Bill Frisell: S/D, comment upon brilliantly

his work on the recent masada guitars album is great as well.

recently i have been getting into the ribot album where he plays the works of franz cassius (sp?). really amazing...frisell and ribot both play on a lot of the john zorn filmworks albums. i have one (vol 8 i think) and it is very good as well.

I agree that Frisell's loops and electric work on Masada Guitars are cool, but my favorite of his tracks on that album are the acoustic ones, which are just fucking stately, gorgeous and full of grace: "Abidan" and "Avelut" stand out.

I'm a huge Frisell fan. He's probably my single favorite musician and has been since college. He's often criticized as too "nice" or too lightweight compared to more rigorous and avant-garde guitarists, such as Derek Bailey; he's also too eccentric, experimental and offbeat for fans of smooth guitar or "electric" jazz.

For me, he's just right. He understands the system but experiments with it. He adopts many genres but subverts them to his individual voice; explores different directions but works them into his own style. Christgau accused him of sounding like a sideman, but personally, I like that his willingness to avoid the spotlight allows him to bring such phenomenal sidemen onto his albums: Julius Hemphill, Ron Miles, Guy Klucevsek, Hank Roberts, Joey Baron, Kenny Wheeler, Paul Motian and many other people have put fantastic work on the albums where he's a leader. His improv is not as rigorously free but he's recorded some startlingly beautiful duets; his playing with Joey Baron is telepathic and just a plain joy to listen to.

He's most commonly lumped in with Pat Metheny and John Scofield as a popular but intriguing musician and a genre-bending master of current jazz guitar. (Of the three, he's Buster Keaton, Metheny's Chaplin, and Scofield's Harold Lloyd.) Like Metheny and Scofield, he's gotten to the point where each release has to be an "event" - a new band, a new project, an exciting collaboration, a new genre, whatever. This is definitely encouraged by his label Nonesuch: note how his only official live album - aside from the duet with Elvis Costello, which is fucking fantastic - came out on a different label. I think it does him a service because each new album is easy to write up in the NYT ("Look how cool this is! Frisell goes intercontinental!"). But it also limits him. His studio albums have gotten somewhat tempered and cautious; for his trio with Elvin Jones and Dave Holland, he overdubbed extra guitars. I'd rather just hear him sit down and play.

That brings us to the arc of his career: he used to sound spastic and crazy with all his loops and pedals and whatever - but has he "slowed down"? His Americana stuff has had its weak moments - sometimes I think he plays it too safe and gentle covering old bluegrass standards and whatever, and I didn't enjoy The Willies, which is the biggest example of him doing that. He doesn't solo as crazily or improv as noisily as he did in the '80s, when he lived in New York. And his passivity has become harder to accept over the years, as he's less and less likely to throw off sparks on his albums. (Even his concerts have slowed down a bit.)

On the other hand, the fact that he's the least showy near-virtuoso in guitar is to his credit. He LOVES melodies. He can take a melody and make it sound more gorgeous than you've ever heard it before. He's incredibly expressive and he does a service to the composition instead of waiting his turn to wank off. The fact that he has, in my opinion, the loveliest guitar sound of anyone alive plays into this.

Here's my personal list of favorite Frisell albums, old and new:

Bill Frisell - Rambler (great loopy jazz w/Wheeler, Motian, Bob Stewart's kick-ass tuba)
Bill Frisell - Lookout for Hope (w/Hank Roberts, Joey Baron - dig "Remedios the Beauty")
Bill Frisell - Have a Little Faith (his famous American songbook album - best place to start)
Bill Frisell - Nashville (his best, most interesting Americana album - Jerry Douglas, members of Alison Krauss' band - great production, very "live" sounding)
Bill Frisell - The Intercontinentals (this thing does indeed kick ass - he sounds totally at ease mixing it up with different styles of music, and in fact, the ones he sounds least familiar with are the most fun - you can hear the joy in his playing as he picks up tunes from, say, the Greek oud player)
Bill Frisell and Elvis Costello - Live at Meltdown (sure is pretty)
Marc Johnson's Bass Desires - Second Sight (the "supergroup" with Scofield and Frisell on guitar - so fucking beautiful and so underrated - a quintessential ECM record where the world stops when it's playing, without the New Agey drift of some of their catalog - Johnson's bass sounds so great and so heavy - just some sublime moments. This album is SO fucking underrated and it's much better than the first, more scattered Bass Desires disc)
Paul Motion Trio - At the Village Vanguard (just to pick one - this is a classic, long-standing trio and they play live in NYC every year - recommended)
Paul Bley - Fragments (purdy)
Ron Miles and Bill Frisell - Heaven (real purdy - Ron Miles kicks ass, way underrecognized)
John Zorn's Naked City - Naked City or Grand Guignol or Torture Garden, or the Live Vol. 1 for some fun jams (go to any Zorn thread for more discussion - I'd argue Frisell was the most interesting guitarist ever to pair up with Zorn)

