She’s a resourceful woman, that Lorraine Gordon.

Ms. Gordon has been a fixture of the Village Vanguard ever since she married its owner and founder, Max Gordon, in 1950,and she has run it on her own since 1989. This week, her autobiography, the highly readable “Alive at the Village Vanguard” (written with Barry Singer) is being published, and Ms. Gordon is obviously in a mood to reminisce.

Who better to book for the week than the drummer and composer Paul Motian? Mr. Motian goes back with the club at least 45 years, and is the last living player on the most famous album ever recorded there, the legendary “Sunday at the Village Vanguard” (1961) by the Bill Evans Trio. Yet neither Mr. Motian nor Ms. Gordon would be satisfied with a simple walk down memory lane; as always, Mr. Motian’s bands and compositions are decidedly experimental. In booking Mr. Motian in the same week that her memoir is released, Ms. Gordon is simultaneously addressing the past and the future of jazz.

At 75, Mr. Motian may be the original “downtown” jazzman. In other words, rather than keeping a regular working band together, as most musicians of his generation strove to do, Mr. Motian, like such contemporary players as Dave Douglas and Don Byron, continually re-assembles new groups for different projects. In the last six months, he has brought three different ensembles to the Vanguard, including his long-running Trio with Joe Lovano and Bill Frissell and a remarkable octet that featured four electric guitars. This week, Mr. Motian is presenting “Trio 2000 + 2” which is anything but your conventional pianobass-drums trio, despite the presence of the pianist Masabumi Kikuchi and the bassist Larry Grenadier; the leader has added two saxophonists, Greg Osby on alto and Chris Potter on tenor.

Different as the ensembles are, there is a consistency to Mr. Motian’s bands. He came to prominence with one of the great piano trios of all time, yet in his own bands he inevitably eschews the piano or any conventional harmonic roadmap. His compositions generally favor long, dreamy melodic lines, which are often legato to the point of being rubato, or without tempo entirely. In modern jazz, drummers like Max Roach and the late Art Blakey made great leaders because they were in a position, musically, to ensure that the soloists were keeping the faith. Yet Mr. Motian isn’t only there to support his sidemen, he is, in fact, down in the trenches with them; in his bands, there is rarely any distinction between front line and rhythm section.

The music performed at the early show on Wednesday was some of Mr. Motian’s most challenging to date. The set was essentially a single extended composition, a three-part suite, with brief opening and closing movements and a very long middle. The first and last parts featured something more like a conventional “head” or central melody, stated by the two saxes in harmony. The middle section, contrastingly, was framed by a long piano statement, so quiet and minimal that it would have made the introverted Bill Evans seem like Oscar Peterson; Mr. Kikuchi played a long series of individual notes, rather than chords, all the while moaning loudly (or perhaps he was speaking in Japanese).

For me, the chief attraction was the rare opportunity to hear the two saxes, Messrs. Osby and Potter, working together. I associate them with completely different parts of the contemporary jazz world; it was something like one of those unusual superhero team-ups, like Batman meeting Aquaman. In working with Mr. Motian, Mr. Potter, who has played on several of the drummer’s albums, adopted a loose, blobby, amorphous sound; Mr. Osby, by contrast, played with his usual sharp, angular approach. Together and separately, they made a strong team: Mr. Potter’s tenor tone seemed like it could take any shape it wished, while Mr. Osby’s seemed like it could fit into any space and go anywhere.

Before the set began, Ms. Gordon’s publisher, Hal Leonard Books, held a press reception. No cake was served, but in presenting a musician that represents both the history and the future of this music, Ms. Gordon is having hers and eating it too.

***

Don’t get me wrong: I agree with the widely held contention that Wallace Roney is one of the outstanding contemporary trumpeters. But the reason he hasn’t been written about in this column until now is because I don’t particularly care for his current band, which, though it costars his equally talented wife, the pianist Geri Allen, relies too heavily on electronica, turntables, and other contemporary additives beyond the realm of my own personal taste. Therefore, I was long looking forward to the Blue Note’s presentation, on Monday night, of Mr. Roney in the acoustic setting of fellow trumpeter David Weiss’s New Composers Octet.

Mr. Weiss is the most generous of brassmen in that he has devoted a lot of his career energy to making other trumpet players sound great: Freddie Hubbard, Charles Tolliver, and now, Mr. Roney. On compositions like Mr. Weiss’s own “Turning Gate” and “A Little Showcase,” Mr. Weiss adroitly showcased Mr. Roney’s bright sound and forceful attack. Mr. Roney is often compared with Miles Davis, and grouped with contemporary boppers such as Roy Hargrove and Nicholas Payton. To me, he belongs to the same group as such power players as Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, and Woody Shaw, even if he is 20 years younger and tends to color his tone with the same kind of valving effects that Davis did.

No matter whom they back up, or even without a guest star, the New Composers Octet is always worth hearing for the solos and compositions of its members. The alto saxophonist Myron Walden, in particular, is a commanding improviser who will often play a short phrase, then be so overcome by the Spirit that he will shout something off mike into the air, before continuing with his solo.

Still, the evening was Mr. Roney’s. It was refreshing to be reminded what a remarkable player he is, exciting and expressive, with a wide range of tonal colors, who can blast or whimper as the occasion demands. It would be altogether appropriate for Mr. Roney to record an album with the New Composers Octet, but, I must confess, that even his semi-electronic band, as heard on last year’s “Mystikal” (High Note) is starting to sound better and better to me.

wfriedwald@nysun.com