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By: Dennis Cook
The first time you hear Bill Frisell play will change the way you hear guitar forevermore. His approach is so textured, nuanced and wholly individual that it stands the instrument on its head and makes one rethink all of their preconceptions. While generally tucked into the jazz section, Frisell actually draws on the gusto of Western swing, African modal exploration, Sonic Youth worthy avant-garde-ism and a healthy chunk of Hendrix's wild, intense ability to suss out strange connections others simply miss. He has been a dazzling collaborator with the likes of John Zorn, Petra Haden, Paul Motian, John Scofield, Allen Ginsberg, Earth, Rickie Lee Jones, Vernon Reid and most recently Jenny Scheinman (violin), Greg Leisz (steel guitars, mandolin) and Viktor Krauss (bass) on Disfarmer (released 7/21/09 on Nonesuch), where Frisell and company put music to the late photographer Michael Disfarmer's black and white photo portraits of the 1940s and '50s. It's just one more remarkable piece of work that adds to the diversity and intrinsic curiosity that resides firmly in all of Frisell's music, a player for whom the whole expanse of sound is open and eagerly explored.
His gentle demeanor, soft hands and bright smile hint at only part of his character, perhaps disguising the rugged string mangler that surfaced on Earth's Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull last year or the revered-but-brutal Naked City recordings he's done with Zorn. He's equally comfortable flying on Brazilian airs as he is pouring country licks into fusion frames. From his early days as part of the stellar '80s ECM Records stable to his recent projects with David Piltch, Loudon Wainwright III and Jenny Scheinman, Frisell's involvement is a signal that one has stumbled across music worthy of one's precious time, worthy of pondering at length, if only to hear what streaming beauty or wild hair Frisell has unleashed this round. To watch the man work – as one can do with intense focus on his splendid new DVD, Solos: The Jazz Sessions (arriving September 1 on Songline/Tone Field Productions/Original Spin Media) – is to see music crystallize in real time. His overall movements can be somewhat slight at first glance but, like many great players, one picks up on volumes in his changing expression and subtle bodily shifts. In fact, Frisell might be the calmest rock god ever, a shredder true but without all the usual thrusting and leaping about.
JamBase had the honor of a slice of Frisell's time to discuss Solos, it's equally stunning companion DVD (Films of Buster Keaton: Go West, One Week, High Sign with original scores by Frisell – and his music in general. One of the few living musicians afforded the same kind of respect we usually reserve for brilliant players only after they're no longer around to appreciate it, Frisell is an originator and an inspiration of the highest order, and we're chuffed as heck to hear what's on his mind.
JamBase: I watched the Keaton DVD with my son, who is two-and-half years old, and he really flipped for it. I think there's something really special about how instrumental music can bypass a lot of our language oriented logic, and I saw that perfectly in my son's giggling, delighted reaction.
 Disfarmer Quartet by Michael Wilson |
Bill Frisell: That's so cool. This was the very first experience I'd ever had trying to put my music to film, and, like a lot of things I do, it just seemed to fall into my lap. It wasn't my idea in the first place. There's this place in Brooklyn that's changed a lot now but it's called St. Anne's Church, and they used to put concerts on in this, I wouldn't say quite dilapidated, but really old, cool space. I had done a number of concerts there and they had this idea of doing something different than just having one of my bands play.
I wasn't even really that familiar with Buster Keaton when it started. I'd seen bits and pieces as a kid and just thought of him as this funny guy. The whole thing was an amazing education for me, and the perfect way to get my feet wet in experimenting with what happens with the music and the relationship to [the image]. I didn't feel like there were any rules I had to follow.
JamBase: It puts you in a space where you don't have any of your normal boundaries or touchstones.
Bill Frisell: And also because I'd never done this before I was just like a painter that'd never painted before, throwing paint around and seeing what happens. For me, it was a really cool way to operate without anybody breathing down my neck [laughs]. If my first experience had been doing some Hollywood movie I would have had a lot more preconceptions about what I was doing.
I wonder if the particular subject matter, Buster Keaton, brings in something that's hard to bring into music sometimes, namely humor.
There's that but one of the things I learned was there was so much more in there [with Keaton]. That's where I really felt like I hooked up. It was almost like he was another player in the band or something. The range of emotion in what he does is so huge. It's incredible. Every gamut of human emotion is there in what he does.
 Bill Frisell by Jimmy Katz |
I'm a big silent film fan and Keaton has long been my main guy. Seeing two of my favorite artists paired up in this way was unique and felt right. Despite the expanse of years between you two, there's a spark that emerges in this collaboration where it's clear you two had some things to say to each other.
That was cool, too, like this feeling that I worked with him though I never met him for real.
That's one of the gifts that art allows, a conversation with people you never could meet in the flesh. In covering the canon in jazz you're doing that all the time. Rock does the same thing to a degree but this idea of a canon, a group of songs passed around and played with some regularity, is at the core of jazz's conversation with the past. You're never going to meet Thelonious Monk but you'll meet Monk in attacking his music.
You're describing a huge part of the whole process really. Monk is a whole subject right there, but you can still connect with people who played with him, like I play with [drummer] Paul Motian. All these lines in this music mean everyone's learning and giving stuff back and forth. It's an incredible feeling to just get some of this stuff passed around.
And part of why this music feels so vibrant is it's never treated like an artifact. Given how you're often defined as a jazz musician, I've long wondered if you've ever had the urge to put together a straight rock band?
 Bill Frisell by Jimmy Katz |
I wish I could! With a lot of groups that I play in and the places we have the potential to play is pretty huge. I don't even really think of the style we play in, but I do wish we had the chance to play in places like High Sierra [Music Festival] more. I like to think I could play at the same places the Grateful Dead play [laughs].
I think you could, and that broad spectrum in your music is why I opened nearly two years of public radio shows with pieces you played on - there's a lot of directions to explore in your work. Though you're filed under 'Jazz,' I've never felt you adhered to any one pathway or genre.
It's frustrating. I know we have to categorize it in some way but those labels tend to keep people apart. Hopefully just the music comes through and people are reacting to the music itself rather than to what it's supposed to be called. You have to ascribe something in some way so people know what it is, but ultimately it's so much beyond any kind of descriptor. Now I sound like an old whiner! But, I think back to the old Fillmore shows and what kinds of things happened there with different bands together on one night, Miles Davis and Neil Young or Charles Lloyd. I think it still happens a bit now but it seemed more normal then to have Ravi Shankar and Jimi Hendrix on the same bill. It makes total sense to the way I like to listen to music, where I'll listen to Bach and then some African music then Monk. It makes sense to me!
Musicians tend to find places of overlap and connection rather than difference in the music they come across. Has that wide variation and open-mind posed challenges for you? It's much harder to market music that doesn't conform to expectations.
Well, for me, it's maybe what's kept me going. Like you said, it's maybe a little daunting for the record company – if I have one – or my managers to market, but I've been really lucky that the people around me are supportive of that way of doing things. Just booking gigs, I feel sorry for my booking agent [laughs]. I have all these different bands, but that's how I work. It's not one group that goes out and does a specific show. Every time they try to get me something they have to go through the problem of trying to explain what I'm doing this time. I know it makes it 20 times harder in that way, but I've been very lucky to have these people.
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