Tag Archives: Paul Motian

Crispell/Peacock/Motian: Nothing ever was, anyway – Music of Annette Peacock (ECM 1626/27)

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Nothing ever was, anyway – Music of Annette Peacock

Marilyn Crispell piano
Gary Peacock double-bass
Paul Motian drums
Annette Peacock voice
Recorded September 1996 at Right Track Recording Studios, New York
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

It’s astonishing to think that the music of Annette Peacock, given its rare and just dues on this essential 1997 release, has not been buried under more attention. Then again, when listening to it in the hands of pianist Marilyn Crispell (in her ECM debut), bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Paul Motian, we feel it casting itself into a well of reflection so deep that it burrows out the other side of the earth, far beyond our reach. That it remains true to heart is part of its magic.

Annette’s mode of choice is the ballad, through which she forges sweeping landscapes of understatement. Her music is skeletal in the truest sense, using bones not as anchors for flesh, but rather as chambers for marrow and quiet emotional floods. The title track doubles as bookend, clothing us with and stripping us of a sound-world that thrives on the shadows of its language. These utterances are fleeting, imperative smiles that turn cloud into rain, lifting themselves like sentient decals from the sheet of time and turning slowly toward the splash of adhesion introduced by the rhythm section’s entrance. That the latter borders on superfluous is by no fault of the musicians, but by nature of Annette’s music, which is anything but simple. It is, rather, so full that the stony and rounded sighs our guides manage to elicit breathe with the density of a philosophical act.

Crispell tours a gallery of traveling installations, reflections of experiences served on two CDs for the nourishment of the sonically hungry. “Butterflies that I feel inside me” finds bassist Peacock in motion, redefining space with the humble genius he has brought to so many ECM sessions before and since. Here there is something more than the sum of his strings, as each player brings out the best in the other. Listen to the fissures of pure bliss in “open, to love” or “Albert’s Love Theme” and be moved as the trio opens intuitively, cutting a relenting and cinematic cloth into silhouettes of reason. An unexpected cameo from the composer herself draws a frayed thread through “Dreams (If time weren’t).” Annette’s vocals, raw to the core, embrace words like children of sentiment in a tale of fate and circumstance. This opens a path for Gary to indulge his apportioned commentaries, and for Crispell to voice every whisper of the heart that moves her. Following this is “touching,” which might as well be the ethos of the entire set. Touching is the focus of its attention. Touching is the embodiedness of the mood, which selects points of contact so carefully that it can only be spontaneous.

Let us not gloss over Motian, who is a wonder. His banter is forever sincere and offsets monologues with unerring intimacy. From the Carl Stalling-inspired “cartoon” and on through a string of brilliant vignettes that includes “Miracles” and “Ending,” we arrive at the arrayed sensitivity of “Blood.” It is the taste of an album that, by its end, has become a mirror within a mirror, at once reflector and reflected. Needling its compass toward the stillest horizon, it stands out like a name in a culture of anonymity.

Masabumi Kikuchi Trio: Sunrise (ECM 2096)

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Masabumi Kikuchi Trio
Sunrise

Masabumi Kikuchi piano
Thomas Morgan double bass
Paul Motian drums
Recorded September 2009 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James A. Farber
Assistant: Rick Kwan
Produced by Manfred Eicher

On paper, Tokyo-born pianist Masabumi Kikuchi may look the stranger, but put laser to disc and we’ve known him for decades. His prodigious talents were already clear in his teens, by which time he was sharing stages with Lionel Hampton and Sonny Rollins. He cut his first record—1963’s East & West—for Victor with Toshiko Akiyoshi and Charlie Mariano, the latter of course with formative ECM connections in work with Eberhard Weber. Kikuchi would get even closer to the label when he formed a trio with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian in the early 90s, releasing a string of albums under the moniker Tethered Moon for Winter & Winter. From there, Kikuchi continued his alliance with Motian on this ECM debut, adding 31-year-old bassist Thomas Morgan, for his most intuitive session yet. Having torn a page or two from the book of Paul Bley in the past, Kikuchi cites Motian as a major influence on his more recent endeavors, and indeed we feel in his artistry a pianistic equivalent of the late drummer, forever curious about what might be dancing just around the corner. That this would be Motian’s penultimate recording makes his contributions all the more poignant. His tsking filigree and palatable intimacy treads every rubato path like a millipede, predicting likeminded bursts of spontaneity from the keys.

