Gordon Grdina / Gary Peacock / Paul Motian: Think Like The Waves

Of the three musicians here, Paul Motian, who might the most readily associated with a subtle, sly approach to the maintenance of a musical pulse, is perhaps growing more idiosyncratic with age; this takes nothing away from the fact that he is the ideal drummer for this group, especially when Gordon Grdina and Gary Peacock cover so much ground.

Although Grdina's guitar tone is right in keeping with what might be called the jazz guitar tradition, his approach to playing is not. His harmonic sense is nearly always implied, rather than emphatically stated; and his playing of the oud amounts to radical timbral variation, not least because his phrasing on the instrument seems to be fundamentally different. The overall effect of his work is intriguing, and the thought of him working as a free improviser provokes much figurative chin stroking.

"100 Years" is probably the piece that definitively nails what this trio is all about, and the fact that the listener has to pay close attention to grasp the full extent of what's going on is no bad thing.

In the liner notes Grdina refers to the fact that he has been studying with Peacock, and this is one of the happy occasions when the work has revealed positive results, not least because Grdina has clearly developed a deep understanding of his cohort's work. This manifests itself in the refined yet earthbound work on offer here, particularly on the likes of "Yellow Spot Into The Sun" and the aptly named "Combustion," where the trio's low flame paradoxically burns intently.

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