Jazz Articles about Bill Frisell

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Bill Frisell: Disfarmer

by Joel Roberts
September 3, 2009

Guitarist Bill Frisell's latest foray outside jazz into folk-country-Americana is a soundtrack of sorts to an exhibit of photographs by Michael Disfarmer, an eccentric and curmudgeonly portrait artist who recorded stark, stunning black and white images of his fellow townsfolk in rural Arkansas in the 1940s and '50s. Most of the 26 tracks here are sparse, evocative sketches or snapshots, with Frisell and his string quartet of longtime cohorts--Greg Liesz on steel guitar and mandolin, Jenny Scheinman ...

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Bill Frisell: Solos and Films of Buster Keaton

by John Kelman
September 1, 2009

In a career which is in 2009 entering its fourth decade in the public eye, guitarist Bill Frisell has fashioned a trajectory like no other. As comfortable playing Hank Williams country tunes as he is a Ron Carter blues, the guitarist has created such a distinctive sound that, even when he's playing a plain old G chord, it's immediately recognizable. Idiosyncratic and able to take even the most conventional idea on its side, Frisell has gradually built a ...

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Bill Frisell: Disfarmer

by John Kelman
July 31, 2009

Often a cinematic writer, guitarist Bill Frisell has composed film scores in the past, including his back-to-back release of Music For The Films Of Buster Keaton: The High Sign/One Week and Go West (both Elektra/Nonesuch, 1995) and, more recently, music for the 2007 Canadian film All Hat (Emarcy/Universal, 2008). Instead of writing for images in motion, however, Disfarmer is an album of largely original music inspired by Depression-era photographer Michael Disfarmer's arresting images of rural America. Frisell manages to capture ...

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Bill Frisell: The Quiet Genius

by Lloyd N. Peterson Jr.
June 24, 2009

If there is a given within the music of guitarist Bill Frisell, it's the honest approach in every note he composes and plays. There are no compromises. His magical world of creativity incorporates yet transcends all styles and genres of music, and as one of today's most original and innovative composers, he has created a unique and distinct voice that has developed into his own personal musical language. Without perhaps trying to do so, Frisell creates the ...

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Bill Frisell: Hemispheres & The Stars Are All New Songs, Vol. 1

by Kurt Gottschalk
May 9, 2009

Jim Hall & Bill Frisell with Scott Colley & Joey Baron Hemispheres ArtistShare 2008 Jakob Bro The Stars Are All New Songs, Vol. 1 Loveland Records 2008 Bill Frisell no doubt sees Hemispheres as a high point in his discography, for a variety of worthy reasons. First and foremost, he made the record with ...

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Bill Frisell: The Best of Bill Frisell: Vol. 1 - Folk Songs

by John Kelman
February 28, 2009

Despite decidedly left-of-center beginnings--on his own ECM discs Rambler (1985) and Lookout for Hope (1988), and in collaboration with artists including Jan Garbarek and John Zorn--guitarist Bill Frisell has always been a melodist at heart. Even at his most outré--his oblique yet stunningly constructed solo on “Next Love," from clarinetist Don Byron's minor classic, Tuskegee Experiment (Elektra/Nonesuch, 1992), an ideal example--there's always been an imbued lyricism.

Frisell's personal approach to Americana music--beginning in earnest with Nonesuch ...

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Bill Frisell: The Best of Bill Frisell: Vol. 1 - Folk Songs

by Chris May
February 18, 2009

In Robert Reisner's biographical scrapbook, Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker (Quartet Books, 1988), one of the contributors tells how Parker, with a saxophone strung round his neck and a gorilla on his back, employed a ruse to clear a Manhattan nightclub of his fans, in order to facilitate the entrance of others waiting in line outside. (Parker was taking a percentage of each ticket sale, so the greater the club's throughput, the greater his take for the night). Every ...