Paul Motian, Paul Motian, ECM (6 CDs)

From 2013. A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma may be an apt way to view Paul Motian now with the benefit of the passage of time since his passing at the age of 80 in November 2011. This extraordinary eponymous box set of six albums …

Published: 16 Dec 2019. Updated: 4 years.

From 2013. A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma may be an apt way to view Paul Motian now with the benefit of the passage of time since his passing at the age of 80 in November 2011.

This extraordinary eponymous box set of six albums recorded between 1972 and 1984 all issued for the first time together as an Old & New Masters edition reinforces that impression.

The story begins, but does not end, in a band with Keith Jarrett, in fact for once Jarrett is a bit player in the overall musical drama, and while Ethan Iverson in his warm and beautifully written essay accompanying the music attempts to organise the music into three pairs: Conception Vessel and Tribute made when Motian was a member of the Jarrett Quartet; trio albums with Charles Brackeen “their own private universe” and in Psalm and It Should’ve Happened A Long Time Ago, a "triumphant reign" as a bandleader, even this sensible pointer adds little to the making sense of the music as a whole.

Iverson comments most effectively that Motian changed as a late starter into becoming a composer in his own right. And if you listen to Motian in his Bill Evans days it’s almost as if this is a new person entirely. Conception Vessel is less about Jarrett perhaps than the chrysalis phase of Motian reborn as a musical thinker, and an advanced abstract expressionist at that. Sam Brown’s flamenco touches at the beginning are something you don’t easily expect but the first big moment is the doom-laden drum statement at the beginning of ‘Ch’i Energy’ matched and surpassed only in sheer daring at the very end of all these albums by ‘Fiasco’ on It Should’ve Happened a Long Time Ago. That latter album title could well be the mantra of all the music collected in Paul Motian. They’re much freer than I remember previous selected listens in isolation and Iverson goes so far as to make the claim: “There have been many great free drummers, but I believe Motian might have been the greatest.” I’m not sure if I agree with that but there is strong evidence here that Motian has achieved the nirvana of musical freedom in terms of both structure and abstraction.

Best bits for me? Well, Charlie Haden coming in at the beginning of ‘War Orphans’ on Tribute with Motian clanking almost in the shadows to scuffle in behind the pristine guitar of Paul Metzke; or how about the very still and mysterious cymbal work at the beginning of ‘Folk Song For Rosie’ with the chilled saxophone of Charles Brackeen wading in the luke warm water of JF Jenny-Clark’s lulling bass? Or even, on ‘Second Hand’ from Psalm, the toms joyously going AWOL right at the beginning, a voice off, and then the dull ache of Frisell’s chordal pain entering dispassionately?

This riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma is a major retrospective that marks only the beginning of a coming to terms with Motian as a major artist. His legend will grow even more: and it starts right here.

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Vijay Iyer, Mutations, ECM

First published in 2014. Sitting firmly in the New Music and ‘contemporary classical’ domain the solo piano/electronics parts of Mutations are overtly jazz-flavoured, free, open, and very good they are too. But what about the real heart of the …

Published: 16 Dec 2019. Updated: 4 years.

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First published in 2014. Sitting firmly in the New Music and ‘contemporary classical’ domain the solo piano/electronics parts of Mutations are overtly jazz-flavoured, free, open, and very good they are too. But what about the real heart of the album, the long ‘Mutations’ suite, first performed in 2005 but little known until now that Iyer has written for piano, electronics, and string quartet?

“These 10 coexisting entities are linked either genetically or by a kind of symbiosis,” Iyer says a little obliquely in his notes. And despite their often slow and stately tempi nonetheless harness an underlying urgency in the atonal wash that Iyer has coated on to the strings, piling up tension layer by layer.

Not always an easy listen, and very different to last year’s polemical but ultimately more compelling Holding It Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project this newly recorded work draws on serialism (Webern) as well as minimalism (Riley, Reich) with the subtly introduced electronics the unique additional factor.

Improvisation is not necessarily the chief driving consideration at all here in the main ‘Mutations’ suite on this the pianist’s first album as a leader for ECM, and where it does exist they’re “structured improvisations”, part of the overall method, to use Iyer’s phrase. The work of a restless improviser who has challenged boundaries throughout his career continues that process here finding himself in a new musical space in the process. SG