Bill Frisell Plays Americana at the Village Vanguard

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April 22, 2006

Jazz Review

Bill Frisell Plays Americana at the Village Vanguard

By NATE CHINEN, NYT

Americana is the categorical term most often applied to the music of Bill Frisell. It's an accurate tag insofar as Mr. Frisell, a guitarist, has delved deeply into bluegrass and old-timey country music, along with the more rustic strains of the blues. But there has always been a cool, hard glint to his interpretive process; his improviser's instinct can undercut even the most nostalgic reverie. It's when Mr. Frisell works with this tension that his music really crackles.

That happened in tantalizing stretches on Tuesday night at the Village Vanguard, during the first set of a two-week run. Mr. Frisell was leading a quintet of frequent collaborators: Ron Miles on cornet, Greg Tardy on clarinet and tenor saxophone, Tony Scherr on bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums. Their chemistry was strong, for an opening set. In all likelihood, it will grow stronger over the course of the engagement.

Mr. Frisell offered a program representative of his various fascinations, beginning with a halting, abstract waltz, on which Mr. Miles played a round of long tones in a clear, high register. When the song faded away, Mr. Frisell filled the space with some sampled electronics, as faintly desultory as a set of wind chimes. This segued into "Hard Times Come Again No More," a Stephen Foster ballad that the quintet performed first in a hymnlike rubato and then as a somber and effective second-line lament.

A hazy flexibility suffused two movements from Mr. Frisell's "Probability Cloud," a suite he composed in collaboration with the cartoonist Jim Woodring. Mr. Miles and Mr. Tardy, who were both present for the piece's premiere in January, were assigned a series of melodic figures, which they played in mellifluous cornet-clarinet unison. The rhythmic underpinnings of the music kept shifting: from a waltz to a tango to something like a mariachi fanfare. On some levels this indeterminacy was fascinating, but the music lacked a center of gravity and never came into focus.

By contrast, a pair of songs by Thelonious Monk proved thrilling precisely because of their sturdy clarity. The first, "Jackie-ing," gave Mr. Wollesen and Mr. Scherr full license to swing, which they did, with hard-driving insistence. The second, "Raise Four," provided a good solo showcase: Mr. Tardy indulged in a few brawny tenor choruses, and Mr. Miles worried the tune's jangly motif with the stubborn fixation of Monk himself.

Mr. Frisell offered his own supple variations on "Raise Four," pecking short phrases before moving on to some fluidly shifting chords. As in the rest of the set, he never quite stretched out; his improvisations were hide-and-seek affairs. But his playing was efficient and calmly self-assured, squarely in the American grain.

Bill Frisell plays through tomorrow,and from Tuesday through April 30, at the Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street; (212) 255-4037.