I could go on ... he's also apparently like the nicest guy ever to walk the earth. The first profile of him in Wire magazine is so droll on that point that it's worth picking up.

friw, anyhoo,
The Intercontinentals is a very good record,
and from the earlier ones, Live, that was mentioned upthread, is rather great,
and Quartet, that's finely brass-tinged overall, i'd fully recommend,
the quite short Costello/ Frisell collab. sounds interesting as well,
as does Good Dog Happy Man

...otoh, i'm not much taken with thsoe first solo albums on ECM; then again the recent Rarum compilation of that stuff - plus some selections from his appearances from other ECM releases, incl. Paul Motian records - is a good collection

I do remember hearing the first Ginger Baker trio cd and thinking that he sounded fantastic.

(I realize Frisell has done vastly different things from this. Just commenting.)

Can't I be the evil version of myself?)

Unspeakable was actively not for me, though I can appreciate why it's a good record, I can't crack it myself.

The "Live To Tell" cover from Have a Little Faith (collection of American songs) is one of the most beautiful recordings I have ever heard.

Yeah, I love that. It was the first thing I ever heard by Frisell.

I was a bit meh on Unspeakable when I first got it. I guess I was expecting something a bit different from an album that has some of my favorite free-jazz musicians on it, including Jenny Scheinman and Kenny Wollesen. The solos don't get too far out, and the beats tend to be more steady, straight-ahead funk that don't give Wollesen opportunities to show off his creative side. However, I've come to appreciate it. I think it works best as background music - which may sound like a dig - but good background music albums are just as hard to find as good foreground music albums.

Has anyone heard the new Bill yet? Looks like he's still chucking everything but the kitchen sink into the pot.

On the two-disc History, Mystery, Frisell shuffles the pack and
comes up trumps again—this time leading a strings, horns and drums octet in a 90-minute suite which roves between impressionistic divertissements, most of them lasting just one or two minutes, and full-on, extended, do-what-they-say-on-the-can band work-outs, which variously take in bop, post-bop, Malian desert blues, Delta blues, 1960s soul, urban groove and low slung rock.

more

I heard something from the new album on the radio that I really liked and it's definitely something I would consider buying if I had any money (even though he has never hit me in a big way before).

I saw him live back in '92 or so (?) and the real highlight was Joey Baron on drums...

Bill is a great player, but he's too ready to do a medley of cartoon themes instead of just shredding like he ought to.

These Buster Keaton scores are nonstop wonderful.

listening to this Guitar in Space Age album is making me feel very happy this morning

I saw him live back in '92 or so (?) and the real highlight was Joey Baron on drums...

― Nate Carson, Tuesday, September 23, 2008 6:11 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I saw him around this time too, a really weird project in Seattle where him, Baron and a bassist backed this horrible, horrible acoustic guitar playing street poet guy. It remains the only time I've seen Frisell perform live :(

And yeah Baron was AMAZING

dudes, frisell hits some serious notes here: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/99485861912/bill-frisell-james-mcnew-james-woodring-an

Except for McNew's singing, this is really great. I assume someone will post pics of Woodring's contributions eventually.

dunno, mcnew sounds fine to me -- and that image on the post is woodring's contribution...

Whoops, sorry, didn't realize that.

