Bill Frisell

[bluemonk]

"Where In The World?" is the pinnacle Frisell recording for me. It was also what turned me onto his music. Great band too: Hank Roberts, Joey Baron, and Kermit Driscoll.

This album is weird, dark, disturbing, eerie, and haunting. This is music I dream about.

[AllenLowe]

I like that one too -

[bluemonk]

ahh c'mon, he's got banjo, and all kindsa country stuff, bluegrass guys playing along, too; read his interviews, he's clearly trying for roots/Americana, but it's more like Muzak Americana; I hate saying this, as I like him, musically and otherwise; it's just all very musically misguided. It's dilletantish, dabbler's stuff.

I heard him a few months ago on Marian McPartland trying to play Cold Cold Heart, and it was awful - full of very shallow country-pentatonic references, like a bad blues player thinking he's playing the blues by playing a few flat 3rds - just all wrong alll wrong all wrong all wrong all wrong...

I agree with this to a certain point, but it's hard to deny the how great "Have A Little Faith" and "This Land" was, which for me, was Frisell's shining moment as an improviser, song interpreter, and composer.

[AllenLowe]

also, saw the Lovano/Motian/Frisell band maybe 20 years ago - brilliant stuff.

[AllenLowe]

sometimes when he does this stuff I think of a a still life painting - and sometimes still lifes, when badly done, are just static and empty of expression -

[bluemonk]

sometimes when he does this stuff I think of a a still life painting - and sometimes still lifes, when badly done, are just static and empty of expression -

So you didn't like "This Land" or "Have A Little Faith"? How about "Where In The World?"

[AllenLowe]

I liked where in the world - would have to dig out the others -

[bluemonk]

I liked where in the world - would have to dig out the others -

"Where In The World?" is my favorite Frisell record.

[7/4]

I'm not familiar with this album they made together, maybe someone else is:

August 19, 2008

Music Review | Ron Miles and Bill Frisell

Two’s a (Quietly Harmonious) Crowd

By NATE CHINEN

Some partnerships in jazz go beyond sensitivity or even shared intuition. At their best they can suggest something more mysterious, like weather patterns. When you encounter a bond of this sort between musicians operating at full capacity, the air changes slightly in the room.

The trumpeter Ron Miles and the guitarist Bill Frisell have one of these relationships, stretching back at least a dozen years. Each has appeared on the other’s albums, and in 2002 they made a quietly sublime duo record, “Heaven.” For a few nights last week they also shared a stage at the Jazz Standard, in a flexible quartet under Mr. Miles’s direction. On Thursday, closing out the engagement, they confirmed the strength of their rapport.

Both musicians can be counted on to express a spirit of harmonious introspection. The set’s opener, “Unconditional,” a drifting waltz by Mr. Miles, presented some warm and characteristic beauty, along with a deceptively simple form. Soloing on cornet, Mr. Miles was lyrical and sensible, conjugating his ideas in an easy flow, one phrase at a time. Mr. Frisell accompanied him intently: more than once he landed on an unusual chord at the precise moment that Mr. Miles needed it to bolster a melodic whim.

The quartet’s attentive other half created necessary ballast. Though not a regular rhythm team, the bassist Reginald Veal and the drummer Matt Wilson worked sturdily together, bringing a sense of earthy proportion to Mr. Miles’s summery compositions. Their most engaging work, though, came on a pair of crisply swinging jazz tunes: “Wig Wise,” by Duke Ellington, and “Criss Cross,” by Thelonious Monk.

Those tunes also sparked assertive work from Mr. Miles and Mr. Frisell, often in a conversational overlap. “Criss Cross” was especially fruitful, given its sharp intervals and halting syncopations. Mr. Frisell left plenty of space in his solo, enjoying the effervescent undercurrent, while Mr. Miles enlivened his more fluid outpouring with clever rhythmic displacements. (It’s no accident that Monk has long been a favorite of them both.)

But there was greater chance for alchemy on a pair of originals in the middle of the set. During a wholesome-sounding tune called “Glass Jaw,” the band tumbled through a recurring set of key modulations, set over a fluttering rock groove. And on “Marianetta,” a slow-drip waltz with a poplike but shifting chord structure, Mr. Miles and Mr. Frisell each fashioned lovely and coherent choruses, as if in thoughtful dialogue.