Three tracks marked “Ballad” twine their way into the album’s skeleton, its veins pulsing with the nourishment of a freely improvised suite in ten parts. The lack of rehearsal is proportional to the music’s power of realization, rendering arbitrary such individual titles as “New Day” and “Short Stuff,” in spite of their economy of description. The listener will note that our idiosyncratic leader has a vocal presence, not so much singing like Jarrett as straining and growling against the tide that threatens to subsume him. As for Morgan, his bass creeps in at times like sounds from dreams upon waking. His gestures are listless and sincere, each a new ligament that leaves us stilled in golden light.

Kikuchi’s surname (菊地), if one wants to be literal about it, translates to “land of chrysanthemums.” It’s an appropriate analogy for quiet splendor of this all-too-ephemeral trio’s sound. It is similarly horizontal, training its microscopic lens wide and far within rather than trying to spike or send it skyward, until by the end it has thinned to comforting invisibility.

(To hear samples of Sunrise, click here.)

Jarrett/Peacock/Motian: At The Deer Head Inn (ECM 1531)

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Keith Jarrett
Gary Peacock
Paul Motian
At The Deer Head Inn

Keith Jarrett piano
Gary Peacock bass
Paul Motian drums
Recorded September 16, 1992 at the Deer Head Inn
Engineer: Kent Heckman
Produced by Bill Goodwin

By the fall of 1992, Keith Jarrett had already spent 30 years as a notable jazz performer. What better way to celebrate than to return to this record’s eponymous venue in his birthplace of Allentown, Pennsylvania for a once-in-a-lifetime gig? Switching out his usual go-to, Jack DeJohnette, for Paul Motian (no stranger to Jarrett, with whom he’d worked in the 70s), the trio works wonders with the new colors the latter provides. Peacock and Jarrett are both verbose players who manage never to step on each other’s toes. With Motian backing them, they take longer pauses for reflection, listening to the wind as it blows through their leaves. His presence and panache are as palpable as the prevalence of alliterations in this sentence, bringing an irresistible brushed beat to the squint-eyed groove of Jaki Byard’s “Chandra.” That hook keeps us sharp to improvisatory angle and inspires some youthful banter from Peacock, who feeds off those drums like Christmas. Motian excels further in the balance of fire and ice that bubble throughout “You And The Night And The Music.” The band also dips into Miles Davis-era waters with glowing renditions of “Solar” and “Bye Bye Blackbird.” Atop quilted commentaries from the man at the kit, Jarrett’s unpacking of these timeless melodies is the cherry on the sundae. Sweet toppings also abound in the laid-back “Basin Street Blues,” in which, with closed eyes and an open heart, Peacock finds the perfect resolution for Jarrett’s uncontainable fire. All three musicians up the ante in “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” Jarrett negotiates its changes like breathing while Peacock and Motian speak in vocabularies just beyond the radar of feasibility. Before we know it, we’re caught up in a joyous surge and relaxation. By ending with “It’s Easy To Remember,” the trio saves its finest translucent china for last.

The value of ECM as a live archive is proven beyond the shadow of a doubt in this recording. This is where it’s at.

Paul Motian Trio: it should’ve happened a long time ago (ECM 1283)

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Paul Motian Trio
it should’ve happened a long time ago

Paul Motian drums, percussion
Bill Frisell guitar, guitar synthesizer
Joe Lovano tenor saxophone
Recorded July 1984 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

It was by sheer coincidence that I first heard it should’ve happened a long time ago on the very day I later learned of its leader’s death. The title, therefore, will always be a poignant one for me, as if to say: You should’ve seen him while you still had the chance. And while it saddens me to have to add Paul Motian to the ever-growing list of uncompromising artists I will never experience firsthand (Montserrat Figueras would die one day later), I also feel fortunate to have encountered this awe-inspiring album so late in the game. New music has tended to come into my life only at such times as I’ve been prepared for it, and this album is no exception, for had I heard it even a few years ago I might never have given it a second listen. Suffice it to say when I heard it on 22 November 2011, it left an indelible mark, rendered more like an emotional tattoo by the sad news that followed it.

