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Bill
Frisell
Born
in Baltimore, Frisell grew up in Denver, CO. He began playing
the clarinet in the fourth grade. Frisell took up guitar
a few years later for his personal amusement. He continued
with the clarinet, playing in school concert and marching
bands. Frisell briefly considered playing classical clarinet
professionally. He played guitar in rock and R&B bands
as a teenager (high school classmates included Philip Bailey,
Andrew Woolfork, and Larry Dunn, future members of the funk
group Earth, Wind, and Fire). He discovered jazz in the
music of Wes Montgomery, and began to study the music. Dale
Bruning, a Denver-based guitarist and educator, fed his
fascination with jazz. Frisell decided to make guitar his
primary instrument. After briefly attending the University
of Northern Colorado, he moved to Boston in 1971 to attend
the Berklee School of Music. There he studied with Michael
Gibbs and John Damian. While at Berklee, Frisell connected
with other like-minded players (Pat Metheny was a classmate).
He also studied with Jim Hall, who became an important influence,
especially in terms of harmony. In the mid-'70s, Frisell
began moving away from pure bebop and began fusing jazz
with his other musical interests. At about this time he
began developing his atmospheric, quasi-mictrotonal style.
He discovered that, by using a guitar with a flexible neck,
he could manipulate the instrument's intonation.
A combination of experimental techniques and signal processors
like delay and reverb gave Frisell a sound unlike any other
guitarist. In the late '70s he traveled to Belgium. There
he met Manfred Eicher, the founder of ECM Records. Beginning
in the early '80s, Frisell recorded prolifically for the
label, as leader and sideman with such musicians as Paul
Motian and Jan Garbarek. He continued with the label throughout
the decade, earning a reputation as ECM's "house guitarist."
Frisell became much acclaimed by critics for his sophisticated
yet accessible work. Frisell moved to New York in the '80s,
where he worked with many of the most creative musicians
active on the city's "downtown" jazz scene. In
the '80s and '90s he would record and perform with a huge
variety of artists, not all of them jazz musicians. Collaborators
would include rock and pop musicians (drummer Ginger Baker,
singers Marianne Faithfull and Elvis Costello), experimental
jazz musicians (saxophonist/composers John Zorn and Tim
Berne), and at least one classical composer (Gavin Bryars).
Frisell composed soundtracks for the silent films of Buster
Keaton. His 1996 album Quartet won the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis,
the German equivalent of the Grammy.
Frisell became an annual winner of various magazine polls
for his solo work and recordings. By the end of the '90s,
Frisell was one of the most well-known jazz musicians in
the world, with an audience and an aesthetic that transcended
the boundaries of any given style. It should be mentioned
that, while Frisell is best known for his somewhat "ambient"
guitar technique, he is a swinging, harmonically fluent
jazz player when the occasion warrants. Frisell moved to
Seattle, WA, in 1989, where he lives as of this writing.
Visit
the official Bill Frisell website here
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Bill
Frisell: Intercontinentals
Bill
Frisell took the Downtown New York jazz scene to Nashville,
and Marc Ribot did the same thing for Cuba with his Los
Cubanos Postizos and Muy Divertido. But until Frisell's
The Intercontinentals the robust, haunting sound of Malian
blues guitar was largely untouched by six-stringing jazzoids.
The aptly named Frisell ensemble here includes Brazilian
guitar and vocal great Vinicius Cantuaria (playing solid
drums half the time), Mali's premier percussionist Sidiki
Camara, Greek oud and bouzouki virtuoso Christos Govetas,
pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz, and violinist Jenny
Scheinman. Rather than cover all the band's continents,
though, the focal point is largely singular: "Boubacar"
(in honor of Malian guitar pioneer Boubacar Traore) opens
the set and has its vibe continued with a cover of his
"Baba Drame," and everywhere the notes are hit
and moods invoked as if Ali Farka Toure were looking on
from Timbuktu. This is, though, still Frisell. An American
earthiness crops up in Leisz's steel, as does the Mediterranean
in Govetas's oud. And Frisell's sampled loops create an
atmospheric cloudiness grounded by Camara's calabash and
djembe and Cantuaria's drumming. In the constant sonic
middle ground are the trifecta of oud, violin, and bass,
merging the melody and rhythm brilliantly. Rootsy and
undeniable, The Intercontinentals is yet another Frisellian
work of genius - Andrew Bartlett Order
here from Amazon.com
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