In 2005, Paul Motian returned to ECM as a leader after a long hiatus. He reassembled his partnership with guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano. The album they released, I Have the Room Above Her, was ecstatically reviewed across the globe. The trio members, who hadn't recorded together as such since 1984, showed a tremendous empathy and a sense of harmonic invention that defied "jazz" categorizations. On Time and Time Again, the band's sense of space, color, and texture reaches outward in a more pronounced manner. Motian's compositions dominate this set, as they did the last one. His idea of a music that moves, floats, and hovers -- that evolves gently -- is singular. His partners here do not react; they seem to abandon themselves into the world of sound the drummer wishes to create. Motian doesn't play a pulse style of drumming here for the most part, and Lovano, who is one of the tradition's great adherents, uses his horn as a ballast of texture and melody. Frisell's use of technology and ear for detail, nuance, and delicacy don't fill space so much as create it. His playing against Motian's slippery, mercurial cymbal and snare work expands lyric possibilities for the listener, even as Lovano grounds the melodies in textured color. The album's opener, Cambodia, is a case in point. Motian and Frisell appear to wander into the tune haltingly, carefully, creating a dimension. When Lovano enters a minute or so later, the "song" begins to shape itself, and the listener takes in the spatial dimension as well as the beautiful melody created by Lovano and Frisell. Motian's painterly style flows through the middle, allowing room for spot-on improvisation while never losing the core of the tune.

1		Cambodia
2		Wednesday
3		Onetwo
4		Whirlpool
5		In Rememberance of Things Past
6		K.T.
7		This Nearly Was Mine
8		Party Line
9		Light Blue
10		Time and Time Again

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