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The Bill Frisell Trio+1 at Roulette in Brooklyn
ByThe current trio includes bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston. Morgan had worked with Frisell as a duet and recorded two exquisite albums of incredible intimacy, Small Town and Epistrophy. Royston has played with Frisell in various ensembles over the last 14 years. The Trio has worked together as a unit for the last five years and has developed remarkable telepathy. Their debut album, Valentine, was released in 2020. To quote my colleague, Ian Patterson, the Trio "revel in the tight but loose interplay that is a hallmark of the best groups, plying a course as deeply lyrical as it is adventurous." This description encapsulates their approach to live performance as well. Immanuel Wilkins is a young, prodigiously gifted saxophonist. He has developed a reputation as a stellar sideman and leader, releasing two critically acclaimed albums on Blue Note Records. Although he was billed as a special guest, he was not featured as a soloist. Rather he was invited to participate in the dialogue and proved to be a seamlessly fit, adding a distinctive new voice but not disrupting the process.
The spare ruminative folk-jazz music played during the set was different in emphasis from earlier versions of the Trio (e.g., Tony Scherr and Joey Baron) when they played these very lengthy and incredibly raucous versions of "Masters of War" and "Heard it Through the Grapevine." But the process remains largely the same. The set is based on an organically evolving musical conversation with minimal planning. The 90-minute set was largely developed around the lengthy performance of two songs: "Baba Drame" and "Strange Meeting," which have been staples in Frisell's live performance for some years. The first of those songs, "Baba Drame," is a lovely Malian blues penned by Boubacar Traore. It was first recorded by Frisell on The Intercontinentals album, (Nonesuch, 2003). The second song, "Strange Meeting," is a Frisell composition and the most durable track from the album With Dave Holland and Elvin Jones (2001). Both songs proved to be perfect vehicles for the spontaneous dialogue between the four musicians. The songs served as a skeletal framework to incorporate other compositions, with the ensemble always returning to the melody. For example, Wilkins introduced a gorgeous rendition of Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday" as a kind of coda to "Strange Meeting." The encore featured a heartfelt straight-ahead version of "We Shall Overcome," which seemed like the perfect tonic for these troubled times.
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About Bill Frisell
Instrument: Guitar, electric
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In Pictures
Dave Kaufman
United States
Bill Frisell
Roulette
Brooklyn
Immanuel Wilkins
Kermit Driscoll
Viktor Krauss
Tony Scherr
Joey Baron
Kenny Wollesen
Thomas Morgan
Rudy Royston
Ian Patterson
Boubacar Traore
Concerts
May
15
Wed