 |
| Thomas Morgan, Bill Frisell and Rudy Royston at Atlanta's City Winery |
The now sixty-seven-year old Frisell has been playing his distinctive
style of guitar for the better part of three decades. He signed to Manfred
Eicher’s ECM label back in the early eighties and became the virtual house
guitarist for the label. He has had long term associations with the eclectic
experimental composer/saxophonist John Zorn from his early days in New York. In
the early 2000’s he was a part of the influential drummer Paul Motian’s trio with
saxophonist Joe Lovano. The list of collaborators he has worked with is a who’s
who of the contemporary and avant-garde music world during the last quarter
century. Along the way Frisell has developed his own unique sound- a mix of
bluegrass, country, surfer rock, Americana, jazz, fusion and sophisticated
electronics- that has made him one the most adventurous musicians and a sought-after
collaborator. His work has been nominated for a Grammy on four occasions in
2005, 2009, 2016 and 2018 and he won once for Unspeakable in the Best Contemporary Jazz Album category for 2005.
Bill Frisell has the casual appearance of a disheveled,
absent-minded professor, with his shock of white spiky hair, horn- rimmed
glasses and his loosely fitting jacket and jeans. You could see this guy working
part-time fixing motorcycles in a neighborhood garage or repairing old radios
in his basement, but when he plugs in his Telecaster-style guitar and connects
to his array of electronic wizardry he
becomes a master of the universe. The universe of the sound that he so deftly
creates.
 |
| The Guitarist Bill Frisell at Atlanta's City Winery |
The guitarist started off with a series of harmonics, tones
generated from his guitar that resonate with sympathetic frequencies. He is
master of harnessing them to great effect and he used them to introduce the
Henry Mancini classic “Moon River.” The
audience listened intently as he conjured up a delicate repeating motif on his
guitar, looping it and then harmonizing to it. When the melody became apparent
the crowd let out a collective sigh of acknowledgment.
One suspects that
Frisell’s trio mates must have big ears to play with this man as his playing
appears to be snatched from the ether, rather than firmly pre-planned. Morgan
has been playing with Frisell since 2016 and they recently did a highly
acclaimed duo release last year titled Small
Town. Royston is a sought-after drummer whose work can be heard all over
the gamut. His stylistic approach was first heard with Frisell on the
guitarist’s 2010 Grammy nominated recording History
Mystery. Together these three musicians showed just how empathetically
connected three people can be, responding as Frisell utilized a series of surprising
electronic embellishments to create cascading effects before transitioning into
the familiar theme from the James Bond thriller “You Only Live Twice.” He has a penchant for creatively using looping
to allow him to create multiple layers of expression on a repeating motif.
Frisell’s repertoire often features movie soundtracks and on
this evening besides the aforementioned “Moon River,” and the Bond theme “You
Only Live Twice,” he later played another Bond theme from the movie “Goldfinger”
to the delight of the audience. His surfer sounding guitar resonating clear,
concise lines as the memorable melodies hung in the air like wisps of smoke
from Bond’s lethal Beretta. The man
wastes no motion in his playing. He is a quiet leader that directs in an
unobtrusive, firm but nuanced manner. Morgan’s bass is clear and resonant, and
Royston is a master of delicate shading.
The group continued with a walking blues, which might have
been Frisell’s “Winslow Homer,” which the guitarist played in his own fractured
way, with Morgan and Royston each being featured on solos. The group went onto
a more ethereal sounding piece, a rambling waltz that was reminiscent of the
late John Abercrombie’s work. Interestingly Frisell was a highlight performer
at a memorial concert held for the recently deceased guitarist at Brooklyn’s Roulette
on March 26, 2018.
No jazz concert, although that is too restrictive of a title for Frisell's work,
would be complete without at least one Thelonious Monk song. Frisell and
company didn’t disappoint, doing their own take on the quirky
“Epistrophy.” Here the group was at its
most intuitive, perhaps because of the familiarity of the song, but it was
marvelous to watch the exquisite interplay, especially between Frisell and Royston
who operates without bombast. The drummer created a jungle beat that added surprising
rhythmic interest and an inherent sense of swing. Morgan had one of his most
creative solos of the evening.
The real surprise of the evening was Frisell’s marvelous take on the John McLaughlin
classic “Arjen’s Bag.” Later renamed “Follow Your Heart,” from Mclaughlin’s 1969
album Extrapolation; Frisell played
this on his own album, Ghost Town,
from 2000. To hear Frisell’s take on this guitar classic some nearly fifty
years later was a true treat, bringing me back to when guitar virtuosity was my
idea of true greatness. The guitarist’s introduction cleverly hinted at the song
before revealing his true intent. Royston played timely rim shots as Morgan
plucked away creating the atmospheric feel of the song authentically. Frisell
employed some distortion and echo to his guitar before he went into the song’s distinctive
lead in. I had never heard anyone do this “live” and for me it was just so good
to hear it played again with such creative energy and inspired tremolo and electronic
effects.
The band continued with one of Frisell’s own compositions,
this one played with phaser effects titled “it Should Have Happened A Long Time
Ago” which is on his last release Small
Town with Thomas Morgan. It is a song that has a nostalgic feel to it, one
that you might hear coming from a guitarist, albeit a very good one, sitting on
his front porch musing away the late afternoon. Frisell plays the sing-song
line like the repeating verses of a melancholic nursey rhyme. His footboard of
electronic wizardry produces sounds that at times mimic a harpsichord or perhaps
a mandolin. Then he takes it to another level, accelerating the pace, developing
it into a rhythmic jig of sorts, playing in a style that to my ears had native
American elements to it, before returning to the main theme. An impressive display
of what seem to be on the spot improvisation on a theme.
Transitioning into the theme from “Goldfinger,” Frisell
recreated that echoed, twangy guitar on the John Barry composition that Shirley
Bassey made famous. It was pure fun listening to this master explore this movie
classic.
Frisell disengaged from his guitar and took to the stage, introducing
his bandmates in his own inimitably folksy way. In a brief humorous interlude,
he warned the audience of the excesses of eating locally made Maple Bacon ice
cream, which he said gave him the sniffles.
After unrelenting applause, the band returned for an encore
with what Frisell called his theme song, the Americana standard, “Oh Shenandoah.” This
poignant song, a lament from one that longs for a return to home, was the
perfect vehicle for Frisell to spin his magic. His guitar took on multiple
tones each one more expressive than the last as Morgan and Royston played the
cadenced march like a mournful dirge. But Frisell is an optimist, and he
skillfully transitioned from the somber Shenandoah into the uplifting Burt Bacharach
composition “What the World Needs Now,” ending the show on an encouragingly
upbeat note. The audience was completely taken by this wonderful performance.
As a fellow audience member stated to me, Frisell takes you to another place.
.jpeg)
Amhad Jamal : Blue Moon
recorded at Anderson's Mountain Rest Studio in nearby New Paltz, NY and thought it was a top notch effort. (check out my review by clicking 
orchestra, singer/songwriter 
