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Poetry in Motian
by William DeLancey Adamson
Shimmering behind Bill's subtle reharmonies of the Gershwin tune LaFaro's pungent doublestops and even that asshole girl's phony laugh at the climax is your intelligence I've never heard nor ever will hear the like it's only Sunday night at the Village Vanguard but I feel it's the garden of Eden Years later it actually was or you made us think it was again when you wrote that primeval drone four notes ...
Continue ReadingPaul Motian: The Windmills Of Your Mind
by Dan Bilawsky
While Paul Motian's name is on the spine of this CD, guitarist Bill Frisell is the tie that binds this band. Frisell's ability to paint ethereal coats of sound in an earnest manner that speaks to his love of all things musical is at the heart of this program, which may be seen as an expansion of Petra Haden and Bill Frisell (True North, 2003)--a woefully overlooked vocals and guitar date which contains intimate and highly expressive takes on the ...
Continue ReadingKonitz/Mehldau/Haden/Motian: Live at Birdland
by Dan McClenaghan
Konitz/Mehldau/Haden/MotianLive at BirdlandECM Records2011 The tunes are familiar, Great American Songbook and jazz standards all. So for those unfamiliar with the names involved in this quartet outing, the old complaint of “same old same old" could surface. But with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz at the top of the listing, “same old same old" gets rolled out the door. Konitz, with over 60 years of professional experience--from the 1949 Birth ...
Continue ReadingPaul Motian: New York, NY, May 20 2011
by Warren Allen
Paul Motian Quartet “Tribute to the MJQ"Village VanguardNew York, NYMay 20, 2011 The boundary between past and present in jazz has, over the years, become a source of overwrought debate. The rise of “Tribute" shows at New York City's big name clubs gives ammunition to those who say that jazz today looks too much to its past at the expense of its future. But good musicians make good music, regardless of how it's advertised, ...
Continue ReadingKonitz/Mehldau/Haden/Motian: Live at Birdland
by John Kelman
Grist for what seems like an endless flow of recordings, The Great American Songbook has, ultimately, become as much a crutch as it is an inspiration. There's no denying the staying power of music that's near-Jungian in its collective familiarity, but if an artist is simply running down the tunes, à la Real Book--head, solo, head--the music too easily becomes nothing more than a tired retread, a kind of whitewashing that, rather than moving jazz forward, stops it in its ...
Continue ReadingPaul Motian Trio 2000 + Two: Live at the Village Vanguard, Volume lll
by Charles Walker
Paul Motian Trio 2000 + TwoLive at the Village Vanguard, Volume IIIWinter & Winter2011 It almost seems like a challenge to the critical establishment: return to the scene of your greatest early-career triumph, 40 years later, surrounded by active musicians instead of legends, and see what happens. Drummer Paul Motian, a fundamental gear in the Bill Evans Trio's landmark Sunday at the Vanguard (Riverside, 1961), has spent many of the intervening ...
Continue ReadingPaul Motian: On Broadway - Vol. 5
by AAJ Italy Staff
Nell'anno che sta per arrivare dobbiamo segnare sul calendario, esattamente al 25 di marzo, la festa per l'ottantesimo compleanno di Paul Motian, un batterista che continua imperterrito a percorrere la sua strada fatta di momenti intimi e delicati che però non sono mai fragili ed impalpabili. Anzi sono decisamente solidi e deliziosamente flessibili al tempo stesso. Perfettamente in grado di esaltare nuovi elementi vitali in vecchi brani resi celebri dalle commedie di Broadway e diventati successivamente standard jazzistici più o ...
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