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The Best of Bill Frisell [Jazz]
WEBSITE: www.billfrisell.com
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‘Frisell has taken up residence at the crossroads of jazz, country, folk, blues and rock to become one of the most recognizable and sought-after guitar voices in music thanks to a singular style as airy and atmospheric as it is adventurous.’
Washington Post
‘Bill Frisell is the Clark Kent of jazz guitar - beneath his mild exterior lurks a supernatural talent.’
The Times
Nonesuch launches an ongoing series of guitarist/composer Bill Frisell retrospective albums with The Best of Bill Frisell Volume 1: Folk Songs on February 23. Each of the compilations is designed to focus on a specific aspect of his remarkably varied catalogue. For more than 20 years, and over the course of 22 discs on Nonesuch, Frisell has created work that touches on both familiar genres and on yet-to-be-named sounds. This inaugural collection, with liner notes by collaborator Elvis Costello, documents Frisell’s excursions into what can broadly be called folk music - his highly personal take on country, bluegrass, blues, and Americana.
The set draws from such critically acclaimed albums as Nashville; Gone, Just Like a Train; Good Dog, Happy Man; and Ghost Town. It includes original material and renditions of classics like Hank Williams’ ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’, A.P. Carter’s ‘Wildwood Flower’, and the traditional tune, ‘Shenandoah’, performed as a guitar duet with labelmate Ry Cooder. Other renowned players joining Frisell on these tracks include dobro player Jerry Douglas and bassist Viktor Krauss, as well as drummer Jim Keltner, keyboardist/producer Wayne Horvitz, and pedal steel player Greg Leisz.
The material selected here represents more than a decade’s worth of recordings, from Frisell’s second Nonesuch disc, 1990’s Is That You? to 2002’s The Willies, a trio session with guitarist-banjo player Danny Barnes and bassist Keith Lowe. Frisell had discovered these two Texas transplants playing “old-timey, bluegrass sort of music” on a visit to one of his favorite Seattle haunts, the Tractor Tavern.
In a career that spans more than 30 years and 100-plus recordings, Bill Frisell has been hailed by critics around the world; the Philadelphia Inquirer writes, “like Miles Davis and few others, his signature is built from pure sound and inflection; an anti-technique that is instantly identifiable.” Frisell’s recordings over the last decades span a wide range of musical influences, from Buster Keaton film scores (The High Sign/One Week, Go West), to Gary Larson cartoon soundtracks (Quartet), to original compositions for extended ensemble with horns (This Land, Blues Dream) and collaborations with the acclaimed rhythm section of bassist Viktor Krauss and drummer Jim Keltner (Gone, Just Like a Train and, Good Dog, Happy Man). Other releases include an album with Nashville musicians (Nashville), the solo album Ghost Town, an album of his arrangements of songs by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach (The Sweetest Punch), trio albums with jazz legends Dave Holland, Elvin Jones, Ron Carter, and Paul Motian, and a collection of American traditional songs and original compositions inspired by them entitled The Willies. Unspeakable, produced by Hal Willner, won a Grammy in 2005. After back-to-back trio albums, Nonesuch released History, Mystery last year; the two-disc set finds Frisell performing and recording again with a large band. Down Beat has cited his catalogue, including more than 20 recordings for Nonesuch, as “the best recorded output of the decade.”
(Quelle: Warner Music, 27.2.2009)
FORMAT: CD
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