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Paul Motian: Live at the Village Vanguard, Vol. 1
by Francis Lo Kee
What has always been beautiful about drummer/composer Paul Motian is his use of space or silence. His concept seems to be more about letting creative voices come through the total texture. Sometimes the voice is the drum, but sometimes it is sax or piano and Motian plays ideally, regardless of textural setting. Speaking of piano, Masabumi Kikuchi's playing on this live recording is consistently striking. Motian has played with some of the greatest pianists in the history of the music, ...
Continue ReadingJakob Bro: Pearl River
by Jakob Baekgaard
Sometimes, finding a good jazz record is a bit like fishing: either you catch something or you don't. The search is always on for that particular phrase, beat or tune that will transport the mind to a state of bliss: the state called jazz. Coming across an album like Pearl River seems like a lucky find. Like finding a pearl in a river. But there's more than plain luck involved in the case of Danish guitarist Jakob Bro. ...
Continue ReadingPaul Motian: Time and Time Again
by AAJ Italy Staff
C’è un qualcosa di indefinito nella musica di Paul Motian che sembra strettamente connesso alla nozione di tempo. Sarà quel modo così parsimonioso e così poco percussivo di suonare (e mai come in questo caso il verbo rende l’idea della musicalità insita nel tocco del maestro), saranno quelle composizioni scritte con spiccato gusto per la dilatazione e le strutture irrisolte, sarà che a settantacinque anni passati il batterista licenzia dischi di valore con una puntualità sconcertante (è passato meno di ...
Continue ReadingPaul Motian: Time and Time Again
by Budd Kopman
The word abstract, when applied to jazz or music in general, is that which has little or none of the components that provide the mind, through the ears, structure and form through repetition. Most would agree that rhythm is the most basic in that the repetition of groups of beats and the accents upon them quickly gives structure and allows almost anything else to happen over it. Harmony and melody are the other two components that can ...
Continue ReadingPerpetual Motian: An Old Cat with New Tricks
by Tom Greenland
Enrico Pieranunzi/Marc Johnson/Paul Motian Untold Story Egea 2007 Joe Lovano/Bill Frisell/Paul Motian Time & Time Again ECM 2007
Having circumnavigated the sun for over three-quarters of a century now, drummer Paul Motian shows no signs of altering his orbital momentum; two meetings with old friends demonstrate his freshness and vitality--his eternal ...
Continue ReadingPaul Motian: Time and Time Again
by John Kelman
One sax, one guitar, one set of drums. Who could imagine that such a spare combination could sound so rich, so complete? Drummer Paul Motian's collaboration with guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano is well into its third decade together but, instead of settling into comfortable predictability, Time and Time Again finds the trio continuing to evolve.
The trio's artistic success is all the more uncanny for its avoidance of conventional role playing. Unlike other bass-less trios, where everyone ...
Continue ReadingPaul Motian: Time And Time Again
by J Hunter
Of all the things that make me hold my head about Jazz at Lincoln Center, the most ridiculous item showed up in an article on the first year in their new digs, Frederick Rose Hall. In a section on J@LC's organizational mindset, an unnamed staffer reportedly dissed Paul Motian as a drummer because, “He doesn't swing. Talk about missing the point! Like his former employer, Thelonious Monk, Motian shuns conventional structure and the constraints they automatically place on his instrument ...
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