Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2009 August 27 • Thursday

Tuesday night found my brother and I at the Village Vanguard for the beginning of the annual two-weeks of gigs by my favorite band, the Paul Motian trio with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano.

Their first two sets were very strong, with all three musicians playing with unusual urgency. Motian would start the next tune moments after the last note of the previous one had faded away.

Lovano's playing seemed particularly inspired, even more energetic than usual and often echoing some of Frisell's electronically altered phrases.

One highlight was Frisell cranking a music box over his guitar pick-up and looping the phrase it produced. This was one of the fragments that Lovano picked up and returned to Frisell.

In general Frisell's playing was more down to earth and, in his soloing, more "inside" than it has been in the past. Part of the reason for this may be the absence of his Digitech PDS 8000, a key component of his more outrageous flights of fancy, really a second instrument the way he uses it.

The second set had what might have been a new Motian composition, similar to his "Yahllah". In addition to a few rarely played Motian tunes (including "Dance" and what was probably "Play" from Trioism), they also played Charlie Parker's "Chi Chi", something I'd never heard from them before.