Edited August 19, 2008 by 7/4

[Aggie87]

Ron Miles with Bill Frisell - Heaven:

I wasn't aware of this one either, but may have to check it out. Good write-up in allmusic. Thanks for the heads-up!

[blind-blake]

nice guy and a great guitarist - but I tend to think his "roots" stuff suffers from a jazz-guy's-idea-of-what-roots-music-might- sound-like-if-he-ever-actually-listened to it -

no offense to the jazz people reading this who like Bill's country stuff, but from the other side it's like you people hearing someone in pop who says they have a big jazz influence and then realizing that they've been listening to only Grover Washington and Kenny G - the influence is all (at the very best) second hand; I prefer the rough stuff, and Frisell's recordings are like Nashville on a bad day or a middle-class bluegrass band playing backgournd music for an outdoor wedding -

I feel very strongly that you just can't get to this music in such a genteel way - gotta stick your head in the mud for about 10 years first and than come up for air - don't have to be a hillbilly or q backwoods preacher, but if you ain't one of those than you gotta find a way around environmental issues -

just my opinion -

I'm afraid that I have to agree. The guy cannot play country. It kinda sounds like Fripp and Eno doing country or something. It's stilted and has no country soul. However, like someone else noted, I too love his stuff with motian and lovano.

[7/4]

recent New Yorker article.

dB

[danasgoodstuff]

Chauncy & Allen,

Nice job of destroying the straw man country scarecrow that you think Frisell is trying to be, next time try listening to what he's actually doing 'cause you ain't touched it yet. He's not country 'cause he's not trying to be, it already exists, doing some tunes and using some stuffs ('devices', whatever) from that (anglo-celtic/Scots-Irish/rural & arid) doesn't make him a Country wannabe any more than Sonny R. playing "Some Enchanted Evening" makes him John Raitt. BF is to my ears the most original American musical voice of my listening adulthood (past several decades); his concerts, in particular one in duet with Joey Baron, have been consistently on the same high level of spontinaety and inspiration as the best I've heard from the Art Ensemble or Sun Ra. Sure he's had opportunity that Hank Garland/Jethro Burns/whomever never had, for all sorts of reasons which are worth discussing; but bashing BF won't change that.

I knows pickin', you can eat it,

Dana

[Shawn]

Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull

Fans of Frisell should pick this one up, one of my "best of 2008" list. Available on emusic for the budget conscious.

Edited January 28, 2009 by Shawn

[Guest Bill Barton]

Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull

Fans of Frisell should pick this one up, one of my "best of 2008" list. Available on emusic for the budget conscious.

Thanks for the tip on this one, Shawn.

I've heard Frisell in performance a number of times. Probably the best show I've seen was with Cuong Vu's trio a year or so back at The University of Washington. Out of all the shows, only one was a dud. Of course, several of my friends, fellow avid jazzophiles, completely disagreed with me. This was in Montréal with the group that included Kenny Wollesen (on a really short tether in this context) and slide guitarist Greg Leisz. That group bored me to tears I have to say. Pretty harmonies, nice playing, but no juice. Fact is, Frisell can burn when he has a mind to do so. He gets pegged as a "mellow" player way too often in my book.

My personal favorites among his recordings include Rambler (helluva band on that one) and Have A Little Faith. The recent History Mystery is good, although I haven't really completely "digested" that one yet. His playing on McCoy Tyner's Guitars is mighty tasty in a Malian sort of groove, and his solo guitar interludes on Amarcord Nino Rota are delightful; the latter is one of my favorite albums of all time. I think that it has been mentioned before, but a lot of times I find his work as a sideman or collaborator more interesting than his solo projects.

And I feel privileged to live in an area where I can hear him in performance fairly often. He's definitely one of the Pacific Northwest's nicest guys as well as being one hell of a musician.

[Joe G]

What a great album cover!

Frisell w/Cuong Vu: hell yes.

[WorldB3]

Chauncy & Allen,

Nice job of destroying the straw man country scarecrow that you think Frisell is trying to be, next time try listening to what he's actually doing 'cause you ain't touched it yet. He's not country 'cause he's not trying to be, it already exists, doing some tunes and using some stuffs ('devices', whatever) from that (anglo-celtic/Scots-Irish/rural & arid) doesn't make him a Country wannabe any more than Sonny R. playing "Some Enchanted Evening" makes him John Raitt. BF is to my ears the most original American musical voice of my listening adulthood (past several decades); his concerts, in particular one in duet with Joey Baron, have been consistently on the same high level of spontinaety and inspiration as the best I've heard from the Art Ensemble or Sun Ra. Sure he's had opportunity that Hank Garland/Jethro Burns/whomever never had, for all sorts of reasons which are worth discussing; but bashing BF won't change that.

