Music Monday: Motian, Sun Ra, Shake Stew, and Ben Webster

There are some weeks where I carve out time to do some quality listening. Then there are weeks like last week, where my listening seemed to happen in fragments and snippets here and there. 

In any event, I did take a moment to listen to some Paul Motian on his birthday on March 24th. I’m a huge Bill Evans fan and Motian will forever be associated with Evan’s masterpiece live sets recorded at the Village Vanguard in 1961. These recordings became the basis for his album Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard, but it worth just listening to the entire set. Motian’s drumming on these recordings is brilliant, understated, and sensitive.

It also drew me into some Keith Jarrett. Some twitter colleagues pointed me in the direction of Jarrett’s 1972 live recording in Hamburg. It’s a pretty great recording with the predictably excellent interplay between Jarrett, Haden, and Motian. More surprising to me was Jarrett’s performance on flute, soprano sax, as well as piano. The opening track, “Rainbow” is pretty brilliant. Motian is given some opportunities to stretch out and do more than just complement the virtuosic Jarrett.

I also decided for some reason or other, to listen to Jarrett’s studio album from the same year, Expectations. Jarrett, Haden, and Motian are joined by Dewey Redman on tenor saxophone. It’s a pretty great album and apparently is indicative of Jarrett’s early 1970s output. I listened to it once or twice and have nothing much more to offer about it, but I’m keeping it in my list to listen to more.

I read a stack of poems and stories for a local creative writing contest. I find these kinds of contests frustrating mostly because I can see value in almost all creative work and I’m not entirely sure that we need to turn everything into competition on a university campus. But whatever.

It made it easier to read the massive gaggle of contributions (close to 200!!) with some Sun Ra. I listened to Sun Ra’s 1978 recordings in Italy released as Disco 3000. It’s mostly small ensemble stuff with John Gilmore on sax and Michael Ray on trumpet and plenty of Sun Ra keyboards. I listened to the recently released “Expanded Edition” which perhaps should not be confused with “Disco 3000 Complete Milan Concert 1978” released in 2017. Whichever version you listen to, Gilmore, Ray, and Ra are all in good form and while there’s a bit of noodling on the keyboards but plenty of space for Gilmore and Ray to stretch out.

Finally, I’m not sure how I discovered the Austrian band Shake Stew, but I decided to check out their most recent album Heat on the basis of its brilliant cover art alone. I’ve only listened to it once and it seems pretty good. I think I’ll put it on during some office packing and grading this week and report back next Monday.

Tonight, though, as my wife and I hang out before dinner, I think I’ll put on some Ben Webster. I’m not sure why, but it’s just what I feel like today.