Yeah I find McNew a pretty compelling Jerry stand-in, especially in a stripped down scenario like this. Man, I have heard Frisell do all of these tricks before, and I like them but had burned out a little on his playing, but hearing it in this context made it really fresh for me. This is just a cool as hell recording in my opinion.

i've been rediscovering '86 or so frisell in a big way for the last year or so. y'know when he's an uptight music school schmaltzer, but he will pretty much at any given opportunity step on some martian harmoniser & tickle a spot between paul leary & bern nix.
frisell on tim berne's fulton street maul is the nuts
& rambler & lookout

Somewhat interesting writeup on The Atlantic's site.

i didn't like that writeup, it seemed incoherent

on the one hand it says "who cares whether it's 'jazz' or not, we're done policing those boundaries" and then later it accuses the album of being too white. if the album is boring, it's boring. lord knows frisell can get boring. but the article seems to weigh it down with just the sort of expectations it had earlier argued was no longer necessary to burden it with.

also the whole "too white" thing is ridiculous and offensive even when it's not in the context of a blog screed

I didn't agree with very much of it; that's why I caveated it with "somewhat interesting." I've heard very little Frisell—with Naked City, obviously; with Power Tools; with the Ginger Baker Trio (first album very good, second album very dull); and Richter 858, which I liked a lot. Probably a few other things too. But he's not someone whose work I seek out, and just the idea of that John Lennon record made me dry heave.

Have been enjoying the new album, though I have to admit that some of it seems a bit overly-mannered, especially after hearing him rip it up on some of these tunes on the Space Age tour...I would have preferred a bit more zip in "Pipeline", for example. But in other places, it's still as drop-dead gorgeous as I remember it from the live show...the interplay between Bill and Greg Leisz was amazing live, and it's great on the record, too.

Missed this discussion. I know I'd probably enjoy hearing Frisell interpret just about any old shit and this stuff is pretty obviously simple and close to the sources, given what he's capable of. Still, it never fails to give me pleasure. The tones and production are lovely. "Turn Turn Turn" always feels uplifting, the noise breakdown in "Rumble" rips for me. I agree about the interplay between Frisell and Leisz. Leisz especially stood out for me live, maybe more than Frisell himself!

Missed this discussion as well, and saw the tour, too. It was sublime. And yeah ... Frisell and Liesz ... amazing.

Glad to see "Baja" made the album ... that was probably my favorite of the night.

So many reasons to live Frisell but here's one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnDZ7yb5g-c

Also, for folks above who haven't heard much Frisell, I still think "Have a LIttle Faith" is the one to beat. Though I admit I stopped following him closely around 1998 because all his albums exemplified the same lyrical neo-Americana mode and none of the skronk, though I think that's largely because he is a genius and has just perfected what he does.

Oh, and the idea of anyone covering John Lennon anymore makes me want to barf, but this is sort of incredible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSUwC8hWj8o

Btw, if people are interested in hearing Frisell play something other than lyrical Americana these days, his work with Zorn's Gnostic Trio (with Carol Emmanuel on harp and Kenny Wollesen on vibraphone) is great imo. They're not skronky but they're beautiful and quite different. I love both this year's The Testament of Solomon and Gnostic Preludes from 2012. I'd probably rank them over Space Age. I talked about them a little on the Tzadik thread but it occurred to me that they might be of interest here too.

Infinitely listenable.

Another vote for the collaboration he did with Costello, i have it under the name of "Deep Dead Blue".

Co-sign on Gnostic Trio--my current fave contemporary Zorn-repertoire ensemble/Tzadik house band.

wow, that version of "surfer girl"

i should listen to the new record. i guess at this point i shouldn't be surprised that he manages to work in a ton of interesting dissonance and melodic variation into everything.

the review above suggests that some of the covers on the new record are played pretty straight, which surprises me because frisell seems almost incapable of playing something completely straight

oh, i finally up and bought the new record, and i enjoy it. perhaps 1/3 of the tracks are indeed played a bit straight for most of their length. "turn turn turn" has an indestructibly beautiful melody but frisell doesn't do much with it. but there are some other tracks, notably his version of "telstar," that are incredible. and that beach boys cover! yum.

I really loved Bill Frisell back in the early 90s, but got a bit turned off by his music as he shifted away from weirder haunted melodies to more and more covers of pop songs and standards. It felt like he lost his way.

I'm happy to say Music Is is his strongest album in a very long time. It's one of his few solo releases and it contains immaculate and inventive guitar playing throughout. I'm really enjoying it and hope y'all check it out.

very enjoyable record indeed

Really shocked that this is only his second (or third) solo guitar album, you'd think he could just crank those out.

