Paul Bley

Jimmy Giuffre, Paul Bley, and Steve Swallow had reunited four years prior to this recording session before a live and very enthusiastic audience. On this date, they had been touring together on and off for four years and were as telepathic as in 1961 when they recorded Fusion and Thesis with Creed Taylor at Verve (yeah, the same guy who aesthetically ruined Wes Montgomery and Grover Washington, Jr.)…

Master drummer, composer, and bandleader Paul Motian's volume in ECM's fine Rarum series is a tough one to reconcile. It's not that it is in any way disappointing – far from it. It's more a case of what to choose and how an artist's choices are made when there is so much material to choose from. Motian has played as a sideman and as a leader for the label since he was first approached by Manfred Eicher in 1972. The nine tunes here range from that year's Conception Vessel, his debut album as a leader with Keith Jarrett, to a 1985 Paul Bley Quartet date on which he guested along with Bill Frisell and John Surman. While Motian did appear on the ECM label during the 1990s, none of that material was chosen. The 13 years that are reflected here are rich in not only musical diversity but cultural acumen.

Though Heavy Heart was supposedly the "mellow, sensual" album Carla Bley had in mind, Night-Glo is more like it - a relaxed, easygoing, easy-listening series of compositions that nearly spills over into fuzak. Writing for a basic sextet with an added five-man horn section, most effectively when one color melts gently into another, Bley permits the lazy pina-colada mood to amble undisturbed from track to track. Hiram Bullock's guitar, whether in rock or jazz modes, almost defines the laid-back ambience all by itself; Steve Swallow's bass underpins the relaxed groove and velvety horn textures (Randy Brecker is the trumpet voice there); and Paul McCandless can be heard on a variety of single- and double-reed wind instruments. It's a pretty album, always intelligently made, but interminable at times - most noticeably on the aptly named "Rut."