The cast of should’ve is rounded out by guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano, both just coming into their own at the time of this recording (1984). Lovano’s fluid tenor proves a superb complement to Frisell’s briny swells, positively singing with a dark amethyst tone in the opening title cut. “Fiasco,” on the other hand, foregrounds Frisell, who sounds for all like a synth in its death throes (all the while making it sing). Meanwhile, Lovano stills this discomfort with heavy inoculations of medical wisdom. This is followed by a gorgeous reprise of “Conception Vessel” that depicts the changes Motian had undergone since the selfsame masterpiece had been laid down twelve years before. One finds here a more internal evocation thereof, brought to the simmer of bubbling lava by Frisell’s quiet heat and Lovano’s pockets of air.

Like the album as a whole, “Introduction” is another dip inward. This somber solo from Frisell also opens us into the resplendent territories of “India.” Motian paints a stunning picture, which with each sparkling step brings us closer to its melodic core, traced in relief by Lovano’s lilting horn. “In The Year Of The Dragon” indeed slinks and curls like the long, scaled creature of myth, cutting rhythms across the sky with every whip of its tail. The smooth licks of Lovano’s sax are like the glint of an eye trained curiously ahead, even as its energy radiates through the fields and villages below. Frisell’s pliant guitar is at once straight-edged and ess-curved. We end with “Two Women From Padua,” which features some delicate popping from Lovano over Frisell’s breaking circuits. This proves a mere preamble for more gossamer spreads of sound. Lovano crawls like a spider along Frisell’s webs, strung between those raspy branches of Motian’s drums.

Despite the occasional burst of abstraction, this is a thoroughly relaxing album and one easy to get lost in. The musicians’ talents are affirmed in their restraint. While this may not be the frontman’s most brilliant album, the Motian experience was never about “brilliance,” but rather about openness to the darker corners of the ever-evolving psyche known as jazz. Now that he is gone, may that darkness welcome him into peaceful rest.

Pierre Favre Ensemble: Singing Drums (ECM 1274)

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Pierre Favre Ensemble
Singing Drums

Pierre Favre drums, gongs, crotales, cymbals
Paul Motian drums, gongs, crotales, calebasses, rodbrushes
Fredy Studer drums, gongs, cymbals
Nana Vasconcelos berimbau, voice, tympani, conga, water pot, shakers, bells
Recorded May 27 and 28, 1984, Mohren, Willisau
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Singing Drums brings together some of ECM’s most formidable percussionists in this one-off incarnation of the Pierre Favre Ensemble. For this date, Favre welcomes Paul Motian, Fredy Studer, and Nana Vasconcelos into his fold. The results are, while brilliant, likely to be overlooked due to the special interest of its instrumental makeup. Let this not deter anyone, however, from experiencing its wonders. What I love most about this session is that each player’s style is so instantly recognizable. Between the twangy call of Vasconcelos’s berimbau, the crotales of Favre, the delicate cymbals of Studer, and Motian’s earthly patter, we can easily tease out every thread of conversation being woven before us.

One finds in these atmospheres broad intimations of times and places, a blurring of geographic and cultural signatures into a mosaic of worldly mindedness, a space where human and animal blur into one another, such that the hands of the player become the keen pounce of a lion in the bush and the leap of the gazelle who thwarts it. Drones and footsteps exchange glances amid the branches of the opening “Rain Forest,” while other tracks like “Metal Birds” work in more clipped gestures. Vasconcelos’s chanting is a vital thread here, and seeks only to enhance the pitch-bent drums and other sinuous energies around him.

This is a profound album of subtle creativity that gets only deeper with every listen. Anyone who knows these performers will not expect an all-out frenzy, but the careful and porous readings of “Edge Of The Wing” and “Prism,” not to mention the whispered accents of “Frog Song.” Theirs is a journey both of anthropology and dislocation, a masterful text written “Beyond The Blue,” which leaves us to ponder the cries of our ancestors, as countless as the stars above our heads.

Paul Motian Band: Psalm (ECM 1222)

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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.