I knows pickin', you can eat it,

Dana

Good points, at first I was agreed with Allen, I totally get what he is saying on that. But listening to the ECM touchstone release of Look Out For Hope which is from the early 80's its evident that Frisell just didn't decide to do country with the Willies and Nashville in the 90s with the soul purpose of being a NPR darling, his own brand of adding elements of Country in a Jazz fashion is evident way back then. While I understand the cry's of sell out if your fan of the John Zorn and early Paul Motain Trio recordings on Black Saint he hasn't changed all that much. Sure he has mellowed off the heavy over drive pedal but he for the most part he has stayed true to his vision. It took me awhile but getting to go back to his early work with his 80's ECM stuff and the Paul Motian trio on emusic I now get BF and really appreciate his work.

[WorldB3]

Chauncy & Allen,

Nice job of destroying the straw man country scarecrow that you think Frisell is trying to be, next time try listening to what he's actually doing 'cause you ain't touched it yet. He's not country 'cause he's not trying to be, it already exists, doing some tunes and using some stuffs ('devices', whatever) from that (anglo-celtic/Scots-Irish/rural & arid) doesn't make him a Country wannabe any more than Sonny R. playing "Some Enchanted Evening" makes him John Raitt. BF is to my ears the most original American musical voice of my listening adulthood (past several decades); his concerts, in particular one in duet with Joey Baron, have been consistently on the same high level of spontinaety and inspiration as the best I've heard from the Art Ensemble or Sun Ra. Sure he's had opportunity that Hank Garland/Jethro Burns/whomever never had, for all sorts of reasons which are worth discussing; but bashing BF won't change that.

I knows pickin', you can eat it,

Dana

Good points, at first I was agreed with Allen, I totally get what he is saying on that. But listening to the ECM touchstone release of Look Out For Hope which is from the early 80's its evident that Frisell just didn't decide to do country with the Willies and Nashville in the 90s with the soul purpose of being a NPR darling, his own brand of adding elements of Country in a Jazz fashion is evident way back then. While I understand the cry's of sell out if your fan of the John Zorn and early Paul Motain Trio recordings on Black Saint he hasn't changed all that much. Sure he has mellowed off the heavy over drive pedal but he for the most part he has stayed true to his vision. It took me awhile but getting to go back to his early work with his 80's ECM stuff and the Paul Motian trio on emusic I now get BF and really appreciate his work. I already loved him just for his work on Angel Song and I Have The Room Upstairs.

Edited January 30, 2009 by WorldB3

[Guest Bill Barton]

...Frisell w/Cuong Vu: hell yes.

Yeah, that was a kick-ass show. Vu's loops and Frisell in a very extroverted mood for the most part added up to some real Fire. They also did a little playing together at the relatively recent benefit for Andrew D'Angelo here in Seattle (the section with Vu, Frisell, Eyvind Kang & Wayne Horvitz was a trip.)

[Shawn]

What a great album cover!

Yeah, I love that artist. I think he does the best psychedelic style artwork this side of the old Yes albums.

Here's his website:

http://www.arikroper.com/

[Chicago Expat]

I'm bumping an old thread since it seemed more appropriate than starting a new Frisell thread.

Frisell is one of my favorite musicians.

I first came to his music back in '92 when a friend played "Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus" for me, and his haunting guitar immediately connected with me.

I picked up his ECM Works album soon after that, and then just about every one of his albums since. There is something about his sound that I find equally ominous and comforting, a potent mixture that I find is rarely replicated by other musicians.

My favorites would be "Quartet", "Intercontinentals", "Ghost Town", and "Disfarmer".

I'm not a big fan of his trio work, such as "East/West" or the incomprehensibly disappointing Frisell/Holland/Jones recording. I liked his work with Zorn back in the day, but it's been a while since I've really given it a listen, so I'm sort of withholding my opinion on it now until I have the opportunity to revist "News for Lulu", etc.

