Tribute is the second album Paul Motian made as a leader for ECM, after Conception Vessel, and it came out in 1975. The drummer leads a group built on two guitars, bass and alto saxophone, playing three of his own tunes and two pieces closely tied to Charlie Haden. The sleeve never says whom the tribute is for. The music is restrained and atmospheric, with Motian constantly shaping the time rather than simply keeping it.
The session was recorded in May 1974 at Generation Sound Studios in New York, with Tony May as recording engineer, Martin Wieland mixing and Manfred Eicher producing. Haden plays bass, Sam Brown acoustic and electric guitars, Paul Metzke electric guitar and Carlos Ward alto saxophone. ECM notes that Motian and Haden had worked with Brown on Keith Jarrett's Expectations and Carla Bley's Escalator Over The Hill. Bass and drums had also played with Ward on Don Cherry's Relativity Suite.
Ornette Coleman's War Orphans and Haden's Song For Ché both appeared on Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra album of 1970, which also featured Motian and Brown. On Tribute the first turns around electric guitar and bass, while the second opens with Brown's acoustic guitar, joined by Haden's bass and very sparse percussion. Ward plays on only two tracks. In the opening Victoria he enters over Brown's acoustic guitar with a measured statement of the theme, and on Sod House he starts at a leisurely pace before opening up. Tuesday Ends Saturday, with Metzke, is the most forthright piece, Haden prominent and the drumming at its most direct.
Down Beat gave the album five stars and called it "a landmark in the career of an outstanding percussionist". Reviewing the 2019 reissue in Jazz Journal, Peter Gamble heard Motian's playing as "constantly busy and probing" and described the record as one often overlooked in his discography. Tyran Grillo of ECM Reviews counted it among the most evocative ECM releases of the label's first decade.
This CD edition of ECM 1048, first released in 1975, was reissued on 17 May 2019 in the Touchstones series, which ECM started in 2008 to bring key catalogue albums back in cardboard sleeves.
