Paul Bley

Sonor is a set of ten duets between Paul Bley and the Canadian percussionist Geordie McDonald, recorded in Milan in May 1983 and released by Soul Note in 1984. McDonald appears in the credits under his full name, George Cross McDonald. Bley is credited with all ten pieces, which run from under a minute and a half to six and a half. Stuart Broomer, reviewing the box of Bley's complete Black Saint and Soul Note recordings in The WholeNote in 2014, describes McDonald as a Toronto percussionist.

The music was recorded at Barigozzi Studio on May 22, 1983 and mixed there on March 22, 1984, with Giancarlo Barigozzi engineering and Giovanni Bonandrini producing. Lee Jeske wrote the liner notes, and the cover reproduces Stairway To The Sky, a painting by Carol Goss, who also designed the sleeve. Doug Simpson, writing in Audiophile Audition in 2014, describes McDonald as a musician who had backed Sonny Simmons and a young Neil Young, and calls the album "one of the most avant-garde in this collection, and may be the most difficult to decipher". He hears the pair race through Speed and turn dramatic on Darkness. On the title piece and on Joined Bley works inside the piano, striking and muting the strings with his hands, while McDonald plays hand percussion sparingly. The record opens with Little Bells and ends with Tight Rope, the shortest piece at 1:20, and the title track is the longest at 6:24.

This is the Soul Note CD 121085-2, which Discogs lists as a reissue of the album first released on LP in 1984 as SN 1085. It was mastered by Gennaro Carone at PolyGram in Tribiano, near Milan.