Paul Motian Band
Psalm
Paul Motian drums
Bill Frisell guitar
Ed Schuller bass
Joe Lovano tenor saxophone
Billy Drewes tenor and alto saxophones
Recorded December 1981 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher
The Paul Motian Band, short-lived in the incarnation captured here, gifted us a curious experience with Psalm. “Motian” may as well mean “mystical,” for such are the turns that await us. It’s not that he has access to some hidden pocket in the ether, from which he pulls a loom of compositional lines. He simply trusts in his fellow musicians enough to follow wherever they might lead. And what a group to be led by. Between Joe Lovano’s singing tenor and the serpentine licks of Bill Frisell, not to mention an infusion of supremely warm engineering, even critical listeners are sure to find something of interest.
Some of the album’s landscapes, like those of the lush title track and “Fantasm,” cultivate a heat-distorted crop of pliant reeds and guitars. One is tempted to read dreams into them, when in fact nothing can be so fleeting as those enigmas that already make life even less graspable. Such would seem to be the meaning behind titles like “White Magic,” which, despite their serrated edges and deep thematic scouting missions, are nebulous constructions at heart. Other diversions, such as “Boomerang” and “Mandeville,” have Frisell written all over them, to say nothing of his solo “Etude,” a liquid font of melodic wisdom that stretches like a nimble acrobat during warm-up. Motian does occasionally step into the foreground (“Second Hand”), but would rather bask in the viscosity of his own skeletal tunes, and in the tenderness of his band mates’ refractions of them (Ed Schuller’s rosy bass work in “Yahllah” being a perfect example).
Psalm isn’t a classic. Then again, I doubt it was ever meant to be. It is instead an altogether metaphorical experience to enjoy uninterrupted and in total acceptance of whatever may come. These musicians have surely seen more lucid days, but may remember few so enchanting as this.
