Bill Frisell, Ron Carter, Paul Motian cover

Bill Frisell, Ron Carter, Paul Motian

Released

Talk about a supergroup, or a summit meeting. Three superstar jazz musicians, each with a very different stylistic background, coming together to make an album of both standards and originals and creating something simultaneously unique and traditional. The program opens with a splayed blues (“Eighty-One,” cowritten by Carter and Miles Davis) and proceeds to cover the traditional “Pretty Polly,” a Thelonious Monk obscurity (“Raise Four”), and a gently jaunty take on “On the Street Where You Live.” You could probably call this a straight-ahead jazz album, but it always sounds just off-kilter enough to make you sit up and listen hard.

Rick Anderson

Recommended by

Suggestions
New Life cover

New Life

Antonio Sánchez
Later Works cover

Later Works

Stan Tracey Octet
Go Home cover

Go Home

Ron Miles, Scott Amendola, Charlie Hunter, Ben Goldberg
Free Association cover

Free Association

Geoff Keezer, Jim Hall
At Carnegie Hall cover

At Carnegie Hall

Thelonious Monk Quartet, John Coltrane
Forever Real cover

Forever Real

Fonda-Stevens Group