Ambrose Akinmusire and Bill Frisell at The Theatre at Ace Hotel

Ambrose Akinmusire and Bill Frisell
The Theatre at Ace Hotel
Los Angeles, California
October 14, 2023

In playing the imaginary match game, in which we speculate on jazz musicians who would and should get along beautifully, the conjoining of Ambrose Akinmusire and Bill Frisell could seem like a no-brainer. Thankfully, this particular partnering fait accompli has recently been accomplished and is going public. Akinmusire is releasing his Owl Song project with Frisell on Nonesuch—his first for that label after recording for Blue Note for nearly a decade—and their special collaborative chemistry is being put to the live test, to exhilarating and newly exploratory ends.

At least that was the ecstatic impression made on the audience in the reanimated movie palace connected to downtown Los Angeles' Ace Hotel recently (presented by UCLA). The trio Owl Song, with Akinmusire's drummer ally Timothy Angulo replacing regular drummer Herlin Riley, offered up a fascinating hour-long set full of structural intrigue, chamber-esqe ruminations, rivulets of cerebral funk and plenty of margin for spontaneity. To paraphrase the early Ornette Coleman album title, this music was full of the spirit and evolving feel of Something Else!!!.

Interestingly, the putative headlining set was by Frisell's group logically named FIVE, a question of balance and mirrored elements featuring separate rhythm section flanks of two basses—Thomas Morgan and Kermit Driscoll—and two drummers, Rudy Royston and Kenny Wollesen, who also occasionally played vibes. FIVE's seamless set of Frisell originals and abstracted interlude segments culminated in the timely peacekeeping mission of two special covers which Frisell has been known to apply with a master's touch, "What the World Needs Now" and "People" ("needing people").

And yet, despite the expected artistic heights and breadth of Frisell's latest grouping, it was the new and fertile relationship with Ambrose which most boldly seized our senses and sense of a deep alliance in the making. As different as they may seem in terms of stylistic turf presented separately, the pair shares various attributes. Both tend to be introspective, although Frisell leans into sly humor, contrasting Akinmusire's more serious focus. Both are innately slippery when it comes to restrictive idiomatic definitions: they go freely where the heart guides them, formatting the damned.

Among other commonalities, both have also contributed memorable commissioned works for the Monterey Jazz Festival, Frisell with his Big Sur (released on Okeh Records in 2013) and Akinmusire with now two commissions to his name, the chamberlike The Forgotten Place (2015) and the recent triumph in the form of Isakoso, a neo-African-jazz-charged piece. Isakoso, a clear highlight of this September's Monterey festival, also featured the soulfully majestic Malian singer Oumou Sangaré.

A few weeks later, Akinmusire and Frisell were at the Ace hotel, exploring the new possibilities of the "bassless" Owl Song entity. Over the course of five varied tunes, often underscored by a certain bittersweet emotional aura, the trumpeter issued spare directives and improvised with a view to interactivity. We got compact bursts of the virtuosity Akinmusire is in command of, but his ear was more on the prize of creating a new, meshing musical reality.

And he has found an ideal foil in Frisell, whose subtle and watchful parts reminded us of his special adaptability when working with another musicians' compositions and concepts. he amply proved that flexing ability in his legendary quarter-century alliance with drummer/composer Paul Motian, and once again folds himself comfortably into another leader's world—the special and category blurring world of Ambrose.

Our ears are duly perked for what's to come of this relationship.

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