Paul Motian Trio: Le Voyage (ECM 1138)

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Paul Motian Trio
Le Voyage

Paul Motian drums, percussion
Jean-Francois Jenny-Clark double bass
Charles Brackeen tenor and soprano saxophones
Recorded March 1979 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Le Voyage is dear to my heart for opening with one of ECM’s crowning achievements in production, musicianship, and song. As the bluesy soprano of Charles Brackeen in “Folk Song For Rosie” sweeps across that sandy backdrop of bass—courtesy of the late J.F. Jenny-Clark, replacing David Izenson in the trio’s previous lineup—and Motian’s brushed drums, we know that more beautiful landscapes will be few and far between. The sax fades into the mystical silence from which it arose, making way for a tender bass solo before a mournful return. A careful selection of gongs and drums awaits in “Abacus,” in which Brackeen dazzles with an enlivening tenor solo. After this detour, Motian breaks into his own erratic asides. The studio miking distances his voice, making it seem as if he were a barely visible conjurer stretching his arms across time and space to produce a fantastic array of clustered statements before our very eyes. The arco intro of “Cabala/Drum Music” glides into Motian’s fluttering hands, which bid bass and tenor to speak in themes. Brackeen and Jenny-Clark shine again in “The Sunflower,” pouring a vast oasis of energy into which the final, and title, track dips its feet with superbly measured grace.

Though the title of Motian’s fourth ECM album is in the singular, its results are undeniably in the plural. The unspoken virtuosity required here humbly defers itself to three Ms: Melody, Moment, and Mood. Its sounds come to life only behind the closed eyes of a relaxed mind and body. Each solo feels connected to the others, as if by tendon or ligament, lighting our inner landscapes with countless signifiers that over time seem to blur into one soft and silent flame. This album epitomizes the “ECM sound,” even as it transcends all such arbitrary categories in favor of a more immediate form of communication that looks beyond the physical self and into the translucent thread that connects it to all else.

Those looking for a groove may want to move on, but do so at their own peril, for they will be missing out on one of Motian’s finest.

Paul Motian Trio: Dance (ECM 1108)

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Paul Motian Trio
Dance

Paul Motian drums, percussion
David Izenzon bass
Charles Brackeen soprano and tenor saxophones
Recorded September 1977 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Engineer: Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Drummer Paul Motian set loose his unique brand of chamber jazz into the world with this first trio album back in 1977. The late David Izenzon on bass and fellow Coleman cohort Charles Brackeen on reeds completed the package, tied up nicely with six of Motian’s engaging compositions. The titles thereof seem only loosely linked to their denouement, assuming they are meant to be descriptive in the first place. Either way, the results are so visceral that titles need not apply.

Brackeen is primarily known as a tenor player, but on Dance he employs the soprano almost exclusively. The only exception is in the penultimate tune, “Prelude,” where at last we get a blast of his guttural métier for a marked change in diction. It writhes with the power to deepen the trio’s abandoned sound from sweeping agitation to smoky elegy in a single change of embouchure. Contrast this with the Garbarek-like salutations of “Kalypso” or the relaxed sopranism of “Asia,” which walks a trail of meandering beauty that is the album’s calling card. As can be expected, there are intenser moments to be had, as in the tight squeals of the opening “Waltz Song” and the wilder forays of the title cut. The latter also offers some fine alone time with Izenzon as well as with Motian, who seems to drop his sticks in great number from varying heights. Through the glittering percussion of “Lullaby” we hear the stars of our slumber turned into song. The bass hints at a long-dead groove in which we can only grasp a sliver of faded glory. We revel instead in its ruins, where the dance really takes place. There, it is the bass that lulls us, pulling its feet under the covers in a frigid evening, curled like a promise waiting to awaken from a bad dream.

Dance is a wayfarer’s song. Yet the trio is passionately disinterested in the wandering itself and has eyes only for the geographies it covers. Like a spring that keeps winding itself tighter but never snaps, every melody is packed with lethal energy. The music relies entirely on this tension, pushed together like continental plates beneath unfathomable oceans. As land grows scarcer, the musical remainder becomes our vegetations, our lifeways, our civilizations, and we are left standing in the middle, watching as history takes its first steps.

