To be reliable yet surprising is a tough trick to pull off, but Bill Frisell keeps on doing it. The Baltimore-born guitarist is consistent in style, applying his eerie, echoey vibrato to all forms of Americana from ancient folk to modern rock. Yet his music is as outward looking as it is reflective.
With Thomas Morgan on bass and Rudy Royston on drums in this offbeat double album, Frisell is backed on one disc by the Brussels Philharmonic and on the other by Umbria Jazz Orchestra. Both bands are arranged by the English veteran Michael Gibbs, but the moods are very different: fatalistic film noir for the first and casual country rock for the second. The vinyl edition has a bonus LP of trio tracks.
Gibbs and Frisell give us a chance to hear some tunes done in both styles. Ron Carter’s Doom is an ominously plodding piece that seems made for sighing strings. Frisell rolls round among them as if trapped. Then the jazz orchestra version is a chromatic lullaby that gently rocks the guitarist to sleep. Electricity is a twitchy march that in the big band’s hands has an Indian feel, but the strings make it more like Shostakovich.
Cinematic intrigue is never far away. Strange Meeting is a sexy slab of surf rock meets spy jazz; Sean Connery with a Stratocaster. Nocturne Vulgaire and Beautiful Dreamer evoke exquisite mystery, the strings curling round the guitar like smoke from Philip Marlowe’s pipe. Sweet Rain suggests a femme fatale, with Morgan and Royston swaying as Frisell swoons among the violins. Get this one. It’s criminally good. (Blue Note)
★★★★★
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