Paul Motian Trio I Have The Room Above Her - Arta

Paul Motian Trio 

I Have The Room Above Her 

ECM 

Paul Motian: drums; Bill Frisell: guitar; Joe Lovano: tenor saxophone 

ECM 1902 CD 6024 982 4056 (4) Release: January 2005 

“Paul Motian, Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano have celebrated solo careers, but when they unite 

a special magic occurs, a marvel of group empathy” – The New Yorker 

"I Have The Room Above Her" marks the return of Paul Motian to ECM, the label that first 

provided a context for his compositions and his musical directions. The great American- 

Armenian drummer, now in his 74th year, is currently at a creative peak, and his trio, 

launched in 1984 with the ECM album "It Should Have Happened A Long Time Ago", has 

never sounded better. Motian, of course, has continued to be an important contributor to ECM 

recordings over the years -- see for instance his recent work with Marilyn Crispell and with 

Paul Bley - but hasn't recorded as a leader for the label in almost 20 years. His anthology in 

ECM’s Rarum series, however, released at the beginning of 2004, served as a powerful 

reminder of just how original his musical concept remains. As a drummer, improviser, 

composer of intensely lyrical melodies, and musical thinker, Paul Motian is a unique figure, 

and a musician of vast and varied experience. 

As a young man, he played with Thelonious Monk, whose idiosyncratic sense of swing (and 

stubborn independence from all prevailing trends) was to be a lifelong influence. Motian 

played with Coleman Hawkins, with Lennie Tristano, with Sonny Rollins, even, fleetingly, 

with John Coltrane. As a member of the Bill Evans trio with Scott La Faro, he changed the 

course of modern jazz, then changed it again by bringing new impulses to the freer, more 

abstract music of Paul Bley. When he met ECM producer Manfred Eicher, he was the 

drummer with Keith Jarrett's trio with Charlie Haden, soon to become, with the addition of 

Dewey Redman, Jarrett’s great “American Quartet” , another unit of seminal importance in 

the development of creative music. Encouraged by Eicher to write his own pieces, Motian 

drew upon both his jazz history and his Armenian/Turkish roots, developing a unique body of 

material subsequently delineated on albums including "Conception Vessel" (the first album 

issued under his name), "Tribute", "Dance", "Le Voyage”, "Psalm" and more. (Marilyn 

Crispell’s 2004 ECM album “Storyteller” was also largely devoted to Motian’s writing). 

“Psalm”, a Motian quintet disc from 1981, introduced many listeners to the exceptional 

talents of guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano, both of whom had yet to release 

albums under their own names. Meanwhile long-established as two of the most creative 

improvisers anywhere, multiple poll-winners, prolific recording artists and ensemble leaders 

in their own right, they have been loyal to Motian through the years, putting aside time for the 

trio, keen to keep their special group understanding alive. Bill Frisell still insists that "the Paul 

Motian Trio is one of the most rewarding and inspiring musical situations I have ever been 

in". 

In the New York Sun, Will Friedwald wrote that while “lots of drummers are about power 

and energy, Mr Motian is about supporting a soloist with exquisite colouration and holding an 

ensemble together. In this case, this is an especially tricky task, since there is no piano or 

bass, and Mr Frisell does just about everything but lay down conventional chord patterns on 

ECM Records 

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his guitar." Motian’s understanding of “support”, however, is like no one else’s, his outflung 

net of percussion can catch or cushion a soloist, provide contrapuntal commentary (Motian is 

a decidedly ‘melodic’ drummer) or simply leave space for an idea to develop more fully. 

Nuance is everything, and sound, far more than “technique” is the impetus for the ways in 

which the music flowers. 

And yet, whether a pulse is stated or otherwise, the music dances. Ben Ratliff in the New 

York Times observed that the trio’s music can be both “gentle” and “fractious”, capable of 

“dismantling a tune completely” while still retaining transparency at all times, as well as a 

poetic sense of swing. All these qualities are in evidence on “I Have The Room Above Her”; 

an album that is fresh, challenging, supremely assured. 

Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell have grown immensely as players since Motian first took them 

under his wing. For many critics, Lovano now stands as the pre-eminent jazz tenorist of our 

time (a “saviour” of jazz according to Whitney Balliett in the New Yorker), Frisell an 

outstanding sonic explorer, an improviser whose work spans all the idioms that can be termed 

American. “I Have The Room Above Her” also happens to be Frisell’s first new ECM 

recording in almost a decade, after Kenny Wheeler’s “Angel Song” with Lee Konitz and Dave 

Holland. 

The range of music on the new disc, recorded April 2004 in New York’s Avatar Studios, 

includes recent compositions by Motian, a revival of “Dance”, title track of a 1977 ECM 

album (with another great trio, with David Izenzon and Charles Brackeen), Thelonious 

Monk’s “Dreamland” and the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein standard “I Have The Room 

Above Her”, written for the 1936 film version of the musical “Showboat”. 

Several other recordings with Paul Motian are in the pipeline at ECM. These include a brandnew 

album with his Electric Bebop Band, trio albums with Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani, 

and with Bobo Stenson and Anders Jormin, and a quartet album with English saxophonist 

Martin Speake. 

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Paul Motian Trio I Have The Room Above Her - Arta

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