Paul Motian: Tribute (ECM 1048)

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Paul Motian
Tribute

Carlos Ward alto saxophone
Sam Brown acoustic and electric guitars
Paul Metzke electric guitar
Charlie Haden bass
Paul Motian percussion
Recorded May 1974, Generation Sound Studios, New York
Engineers: Tony May and Martin Wieland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Paul Motian’s second ECM project finds the multitalented drummer/composer in comforting repose. Dispensing with the pianistic sound that obscured his earlier efforts, Motian pulls in the loose strands of guitarists Sam Brown and Paul Metzke to his ever-expanding loom. Bookending the set are two Brown/Haden/Motian trios. The flowering classical guitar and tenderly applied drumming of “Victoria” provide a magnetic backdrop for Carlos Ward’s smoldering alto, all the while developing into a snapshot of urban darkness. One imagines Brown sitting in a balcony, drawing from the squalor below (where Ward plays on a streetlit corner) a most soulful evocation of the night’s hidden messages. Clouds part, but reveal no stars, creeping toward the promise of morning. “Song For Ché” (Haden) is an even more somber tune. Ward’s absence makes room for Haden’s gorgeous solo as maracas slither by with the grace of a rattlesnake. Ornette Coleman’s “War Orphans” is the nucleus of the album. Soulfully rendered and lovingly arranged, it drifts in like the tide of history. Our frontman shines in “Tuesday Ends Saturday,” a more blatantly post-bop affair that slides briefly into brighter days. Amplified guitars converge like a doubled Marc Ribot before careening their separate ways, while heavy cymbal crashes from Motian threaten to drown out the other instruments (clear separation in the recording, however, ensures this never happens). Which leaves us with “Sod House,” a crepuscular and blurry moving image in which guitars ride a billowing wave of bass and drums.

Astute extemporization and melodic sensibility make this one of ECM’s most evocative first-decade releases. Motian finds songs in every instrument. He gives us little indication as to who or what the album is a tribute to, but I suspect it need be nothing more than a tribute to itself, and to the indomitable spirit of an art form that is forever unpacking itself.

 


Original cover

Paul Motian: Conception Vessel (ECM 1028)

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Paul Motian
Conception Vessel

Paul Motian percussion
Keith Jarrett piano, flute
Charlie Haden bass
Sam Brown guitar
Leroy Jenkins violin
Becky Friend flute
Recorded November 25/26, 1972 at Butterfly and Sound Ideas Studios, New York
Engineers: Kurt Rapp and George Klabin
Produced by Manfred Eicher

This album was conceived at the behest of Manfred Eicher, who encouraged Motian to lead his debut album as composer and leader, making for a glorious entry into a longstanding relationship that has since produced much fruitful collaboration. “Georgian Bay” congeals with the steady plucking of guitarist Sam Brown, who cuts a striking, if subtle, presence throughout. Supported only by a smattering of cymbals and Charlie Haden’s crab-walking bass lines, the piece betrays little of Motian’s prowess, saving it instead for “Ch’i Energy,” a flurried solo through which his centrality becomes vividly clear in a concise, powerful statement. This makes the looser affair of “Rebica” all the more lyrical. Charlie Haden is at peak performance in this GBD setting. One moment finds him providing ground support, while in the next he has already ventured off into more airborne ruminations. Brown returns after a pensive resistance, flirting with the music’s surface like a drowsy Derek Bailey. The title track raises the curtain for Keith Jarrett’s spotlight moment, which strangely does little to change the album’s surface texture. Despite the lack of melodic drive, the interplay between piano and drums breeds skillful ramifications. Though not the easiest piece of music to put one’s finger on in this program, Jarrett’s fiery exuberance as he whoops his way along makes for one of the most intriguing cuts therein. The flute and percussion noodling of “American Indian: Song Of Sitting Bull” is a suitable forum for the pianist’s wind-work, which meshes well with Motian’s rattlesnake-like maracas. “Inspiration From a Vietnamese Lullaby” adds bass and the violin of Leroy Jenkins to the latter configuration for a meandering journey into new improvisatory heights.

Despite being an album headed by a drummer, it eschews the mundane trappings of steady rhythms, indicative perhaps of Motian’s attempt to branch out into uncharted territories. In this respect, it succeeds . The jacket art speaks volumes of the album’s sound: round, symmetrical, cardinally oriented, yet also firm, heavy, and earthbound. Conception Vessel is a worthwhile example of ECM’s early sound and openness to the avant-garde, emblematic of the label’s ongoing interest in pushing (if not defining) boundaries.