Frisell / Carter / Motian at the Blue Note

Blue Note, New York – 01/08/09 – 8:00 p.m.

Ron Carter

It was standing room only as guitarist Bill Frisell, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Paul Motian began the third night of their weeklong stint at the Blue Note, their first time working together as a trio. A true meeting of the masters, the music was loose-limbed and sparkling, attaining a remarkable balance between adventurous improvisation and finely-tuned control.

A folksy, loping version of “You Are My Sunshine” set the tone. Frisell and Carter, building on a long history together, held eye contact and interleaved melodic lines from opposite sides of the stage, lobbing ideas back and forth across Motian’s drum kit as in a game of musical badminton. Carter, tall and dignified as an ambassador, was effortlessly flowing, bluesy and subtle. Frisell, smiling and in constant motion, leavened spiky interjections with quiet atmosphere. And Motian, inscrutable behind dark glasses, stripped his rhythms to bare, amorphous sketches, full of surprising shifts that might have easily tripped up lesser band mates.

This was music built on call and response, with lines echoed, refracted, and lengthened. Tiny details from one statement were extrapolated into a full-blown commentary, then fed back into the loop of point and counterpoint. In one of the evening’s highlights, Carter mashed up “Darn That Dream” and “Willow Weep for Me” in a virtuosic solo, alternating rapid phrases from the song(s) with slower, abstracted embellishments.

But this trio was also fun, breaking down one tune into a three-way walking blues line or interrupting a gorgeously-painted “Footprints” with a brief diversion into the “Batman” tv theme… and making it fit, without diminishing the rapturous effect of the whole. That is surely the mark of artistic brilliance.

Filed Under: Concert Reviews

Tags: Bill Frisell, Blue Note, New York, Paul Motian, Ron Carter