Jazz Articles about Paul Motian

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Paul Motian Band: Garden of Eden

by John Kelman
January 17, 2006

A recent bulletin board poster suggested that “any human being's imagination and creative thinking wanes with age." Considering how many artists in their sixties and beyond remain not only vital, but are creating some of their best work, it's an easy supposition to refute. Drummer Paul Motian is the perfect example--despite some travel restrictions due to health concerns, he's never sounded better. Since renewing his relationship with ECM in 2004, his activity has been nothing short of ...

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Bill Evans: The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961

by C. Michael Bailey
November 1, 2005

The Wish Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you... , Matthew 7:7 (KJV) In 2001, I took a poll of All About Jazz contributors to determine the Top Ten Best Live Jazz Recordings. This poll corresponded with my previously completed series The Top Ten Best Live Rock Recordings. These two article series have recently been reformatted, archived, and republished as: Best Live Jazz Recordings (1953-65), ...

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Paul Motian Trio: At the Village Vanguard

by Eric J. Iannelli
October 24, 2005

Never one to regard form over content, I was nevertheless struck at once by the sheer beauty of the packaging of this reissue: a heavy, ribbed cardboard shell with an arced slot for the disc on one side, a thinner slip for the original liner notes on the other. It gives it the feeling of an event, rather than the more steady and prosaic process of the Winter & Winter label's remastered resurrection of Motian's work on JMT.

The extended ...

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Paul Motian Trio: At the Village Vanguard

by John Kelman
October 11, 2005

Paul Motian has created a unique place for himself in the annals of jazz drumming by being one of its most implicit players. More colourist than timekeeper, he's developed a style where very little often suggests so much. He's brought his “less is more aesthetic to projects by artists like Bill Evans, Paul Bley, and Marilyn Crispell, but his twenty year-old trio with guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano has exploited his strengths to greatest effect.

Over eleven albums--some ...

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Paul Motian: Sound in Motian

by Russ Musto
September 25, 2005

"Everything comes from the sound. It's in the sound. It's in the sound of my drums. It's in the sound of whatever I'm hearing, Paul Motian says describing his unique musical style. “I don't have any idea what I'm doing, what I'm going to do. I don't plan. I'm playing off of the other people I'm playing with. I'm getting my ideas from the other people I'm playing with...I'm getting my ideas from the sound--the sound of the drums. That's ...

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Paul Motian: I Have the Room Above Her & Motian in Tokio

by Rico Cleffi
August 14, 2005

Paul Motian I Have the Room Above Her ECM Records 2005

I Have the Room Above Her is an odd title choice, considering the title track is one of only two songs that drummer Paul Motian didn't write himself. Maybe Motian's too modest to go with one of his own titles, but judging by the strength of his original songs, he needn't be. (Incidentally, the aforementioned Kern-Hammerstein tune and Monk's “Dreamland are the weakest ...

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Paul Motian: On Broadway Vol. 3

by John Kelman
May 6, 2005

Winter & Winter continues with its JMT Edition series, reissuing in nicely repackaged and remastered form the roughly eighty recordings that Stefan Winter produced during the early to mid-'90s for the defunct JMT label. The appearance of drummer Paul Motian's On Broadway Vol. 3 completes the reissue of Motian's three standards albums. The 24-bit remastering brings added life to an already beautiful-sounding recording. That may not be enough impetus to motivate fans who already own the original JMT releases, but ...