Jazz Articles about Bill Frisell

Bill Frisell: Richter 858

by Mark Corroto
January 24, 2005

Commissioned to create music for a book project on the German painter Gerhard Richter, guitarist Bill Frisell opened his book of guitar techniques to enhance the painter's art.

Given instructions and eight Richter images, Frisell composed pieces for the 858 Strings Trio of Jenny Scheinman, Eyvind Kang, and Hank Roberts, a unit which can be heard on Frisell's 2004 release, Unspeakable. These eight pieces were recorded live in the studio without overdubs, remixing or post-production change. Like a ...

Bill Frisell: Richter 858

by John Kelman
January 21, 2005

For those who think, based on recent recordings, that guitarist Bill Frisell has lost his edge, two new recordings should go a long way to restoring faith in Frisell's inestimable abilities as a composer and performer. They also assert that, like them or not, the Americana, world music, and groove-centric concerns of his most recent Nonesuch releases are by no means the work of a man resting on his laurels. Frisell has always had a voracious musical appetite, as content ...

Bill Frisell: Richter 858

by Dan McClenaghan
January 11, 2005

Richter 858 is a commissioned work, setting guitarist Bill Frisell up with the job of creating music to accompany eight paintings for a book project on German painter Gerhard Richter. One of Richter's main techniques is to use a squeegee to smear paint over an aluminum surface. Frisell captures this sound--the squeak and squeal, the shrillness--perfectly in the disc's opening, a sound that gives the initial impression that one is in for one of those “daunting" listening experiences. But things ...

Bill Frisell: Unspeakable

by John Kelman
August 22, 2004

Some artists spend an entire lifetime within a narrow genre, honing their skill and working at stretching the boundaries of that style, while others transcend all definitions and labels, creating a music that defies categorization. Such is the case with guitarist Bill Frisell, who over a twenty-five year career has contributed to everything from the Nordic cool of Jan Garbarek's quartet to the downtown edge of John Zorn's Naked City. On his own records he has explored diverse landscapes including ...

A Fireside Chat with Bill Frisell

by AAJ Staff
February 21, 2004

Having spent most of my youth in the Reagan Eighties, I matured with the impression that bassists were all like Mick Mars and guitarists all mirrored The Edge. This was acceptable behavior in my youth, but would be considered juvenile now. And although I appreciate staying “young at heart," I am grateful to have been cultured by the likes of Derek Bailey and whom I consider the finest guitarist on this side of the Atlantic, Bill Frisell, who has defined ...

Wayne Horvitz/Tucker Martine: Mylab

by Mark Corroto
February 4, 2004

For Wayne Horvitz and Tucker Martine, the pair known as Mylab, the saying “everything old is new again” should be restated as “Everything New is Old again!”

This studio experiment by the duo (with 17 of their closest friends) samples and loops folk recordings from the turn of the century to create song structures, then replaces those samples with guest musicians. They mash (part Zony) funk, blues, trip-hop, soul, folk, and African music into a roots music played ...

Bill Frisell: The Intercontinentals

by AAJ Staff
July 25, 2003

It's time to admit a bias. Anyone who covers Boubacar Traoré automatically scores points in my book. The Malian guitarist is infinitely remote to anyone outside Mali, but that isn't for any good reason except the vagaries of the recording industry. It's fitting that guitarist Bill Frisell would choose “Boubacar" as the opener to The Intercontinentals given the international flavor of the record, the omnipresence of Malian percussionist Sidiki Camara, and the way blues from Mali builds feeling and depth ...