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Bill Frisell: Music IS
Johnny Smith
guitar1922 - 2013
Al Viola
guitar, electric1919 - 2007
George Van Eps
guitar1913 - 1998
Lenny Breau
guitar1941 - 1984
Joe Pass
guitar1929 - 1994
John Abercrombie
guitar1944 - 2017
Ralph Towner
guitarb.1940
Eivind Aarset
guitar
Stian Westerhus
guitarBut before those two Norwegian innovators came
Bill Frisell
guitar, electricb.1951
Jan Garbarek
saxophoneb.1947
Arild Andersen
bass, acousticb.1945
Eberhard Weber
bassb.1940
Paul Motian
drums1931 - 2011
Salif Keita
vocals
Rickie Lee Jones
vocals
Paul Simon
composer / conductorb.1941
David Sylvian
vocalsb.1958
Laurie Anderson
violinIf ever there was an album title to reflect the infinite potential of an art form that has occupied most of Frisell's life, it's Music IS.
Frisell's second solo guitar release of its kind (Silent Comedy (Tzadik, 2013) was an alternate approach to solo guitar, recorded in real time with no overdubs or other post-production), Music IS comes eighteen years after the similar approach of Ghost Town (Nonesuch, 2000), itself released seventeen years following his 1983 ECM Records leader debut, In Line (that album split, half and half, between occasionally overdubbed solo tracks and duets with bassist Andersen).
Ghost Town was an eclectic blend, reflecting Frisell's broad musical tastes through the inclusion, in addition to his own compositions, of music by writers ranging from jazz guitarist
John McLaughlin
guitarb.1942
George Gershwin
composer / conductor1898 - 1937
Frisell returns to a similar approach on Music IS, but beyond the significant growth that might be expected, it differs from Ghost Town in other ways. It's also more than just an album title; it's a reduction of the phrase "Music is good," a simple but meaningful statement that Frisell attributes to banjo player (and collaborator on the guitarist's overlooked, 2002 bluegrass-informed The Willies) Danny Barnes. Still, with its intended emphasis, Music IS assumes an even broader meaning that reflects Frisell's career-long refusal to be pigeonholed, despite many attempts from critics and fans alike. Music isn't necessarily jazz, country, folk, roots or classical music, blues, or any of the multiplicity of genres that have been touchstones throughout Frisell's career. Music simply IS, indeed; and the guitarist's long overdue follow-up to Ghost Town reflects, in its often naked vulnerability (and, perhaps, more so than on his many albums released in the ensuing years), Frisell's startling evolution, as he enters the second half of his seventh decade on planet Earth.
Music IS differs from Ghost Town in that its 55-minute program (not including a bonus alternate and thoroughly different take of the title track to his 1984 sophomore ECM date, Rambler, tacked onto the album's end) consists entirely of Frisell compositions, his first recording to do so since Big Sur (Savoy Jazz, 2013). Unlike that group recording, however, Music IS combines music that Frisell has, in many cases, mined often since first appearing (in the case of In Line's title track) as much as 35 years ago, alongside half a dozen compositions making their first recorded appearances here.
Hopefully artists evolve over the course of their careers, but every now and then evolution becomes revolution, and Music IS is, indeed, revolutionary. Frisell has come a long way since his first major label appearance with
Eberhard Weber
bassb.1940
Frisell's style has always been predicated on a rare ability to sustain passing notes as he (often simultaneously) moves complex voicings and linear phrases up, down and across the neck of his instrument, but rarely has he done so with such seamless sophistication. Nor has he demonstrated such an organic infusion of a variety of electronic devices, which have become more like natural extensions of (and less like add-on effects to) his guitar, itself an intrinsic extension to his conscious and subconscious musical minds. And while he's already proven his acumen at writing for groups of various sizes, he's never realized the guitar as orchestra concept as fully as he does on Music IS.
Frisell bookends the main program with the layered and looped electric guitar opener, "Pretty Stars," and lone acoustic guitar reading of the closing "Made to Shine." Both are distillations of and extrapolations upon the more overtly countrified miniature, "Pretty Stars Were Made to Shine," from Blues Dreams (Nonesuch, 2001). Both versions demonstrate an ability to find new interpretive grist in older material that has rarely been so clear, so focused, so evocative. One, an ideal opener that sets the stage for music to come, the other a perfectly constructed program closer, together they demonstrate, with crystal clarity, Frisell's ability to extract seemingly infinite possibilities from every nook and cranny of even the simplest of songs.
Frisell begins his reinvention of "Winslow Homer" in a fashion similar to the trio version introduced on Beautiful Dreamers (Savoy Jazz, 2010), but this time with tapped chords defining the guitarist's harmonically skewed version of a standard blues. Initially a solo electric guitar look at
Wynton Marsalis
trumpetb.1961
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra
band / ensemble / orchestra
Thelonious Monk
piano1917 - 1982
Jim Hall
guitar1930 - 2013
Never running the risk of excess, superfluous technical displays or musical gymnastics (despite being capable of all these things and more), Frisell has always been about saying all that needs be said, nothing more and nothing less, with Music IS' sixteen tracks running anywhere from less than a minute to over six. Frisell's grittily angular, jaggedly strummed and tapped "Think About It"—curiously, recorded with Frisell's amplifier placed inside an old upright piano first owned by
The Who
band / ensemble / orchestra
The Band
band / ensemble / orchestrab.1967
The Rolling Stones
band / ensemble / orchestrab.1962
Never afraid to leave plenty of holes in the music, Frisell's twanging Fender (or Fender-like) guitar on "Rambler" is also like a guitar history lesson, from
Wes Montgomery
guitar1923 - 1968
Given the song's long history (34 years), Music IS' two very different looks at "Rambler" defy those who feel the need to categorize Frisell's career into genre-specific boxes. The simple truth is: Frisell has always been the square peg in the round hole, reverent of the heart of everything he plays, yet able to blend a variety of stylistic touchstones into a unified whole, redolent of all but determined by none.