I'm glad to see Ron Miles get a mention on this thread. I think he's a tremendously underrated talent, a trumpet player with a heartbreakingly evocative sound. "Heaven" is a good album; "Stone/Blossom" is even better. Frisell and Ron Miles clearly have a symbiosis at play.

http://www.myspace.com/ronmilesmusic

Other albums that Frisell makes an appearance on that I would strongly recommend listening to are:

1. Disinterested - "Behind Us": It's a guitar/shoe-gaze band that he plays a few tracks on. very pretty stuff.

Disinterested Myspace

2. Mount Analog - "New Skin": An ambient electronica outfit that has some real players associated with it.

Mount Analog Myspace

3. Marc Johnson - "Sound of Summer Running": Frisell/Johnson/Metheny/Baron.

Amazon samples

4. Floratone - "Floratone": Mentioned upthread. A Lee Townsend production that is a real sold effort. I can't remember if Wayne Horvitz plays on that album or not, but it kinda sounds like a Wayne Horvitz album, which should give you an idea of the sound.

Floratone Myspace

5. Vinicius Cantuaria - "Tucuma": Another gift from the collaboration on "Intercontinentals"

Cantuaria Myspace

6. Gabriela - "El Viaje": Frisell adds another layer of haunting guitar as texture to Garbriela's vocals.

Songtone Gabriela site

I've seen several Frisell concerts. I saw him at the Boulder Theater in support of the "Quartet" album, and it may have been the greatest show I've ever attended. I saw Bill play at a little coffee shop in Denver somewhere around 38th. I saw him play with his "East/West" trio in Chicago, and with the Nashville String Quartet in a country church in Franklin, TN. Hm, I'm forgetting a show. I'm pretty sure I've seen him one other time.

He's got another Floratone album coming out this year and his new collaboration with Vinicius Cantuaria sounds pretty good. I've been listening to his most recent release "Beautiful Dreamers", which I like, but I have so much of his music that I like more, it pales by comparison. He offers downloads of past concerts on his site, and those also sound pretty good (well, those that I've heard).

I think that's all I got for this post. I feel like I had more to say, but I seem to have run out of steam.

Edited February 4, 2011 by Chicago Expat

[medjuck]

The only Frissell record I've heard that I don't like is the one of Elvis Costello/Burt Bacharach songs. (Though I do like lots of Elvis and most of Burt's other work.)

[Chicago Expat]

The only Frissell record I've heard that I don't like is the one of Elvis Costello/Burt Bacharach songs. (Though I do like lots of Elvis and most of Burt's other work.)

I'm actually rather fond of that album. And even though I've never liked Costello, I think his turn on the song "Toledo" is exceptional. The whole album, IMO, had the same warmth as the "Quartet" album, generated somehow within Frisell's odd schematics.

If I had to pick a Frisell album that never connected with me it would be his Richter 858.

Y'know rereading your post, I realize you mention that you like lots of Costello and Bacharach, whereas I don't care for either of them. I wonder if that's the beginning of a hypothesis on who is more likely to enjoy "The Sweetest Punch".

[Aggie87]

If you like the Costello/Frisell thing, there's also the live album they put out, Deep Dead Blue:

And also the "companion" album from Bacharach/Costello (no Frisell though), "Painted from Memory":

A couple of Frisell albums that never clicked with me were the Frisell/Holland/Jones set, and the "American Blood/Safety in Numbers" thing.

Edited February 4, 2011 by Aggie87

[Chicago Expat]

I had totally forgotten about the "Deep Dead Blue" live album. I'm not sure why I don't own it. I can't remember offhand if I gave a listen and passed or if it mistakenly was never placed on a to-buy list. I'll have to look into that.

I had hoped the "Painted from Memory" would provide me an entrance into Bacharach's music, but to no avail. Just didn't care for it. Oh well, can't like everyone's music.

Been awhile since I listened to American Blood. I owned it a long time ago, but can barely remember what it sounds like. Must not have clicked, I guess, or I'd remember it better.

That Frisell/Holland/Jones album (which I accidentally attributed to Ron Carter in my earlier post) was terribly disappointing to me. Three great musicians collaborating on some of my favorite Frisell tunes (especially ones off the Quartet album), and it just came out as uninspired and a bit, I don't know if sloppy is the word I'm looking for, maybe more accurate to say they didn't sound like a cohesive unit, unmeshed perhaps. I keep listening to that album once a year every year hoping that eventually my ears pick up on something previously unheard that finally makes it the masterpiece I always expected it to be.

Edited February 4, 2011 by Chicago Expat