“Lost in a Dream,” although cliché sounding has surprising moments of technical achievement with an academic modal type of feel. “Mode VI,” starts off the live recording of ballads as an abstract piece with times of clarity and rhythm in the midst of something fragmented, choppy, and dissonant. This seems to be the overall theme and tone of the entire album with sporadic moments of release.
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Paul Motiann, Chris Potter and Jason Moran
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"Lost in a Dream"
(Ecm Records)
Released March 9, 2010
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There’s no doubt of the talent and the ability for these three musicians to communicate well with each other. Chris Potter leads with busy but soft ballad tenor saxophone lines that trickle into Jason Moran’s piano textures and similar sounding solos. Paul Motian on the drums holds down the rhythm section especially since there is no bass player. Songs like, “Ten,” really show Motian’s chops with such an abstract yet compelling rhythm.
However more often than not, I felt melodies didn’t really go anywhere important, too many notes for things that could have been said with much less. I felt Potter could have been more patient with his lines perhaps to include more space to allow us to breathe a little for the sake of the ballad. Perhaps I was looking for some long held notes, and some restraint, which was more apparent in the rhythm section that in the Potter’s solos. Even with all the acclaim of this highly respected jazz prodigy, I simply could not get into Potter’s sound and felt it was too aggressive and often rushed against the soft rhythm section. Perhaps it was just something above my head or beyond my ears.
However I liked the track, “Birdsong,” which I felt was the most beautiful of the whole album. It was mature and divinely sweet and slow. In this track, you can hear the breath of Potter with the spit of his sound rubbing against the rims of his saxophone. I love that sound!
Moran’s Piano Textures where incredibly subtly and beautiful. Two-thirds through the piece, “Casino,” Moran repeats the same note over and over, hypnotically while running hauntingly fragmented movements underneath it.
The live recording is amazing. Recorded in New York’s Village Vanguard in February 2009, I was seriously surprised, and it was also no surprise to hear this type of thing coming out of New York. I don’t feel that, “Lost in a Dream,” really explores any new territory of ballads, however for those with nostalgia for the classic sounding stuff, “Lost in a Dream” is the answer to your late night, rainy day kick-backs, perhaps with a nice bottle of wine.
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