A simple, low register loop drives "Ron Carter," a moody Blues Dream piece driven, here, by a different bass ostinato. Frisell slowly, sparingly, builds this take, ultimately adding another simple, two-chord loop layer to create an even richer foundation for his carefully but spontaneously constructed explorations. By contrast, "The Pioneers," a poignantly pretty tune from Frisell's groove-heavy roots collaboration with
Jim Keltner
drums
Greg Leisz
guitar, steel
Viktor Krauss
bass"Monica Jane," first heard on
Paul Bley
piano1932 - 2016
Frisell, longtime producer Lee Townsend and engineer Tucker Martine—the three, along with drummer
Matt Chamberlain
drumsPlaying for a week at New York's The Stone prior to the Music IS sessions, Frisell describes the process of preparing for the album in its press sheet: "Each night I attempted new music that I'd never played before. I was purposely trying to keep myself a little off balance. Uncomfortable. Unsure. I didn't want to fall back on things that I knew were safe. My hope was to continue this process right on into the studio. I didn't want to have things be all planned out beforehand." Of Townsend and Martine, who Frisell calls two of his "closest, most trusted musical brothers," Frisell characteristically gives plenty of credit: "They clear the way for me to just PLAY. When we got to the studio I brought a big pile of music and we went from there. Let one thing lead to the next."
Amongst that pile of music was a trifecta of recent Frisell compositions that suggest how he is able to build form in new and surprising ways. "Change in the Air" retains the haunting melody that underscores this piece written for Dianne Dreyer's upcoming film of the same name, combining loops and overdubbed layers of guitars and bass. A gradually accelerating, pulsing electronic drone both introduces and concludes the brooding "What Do You Want?," another miniature where Frisell, once again, brings together loops, layered guitars and bass as he moves from ethereal consonance to the kind of abstract melodism first explored on relatively early albums like Where in the World? (Elektra Nonesuch, 1991).
"Thankful" closes the triptych in more song-based fashion. Dedicated to his family and to the myriad of artists with whom he has collaborated, it's characteristic of this still-humble guitarist who still seems almost in awe of the lifetime of experiences that have come his way, and of those who still want to work with him. A series of descending chords (made increasingly rich as the composition develops) provide a main theme that contrasts with an alternate passage based upon a simple, three-note phrase, under which Frisell layers shifting harmonies. The piece builds sonically and dramatically from spare to dense, as Frisell layers more guitars, including one that's heavily distorted and filtered, along with bass and additional ethereal atmospherics, to shape one of Music IS' biggest-sounding tracks...even as it retains the sense of intimacy that pervades the entire recording.
There are those who want to constrain Frisell with reductionist categorizations. There are also those who accuse Frisell of, over the years, "losing his edge." Frisell lays waste to all such claims (and more) with Music IS, an album that breaks down boundaries even as the guitarist explores what's on either side and finds new ways to assimilate it all into his still-growing musical vernacular. More than many of his undeniably milestone recordings, the exceptional Music IS deserves consideration as both a career high point and a masterpiece of solo guitar. It's also proof that some artists can still, even forty years after their major label debut and with over 250 recorded appearances, release albums destined to become modern classics. ">
Track Listing
Pretty Stars; Winslow Homer; Change in the Air; What Do You Want?; Thankful; Ron Carter; Think About It; In Line; Rambler; The Pioneers; Monica Jane; Miss You; Go Happy Lucky; Kentucky Derby; Made to Shine; Rambler (bonus, alternate version).
Personnel
Bill Frisell
guitar, electricBill Frisell: electric & acoustic guitars, loops, bass, ukelele, music boxes.
Album information
Title: Music IS | Year Released: 2018 | Record Label: Okeh
Tags
Bill Frisell
CD/LP/Track Review
John Kelman
DL Media
Music IS
Okeh
Johnny Smith
Al Viola
George Van Eps
Lenny Breau
Joe Pass
John Abercrombie
Ralph Towner
Eivind Aarset
Stian Westerhus
Jan Garbarek
Arild Andersen
Eberhard Weber
Paul Motian
Salif Keita
Rickie Lee Jones
Paul Simon
David Sylvian
Laurie Anderson
john mclaughlin
George Gershwin
Edward Heyman
Danny Barnes
Winton Marsalis
jazz at lincoln center orchestra
Thelonious Monk
Jim Hall
The Who
Keith Moon
The Band
Richard Manuel
Rolling Stones
Wes Montgomery
Jim Keltner
Paul Bley
Lee Townsend
Matt Chamberlain
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