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Paul motian
what else is happening, that’s bullshit.”
Motian’s concept came to perfect fruition
with Lovano and Frisell. The trio’s repertoire
now includes more than 50 songs: original
material, Monk and Motian’s beloved show
tunes. Their shared history is one of the longest
running in jazz, their hookup revelatory and
remarkable.
“Paul’s compositions are so poetic and lyrical,
and they all have a song form and a song attitude,”
Lovano relates. “They’re not just lines,
then you go off on them. Each piece has its own
inner form to explore. We treat each piece as a
song, even the freer things. Within one form,
one time through a chorus, it could move quick
or it could hold on to certain moments and be
longer, but if you follow through within the
forms, there is a lot of room to explore the different
areas of the tune. We’ve really developed
this approach as a trio.”
The trio’s time has always been elastic and
virtually up for grabs. At the Vanguard, Motian
often seemed to be in his own world, while
Lovano and Frisell hugged the ground a bit
more tightly.
“When the trio began,” says drummer Bill
Stewart, “they played very few tunes that were
in strict time. I remember seeing them in the late
’80s, and they didn’t play many songs you could
snap your fingers to. As the years have gone on,
they’ve played more in time. Or sometimes
they play in more than one time at once. Like
Paul will be playing one tempo, and Bill will be
sort of implying another tempo. Paul is really
listening and open and alert, and doesn’t bring
the same bag of tricks every time. He’s an open
book. He doesn’t have any preconception about
what’s going to happen on the gig. His playing
has an irreverent joy about it. His playing just
cracks me up sometimes; it makes me laugh.”
“I can hear what I play without playing it,”
Motian adds. “Space. Space. Paul Bley said he
loved playing with me because I didn’t pound
shit on top of the ride cymbal. A big part of it is
listening, man. I could lay out for four bars and
I still hear the time. That’s what I mean about
playing but not playing.”
When not playing drums, or jogging in
Central Park (every morning, 5 a.m.),
Motian is composing, usually on the old Everett
upright given to him by Jarrett (who supposedly
wants it back). Motian’s spacious,
open-form tunes have a distinct logic. Though
he loves show tunes (he’s been searching for
a version of “The Trolley Song” that includes
the bridge), his compositions couldn’t be further
from Broadway.
“I read once that Stravinsky would play 10
notes on the piano using all his fingers, then
take away one note at a time until he got the
sound he wanted,” Motian says. “I’ve done
that. Am I in the same boat as Stravinsky? No
fucking way, man! Monk did that, too, played
30 DOWNBEAT NOVEMBER 2010
with the bottom and top note of the chord.
Didn’t play anything in between. That’s how
I usually find my stuff. If it sounds OK, I will
try to improve on it until I get a song. Some
of them might be only eight bars long, some
of them might be a regular AABA form, some
might be just a melody. Sometimes it will be
a one-chord change that people will play on.”
“It’s clear that he knows how to play piano,”
Jason Moran says. “When I’m playing
Paul’s pieces, they fall under the piano hands
pretty easily. I’m always astonished how his
bass note and melody note relate. It’s kind of
magical. If it’s just simple you can fill in with
what you want or you can keep it open with
the harmony. It’s like two fingers working very
well together. That is the most important relationship
in any song, how the melody relates to
the bass note. Just those two lines. And most of
Paul’s songs work in a very simple way; they
don’t have a lot of harmony. Their ingenuity
is formed around that relationship between the
bass and melody note.
“And Paul is a master of the no-rehearsal
technique,” Moran laughs. “That way you
don’t let your anxiety get the best of you. ‘Oh
man, I practiced this for six hours and tonight
is my chance to get it right. Ah, I fucked it
up.’ With Paul, you can look at the page and
be thinking of options while you’re playing.
And Paul really distributes a lot of texture and
sound in a way that no other drummer does.