Garden of Eden

Paul Motian | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 24, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B000CQQGZU
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,810 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #56 in Music > Jazz > Avant Garde & Free Jazz

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Drummer Paul Motian leads a septet here with saxophonists Chris Cheek and Tony Malaby (the tenor tandem of Charlie Haden's Not in Our Name) and three guitarists—-Steve Cardenas, Ben Monder, and Jakob Bro—-along with Jerome Harris on bass. It's almost as if Motian has multiplied his usual all-star trio with Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell, most recently heard on I Have the Room above Her. The expansion somehow creates a more open field, matching ECM’s characteristically spacious sound with richly-textured, overlapping and echoing lines. This is ensemble music with a sense of continuous, collective collaboration, the band taking a fresh look at the canon with inspired versions of Monk, Mingus and Charlie Parker tunes (the tenor dialogues can suggest a Mingus band). It's also a forum for Motian's own lyrical writing, while Cardenas contributes the beautiful "Balata," a reflective tune with a Caribbean undercurrent. --Stuart Broomer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aptly Titled, January 31, 2006

By 

Stephen A. Smith (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Garden of Eden (Audio CD)

This CD is packaged with a sticker describing it as "central to what jazz is becoming, where it's moving." It's a quote from Ben Ratliff circa 2003, describing Paul Motian's Electric Be Bop Band. This band adds a third guitar to that EBBB configuration (two guitars, two tenors, bass and drum), but it's essentially the same concept. In Ratliff's article, Motian recalled playing with Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro; he said they wanted to "make a music that wouldn't have a date on it -- that in the year 2000 people could listen to this music that was being made in 1959, and it might still sound fresh."

I listen to most of the new jazz every year, and I think Ratliff is absolutely right: This is where jazz is going. The music has become more focused on space, on playing less rather than more, and that's a textbook description of Motian's style. Brian Blade described Motian's drumming as "transcendent." He plays with an incredibly open feel. He doesn't keep time by clicking away a 4/4 beat between the ride and snare; you might say he acknowledges time, with a brush here and three flicks of a cymbal there.

The program on "Garden of Eden" uses bebop standards as bookends, but there's plenty of original material. "Mesmer" is a composition that develops like Wayne Shorter's "Nefertiti" -- a melody that's sort of like circling a small town in an airplane, looking down at something different on each pass. The angular "Mumbo Jumbo" builds a complex tension that almost feels more like suspense. All the tunes -- seven by Motian, and one each by Cardenas and Cheek -- are carefully crafted, and all are fitting to the feel of Motian's band: which has nothing to do with solos or chord changes, and a lot to do with hanging music onto a frame.

Obviously, this septet is unconventional. Most bandleaders, when they feel like breaking the mold, remove their harmonic instruments. Motian went the other way; he took his EBBB, already heavy with two guitars, and added one more. He's definitely painting with a color that no one else is using -- and that's partly why it's exciting. For decades, arrangers have been warned to be careful using two harmonic instruments because the two can crowd each other and create a muddy sound. Motian stacks three electric guitars on top of each other, and his music works.

It's partly because his music is unique. He distinguishes between timbre and texture; and he leaves plenty of space, as both a composer and a drummer, for everyone to find their places. Also, it's partly because the band is just that good: Chris Cheek and Tony Malaby play tenor saxophones; Steve Cardenas, Ben Monder, and Jakob Bro form the guitar line; and Jerome Harris takes the electric bass. It's definitely worth your time to listen to this album with a good pair of headphones; Cardenas and Bro, along with the horns, are panned just enough off-center to easily distinguish who plays what, but there's enough blending that they still sound cohesive. It's a credit to first-rate engineering.

Motian wanted to make timeless music; and I think that, throughout his career, he's done exactly that. He has never compromised his vision, not once in nearly a half-century, and now it seems he's accomplished his goal; in 2006, players are just getting around to checking out the ideas he was working with in 1959. It's safe to guess this album will hold a good 40-year shelf life, too -- and in the meantime, it's great music.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At pace with a reflection., April 26, 2006

By 

Justin S. Stec (minneapolis MN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Garden of Eden (Audio CD)

Listening to this disc, I fall into it so wonderfully that my thougts start to fade away and merge with the music--or maybe it is that the music influences my thoughts. Either way, I almost forgot that there was music playing, and, only at certain points began to "hear" it as something separate from my existence. It is dreamy and surreal, but also precise and detailed. You can forget about listening to a particular instrument or trying to deconstruct the music. It is a very good disc because of its unity, and I would recommend buying it if you can.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The big question here is . . ., September 30, 2006

By 

Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Garden of Eden (Audio CD)

. . . How are all these players going to keep out of each other's way?

After all, we've got two very accomplished saxophonists, Chris Cheek and Tony Malaby, linked up with three major guitar voices, Steve Cardenas, Ben Monder, and Jakob Bro, the first two a couple of my favorites and the last a newcomer who makes a very large impression. A large part of the genius of this CD is that drummer/leader Paul Motian finds a place for everyone--and not in just some static sense; what I mean is, that all have both an integral and an interesting part to play. Amazingly, leader Motian locates the exact right context for each of these strong personalities, discovering a way to integrate their particular genius into the overall soundscape conception, one of languidity not unrelated to that of his previous release, the brilliant I Have the Room Above Her, but surpassing it in nuance and subtlety.

Don't be fooled by this disc's languorous somnolence, most notably displayed on "Etude" but pretty much the MO of the entire thing: there's plenty of compositional, dialogic, and ensemble rigor to situate this disc squarely in the jazz tradition. And Motian's selection of standard composers (Mingus, Monk, and Parker), combined with bandmates Cardenas's and Cheek's rigorous contributions as well as his own, eschew even the slightest whiff of jazz lite.

Granted, on paper this looks like a lumbering behemoth of a concept and band, but, magically, it works wonderful in the actual hearing. Entirely worth checking out.