyl), but I guess this one is still my favourite. Especially since the master himself decorated it with his autograph after a concert last year in Ghent, Belgium....
Thank you for reading this
Peter