CD ECM Records Paul Motian, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano: Time And Time Again

2007

Bill Frisell - chitara electrica
Joe Lovano - saxofon tenor
Paul Motian - tobe

BBC Music Choice
Jazzman, Choc du mois
Jazzmagazine, Disque d’émoi 

Veteran drummer Paul Motian, cross-genre guitar original Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano, the walking sax-history encyclopaedia, last collaborated on the 2004 album I Have the Room Above Her. … This is right in the same pocket, with all the compositions being Motian’s except for Monk’s Light Blue, the standard This Nearly Was Mine, and Lovano’s drifting Party Line. Motian’s melodies often proceed in nudges and short-phrase calls and responses, Frisell’s and then Lovano’s tentative unfolding of This Nearly Was Mine makes you lean to catch the implications, and Monk’s Light Blue lurches elegantly along on Lovano’s quivering tenor tone and Motian’s assymetrical, but irresistibly propulsive drumming.
John Fordham, The Guardian

If improvisation is meant to be a musical conversation, then Time And Time Again is as intimate and intriguing a discussion between old friends as you could wish for.
John Bungey, The Times

This Motian band does not consist of a soloist plus two accompanists; it’s a delicate balance of individual voices. For much of the time, rather than one taking a solo, all three interweave, making gentle, dreamy, complex music.
Martin Gayford, Daily Telegraph

Anyone familiar with Motian’s oeuvre, and with this wonderful trio in particular, will have an idea what to expect. There is a butterfly-like delicacy to these performances, a dream-like quality of things half-remembered. … For my money, Frisell never sounds better than in this context and Motian seems to draw something special form Lovano. Here, the tenorist contributes a very Motianesque “Party Line” and he plays throughout with restraint and introspection. With shifting pulse and counter-melody and counterpoint aplenty, this is one of Motian’s finest records.
Duncan Heining, Jazzwise

This music is so beautifully and grandiosely spooky it would come as no surprise if an apparition of Tom Waits arose from the CD player. Master drummer Motian has always been big on atmospherics in his arranging but here his mapping of highly nuanced, incremental melodies conjures a wistful sonic shadow play that is strikingly emotive. It’s almost as if minimalism and jazz had absorbed one another without a clash of egos. Guitarist Frisell and tenor saxophonist Lovano are superlative partners…
This is jazz in which attention to detail, economy and lightness of touch have not quelled a molten sense of impassioned lyricism.
Kevin Le Gendre, Echoes

For a quarter century, Paul Motian, Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano have developed telepathic interplay as one of jazz’s most creative trios – no bass required.
The band’s latest ECM release, Time and Time Again, continues a precedent of after-hours abstraction, heartbreaking melodicism and challenging avant–garde music it set a quarter-century ago…
Evan Haga, JazzTimes