Paul Motian - The Windmills of Your Mind (2011) [Hi-Res]

This is drums giant Paul Motian's 80th birthday album – though for a legend who helped reinvent ensemble improve 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. (John Fordham, The Guardian)

'This album is further proof of the heights that music can reach when all concerns of style and prowess are discarded. Motian is brave and instinctive enough to dispense with technical peripheries and just play what the music demands, moment by moment.' (THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD)

Paul Motian, Drums
Bill Frisell, Electric Guitar
Thomas Morgan, Bass
Petra Haden, Vocals

Tracklist:
01. Paul Motian - Introduction (1)
02. Paul Motian - Tennessee Waltz
03. Paul Motian - The Windmills of Your Mind
04. Paul Motian - Let’s Face The Music And Dance
05. Paul Motian - Lover Man
06. Paul Motian - It’S Been a Long, Long Time
07. Paul Motian - Little Foot
08. Paul Motian - Easy Living
09. Paul Motian - I’Ve Got a Crush On You
10. Paul Motian - Backup
11. Paul Motian - I Loves You Porgy
12. Paul Motian - Trieste
13. Paul Motian - If I Could Be With You
14. Paul Motian - Wednesday’s Gone
15. Paul Motian - I Remember You
16. Paul Motian - Introduction (2)