Psalm

There have already been many fine and touching tributes to Paul Motian, the master drummer, composer and bandleader, since news of his death rippled through the world yesterday morning. This morning I drove up the Palisades Parkway through a cold mist, listening the whole way to WKCR's memorial broadcast. I think it still hasn't really hit me that I'll never hear the dark clang of his ride cymbal in the Village Vanguard again.

I reviewed Motian often over the last decade; in recent years there were times when I had to stop myself from covering a gig because he'd just been reviewed, in another context, only a week or two earlier. I'm not going to link to anything right now, though, and my present thoughts on Motian -- as an adamantine creative force, a professional enigma and a shaper of the musical dialect for generations of younger players -- hardly feel adequate to the task. I hope it won't seem like a failure of purpose, or insufficient respect, but I'm going to cede the floor to others who have managed, in personal or critical terms, to articulate this loss to the jazz community, especially in New York. 

• Ben Ratliff, responsible for the best writing on Motion over the last decade, wrote the NY Times obituary. See also the Times profile that later became a chapter in Ratliff's book The Jazz Ear.
• Ethan Iverson, who is quoted in the Times obituary (and from whom I heard the news), offers his reflections here. "It's Easy to Remember" will slay you, if you really listen, as you should.
• Hank Shteamer does right by Motian's magical, "phantomizing" time feel in a blog post. I agree that certain of his musical values will surely live on.
• John Rogers, a photographer who was very close to Motian, wrote a beautiful tribute at A Blog Supreme. 
• Finally -- this one had to go last -- Peter Hum has collected reminiscences from a number of musicians, including Joe Lovano, Chris Potter, Marilyn Crispell and Frank Kimbrough. They're all linked off a main post, which also has some choice YouTube footage.