I guess there was a documentary I missed, too?

Power Tools Strange Meeting is a really nice lp.
Wish it was more available.
Also really wish there was something available from the post-Frisell line up with Pete Cosey on guitar.

OK, started the documentary, which is streaming on Amazon Prime, and it's really lovely and gentle, like Frisell himself. But there's an A+ story from Joey Baron in it. He and Frisell met on a session and instantly clicked, so Baron wanted to set up a gig, but no one would say yes to what they were up to. In a moment of desperation/inspiration he called the Jewish School for the Blind (or something like that), and they were interested, but wanted to hear what they sounded like. Frisell had released his first album on ECM, and Baron had these cassettes he recorded of himself practicing, so he brought both the LP and cassette and played them both at the same time, telling the person "this is sort of how it sounds." And they said yes. Baron said it was the best audience he ever played for, not just blind young people but a host of kids with various ailments, all paying perfect attention to what they were up to. There was a Q&A after, and Baron says a girl, who couldn't see, just shouted out "is the guitar player cute!?" What a great story.

It's really inspiring how many people simply love Frisell as a person. Just nothing but praise for what a wonderful man he is.

aw man, that's such a cool story

Joey Baron seems like the best, as well

Baron basically says he's benefitted as a person just from being friends with Frisell. He just brings a smile to everyone's face (even Zorn). Baron tells another story of a dude with a guitar showing up at the end of a gig, asking to sit in. Baron is complaining about it to Frisell later, and Frisell is all "that was Arto Lindsay, he's such an inspiration!" And Baron had never heard of him but learned his lesson not to dismiss anyone (esp. non-jazz folks) as unworthy, then took the deep dive into NYC's weird scene to catch up.

He's so sheepish and shy about his guitar collection in the movie (he literally has them stored all over the house - closets, etc.). He feels bad that he's accumulated so many, and more than once wishes he could just play them all at once. But he does go into why he may play one over another, for practical reasons (he does't want to mess up a friend's cool custom art) but also for creative reasons. For example, he may stick with one guitar for a couple of weeks, playing at home or taking it on trips, mostly because he has no roadie and traveling with more than one or maybe two guitars is a recipe for trouble. But he notes that sometimes he'll just get stuck and switch to a new guitar, and that will lead him in some new direction until he makes a breakthrough, and then when he goes back to the first guitar the breakthrough comes with him.

The doc goes into his effects a bit, and has a good interview with John Abercrombie, who notes that where lots of guitarists get lost in the fx, Frisell can get away with it because so much of his personality shines through the pedals, which only help bring his personality into clearer focus.

The doc also goes into his prolific, almost stream of consciousness writing approach. He'll just notate things simply, but then the chords start to evolve and get more complex in later drafts, until at the end he has something great that is still almost foreign to him when he plays it. He's also obviously immensely talented but so modest about it. There's a bit where he's trying to recall a Coltrane melody and can't quite get it, even though he sounds great and even though coming 90% close to remembering this piece is an insane achievement.

Ok, dialing this doc up rn

Power Tools - Strange Meeting is indeed a great album. I have several of these earlier, hard to find, CDs that I can put up on Dropbox, if anyone's interested, DM me.

Power Tools
News For Lulu ft. John Zorn and George Lewis
Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus

Weird Nightmare is my favorite of the Hal Wilner projects. Great musicians, Partch instruments, crazy Mingus autobiography, awesome original compositions to riff off of.

Here's a good live video. I saw this same trio in Somerville, MA around this time. Absolutely mindblowing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJrSJB3dVW4

For such an awesome guitar dude he played the oddest, ugliest guitars for a while.

Yeah, those Kleins were odd. He seems to have an endless supply of beautiful guitars these days.

Didn't he (or doesn't he) play an SG, too? Basically the total/tonal opposite of a Tele.

I think that was mostly back in the 80s before he switched to the Klein.

This old interview:

Another way that you’ve carved your own path is with your equipment. While the hollowbody is still the de facto jazz guitar, you’ve used an SG and even headless guitars at one point. Speaking of which, are you still using the Klein guitar?

