Paul Motian - The Windmills Of Your Mind
Paul Motian - drums
Bill Frisell - electric guitar
Petra Haden - vocals
Thomas Morgan - bass
Limited Hard Cover Edition of 2500
Winter & Winter, München, Germany
Recorded Live to Analog two-track at Sear Sound, NYC, USA on September 2010
Track List:
1. Introduction (1)
2. Tennessee Waltz
3. The Windmills Of Your Mind
4. Let's Face The Music And Dance
5. Lover Man
6. It's Been A Long, Long Time
7. Little Foot
8. Easy Living
9. I've Got A Crush On You
10. Backup
11. Be With You
12. Trieste
13. If I Could Be With You
14. Wednesday's Gone
15. I Remember You
16. Introduction (2)
Reviews
While Paul Motian's name is on the spine of this CD, guitarist Bill Frisell is the tie that binds this band. Frisell's ability to paint ethereal coats of sound in an earnest manner that speaks to his love of all things musical is at the heart of this program, which may be seen as an expansion of Petra Haden and Bill Frisell (True North, 2003) a woefully overlooked vocals and guitar date which contains intimate and highly expressive takes on the music of Henry Mancini, Tom Waits, Stevie Wonder, George Gershwin, and many more. Motian, Frisell, Haden, and bassist Thomas Morgan, who appears on the drummer's On Broadway, Vol. 5 (Winter & Winter, 2009), recorded this album in celebration of Motian's 80th birthday, and they find success at every turn by imbuing these pieces with a sound that's both earthy and slightly off-kilter at the same time.
While the complete quartet tackles many chestnuts in inimitable fashion, Haden sits out on several occasions, allowing the remaining trio to try their hand at different things. Two different takes on a gloomy, Motian-penned waltz ("Introduction") that would have felt at home on Bill Frisell Quartet (Nonesuch, 1996) bookend the album and, along with the twangy "Little Foot" and the oft-performed "Let's Face The Music And Dance," speak to the trio chemistry shared between Motian, Frisell and Morgan.
Haden's hypnotic vocals blend in well throughout the program, and she smartly imposes her own personality on certain numbers, like "Lover Man," which avoids the same old, bluesy sentiments in favor of supple suggestions and woozy charm, and "I Loves You Porgy," which sparkles and shines. Like Frisell, Haden is completely lacking in affect, which is made abundantly clear on the duo trip through "I've Got A Crush On You" that also appears on their earlier collaboration.
While Frisell and Haden both place their unique aural stamps on this material, Motian and Morgan never play second fiddle to that pairing. The drummer's elastic sense of phrasing is a key ingredient in this mix, and Morgan integrates his bass into the very fabric of the music.
Motian's prolific output makes it easy to occasionally overlook some of his albums, but this one is likely to gain a lot of attention. The Windmills Of Your Mind is simply sublime.
All About Jazz / By DAN BILAWSKY, Published: September 13, 2011
This is drums giant Paul Motian's 80th birthday album — though for a legend who helped reinvent ensemble improv with visionaries such as Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, it might sound like a pipe-and-slippers decision to hook it on such over-exercised tunes as the title, Tennessee Waltz and Let's Face the Music and Dance. But Motian enlists Bill Frisell on guitar and Thomas Morgan on bass to turn the usual glides and smooches of these songs into a lurching, spontaneously contrapuntal undertow, in which the rhythm lies as much in what's not being played as what is. But over that, Motian has cannily placed the limpid, quietly evocative voice of Charlie Haden's vocalist daughter Petra—an artist more usually associated with alt-rock and a capella work. Haden imaginatively inhabits these songs, delivering a definitively unvarnished version of the title track over Motian's snuffling brushwork and Morgan's huge bass sound, and unfolding tenderly revealing accounts of Easy Living and I Loves You Porgy. But hearing this inimitably eccentric instrumental trio chime, boom and lurch through Let's Face the Music and Dance is perhaps the real piece de resistance.
The Guardian / John Fordham - June 2nd, 2011