Latest Release
- FEB 16, 2024
- 3 Songs
- Keepnews Collection: Portrait In Jazz · 1959
- Keepnews Collection: Portrait In Jazz · 1959
- Keepnews Collection: Portrait In Jazz · 1959
- I Have the Room Above Her · 2004
- Keepnews Collection: Portrait In Jazz · 1960
- Keepnews Collection: Portrait In Jazz · 1959
- Keepnews Collection: Portrait In Jazz · 1959
- Keepnews Collection: Portrait In Jazz · 1959
- Keepnews Collection: Portrait In Jazz · 1959
- Keepnews Collection: Portrait In Jazz · 1959
Essential Albums
- This 2005 album by drummer Paul Motion, guitarist Bill Frisell, and saxophonist Joe Lovano finds the trio 20-plus years into a singularly unique collaboration between three highly individual players. The elder statesman here, Motion is an elliptical player prone to playing melody and color rather than time, while Lovano’s dry saxophone melodies are a perfect counterpoint to Frisell’s liquid guitar textures. In this jazz trio, standard concepts of harmony and rhythm are handled by all with no formula for who does what and when. Thus, Motion’s songs (he's credited with all the originals) sound hard to pin down without ever being less than engaging. Indeed, there seem to be mysterious spells cast on tunes like “Osmosis Part III” and the swooping “Sketches.” Sometimes a cover can offer insight into a unique-sounding band, yet the dreamy version of the title track by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein (inscrutably) shows more ideas sublimated to the trio's vision.
- 2011
Singles & EPs
Live Albums
Compilations
- Alan Pasqua, Randy Brecker & Michael Brecker
- AC Trio (feat. Aaron Parks & Paul Motian)
About Paul Motian
A masterfully subtle drummer and superb colorist, Paul Motian was also an advanced improviser and a bandleader with a taste for challenging post-bop. Playing with some of most unique pianists in jazz -- including Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Paul Bley, and Lennie Tristano -- must have rubbed off on drummer Motian. Consequently, he was himself a master of subtlety, playing with the impressionistic flair of many of these pianists and releasing albums like 1974's Tribute on ECM. From the '80s on until his death in 2011, Motian led one of the longest-lasting trios in jazz with saxophonist Joe Lovano and guitarist Bill Frisell, the celebrated Paul Motian Trio (as collected on 2013's Old & New Masters), as well as another "downtown" ensemble, Paul Motian & the Electric Bebop Band. His own eclectic compositional style drew from bebop, fusion, and free jazz without being limited to any one of these genres.
- HOMETOWN
- Philadelphia, PA, United States
- BORN
- March 25, 1931
- GENRE
- Jazz