No, I haven’t used that for a long time. I sent it back to get repaired years ago and it went away from me for quite a long time, so during that time I started getting back to mostly Fender stuff. I’ve been playing Telecasters a lot—different versions of it—and most recently I’ve also been playing Stratocasters.

Mexican- or American-made Fenders?

A bunch of them. I had a Mexican-made Thinline Tele. I changed all the parts on it and everything.

What swaps did you make?

Oh man, I’ve definitely gone off the deep end. Getting into Telecasters you start thinking, “What does this pickup sound like and what does that pickup sound like?” I have Lollar, Don Mare, Lindy Fralin, and Seymour Duncan pickups—the Antiquity model. I also use a Tom (TV) Jones Filter’Tron pickup in the neck position of a Nash Tele-style guitar. What’s kind of seductive is that it’s all still this basic Telecaster and I can get comfortable with the scale, size, and shape of the guitar to where it feels at home, but from one to another—putting certain pickups in certain guitars—there are amazing differences.

Any other guitars?

I also have a few Tele-style guitars that are put together or modified by J.W. Black. He also recently made me a Strat-style guitar that is very similar to my original ’63 Strat, which I played a lot, along with a Yanuziello guitar, on All We Are Saying. I also have a Rick Kelly Tele-style made out of pine from a piece of wood taken from Jim Jarmusch’s old loft on the Bowery. It’s got Lollar Charlie Christian pickups, and I used that one on a lot of things—Sign of Life, The Windmills of Your Mind. I Just got a Collings I35-LC, which is an incredible guitar.

A Halvorson/Frisell collab coming up on Tzadik:

Mary Halvorson: The Maid With The Flaxen Hair—A Tribute To Johnny Smith [#4024]
Mary Halvorson is one of the most acclaimed guitarists of her generation—a virtuoso improviser, distinctive composer, arranger and a deep student of the jazz guitar. Here she joins forces with living legend Bill Frisell to pay tribute to Johnny Smith, a guitarist who has been a huge influence on them both. Performing nine ballads associated with Smith and his classic composition Walk Don’t Run, this is an essential CD of soulful guitar duets by two of the most beloved and original guitarists in modern jazz. A beautiful CD of ballads like you have never heard them before!

count me in

Living legend Bill Frisell! I mean, he's 67.

thx for the recommendation on the documentary. enjoyed it immensely.

I might be missing something here, but Johnny Smith? if someone could disabuse my feeling he is a complete mediocrity - I'll check something out.

He wrote "Walk, Don't Run"!

just listened to some, i was being harsh!

but still he's no Kenny Burrell or Wes Montgomery, but few people are.

I'm enjoying his recent live album Epistrophy with Thomas Morgan on bass. Just very chill jazz workouts 9f various standards and covers. Frisell is at his best when he's free to explore.

love the new one HARMONY on blue note

ANOTHER new one?

man musicians sure release like crazy these days

Music IS holding up extremely well. I think it could be as good as anything else he's done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrjkSBdRNQI so pretty. someone upthread mentioned Pajo solo – this is right up in this alley

lovely

Currently obsessed with the Dave Holland and Elvin Jones trio record, after listening to this podcast: https://player.fm/series/tape-op-podcast/discussion-episode-34-rafiq-bhatia

The texture, the feel, everything. I don't mind the overdubs, along with the loop pedal stuff that was presumably done on the main takes (?) it's all very subtle and cool.

It looks like this didn't get very well-reviewed at the time, like this dumb AMG line: "Jones sounds at times utterly bored with his rhythm duties, desperate for a chance to stretch out." No way, he sounds totally tuned in. I find it constantly fascinating to hear him in this mode & dynamic.And don't forget about Elvin's Guitar Blues!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXbk34S5Hc

Cool record, unspeakably bad album cover

The Frisell/Holland/Jones record I mean, not "Heavy Sounds", that's a great cover

Haha, very true, I didn't even notice the cover (thanks Spotify)

Watched this Paul Motian docu last week, which has some nice behind-the-scenes footage of his trio with Frisell in the Vanguard. Manfred Eicher is in there too. The Motian trio with Frisell and Lovano recorded quite a lot of records over the years. Frisell's playing is quite free compared to his own work, playing without a bassist, only the asynchronous drumming of Motian. I think the tribute albums to Monk and Bill Evans are some of the highlights.