Bill Frisell - Blues Dream (2001)

01.Blues Dream
02.Ron Carter
03.Pretty Flowers Were Made For Blooming
04.Pretty Stars Were Made To Shine
05.Where Do We Go?
06.Like Dreamers Do (Part One)
07.Like Dreamers Do (Part Two)
08.Outlaws
09.What Do We Do?
10.Episode
11.Soul Merchant
12.Greg Leisz
13.The Tractor
14.Fifty Years
15.Slow Dance
16.Things Will Never Be The Same
17.Dream On
18.Blues Dream (Reprise).

BLUES DREAM is another in a series of guitarist Bill Frisell's painterly, roots-inflected explorations of American music. Here, Frisell is joined by a horn section which includes trumpeter Ron Miles and trombonist Curtis Fowlkes (of the Jazz Passengers), and the sound of hard brass in the mix crisply offsets his idiosyncratic, bent-note, impresssionistic techniques. Actually, the guitarist gets off more than a few rock-licks on the R&B jam "Ron Carter," a tribute to the bassist that, interestingly, sounds nothing like the elder jazzman's own music. Frisell returns to a more familiar pastures on "Pretty Flowers Were Made For Blooming" and its uptempo cousin, "Pretty Stars Were Made To Shine," which sound as though they were cribbed directly from the Carter Family Songbook. But, on "Like Dreamers Do (Pts. 1 & 2)," the presence of those horns prevents the leader from getting too lost in his Americana reveries. Consequently, BLUES DREAM is one of the strongest sounding solo outings of Bill Frisell's career.

Recorded at O'Henry Sound Studios, Burbank, California.

Personnel: Bill Frisell (acoustic & electric guitars, loops); Billy Drewes (alto saxophone); Ron Miles (trumpet); Curtis Fowlkes (trombone); Greg Leisz (lap steel, pedal steel, Scheerhorn resonator & National steel guitars, mandolin); David Piltch (bass); Kenny Wollesen (drums, percussion).

Bill Frisell - Intercontinentals (2003)

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Bill Frisell - Good Dog, Happy Man (1999)

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Paul Motian,Bill Frisell,Joe Lovano - Time and time again (2007)

01.Cambodia
02.Wednesday
03.Onetwo
04.Whirlpool
05.In Remembrance Of Things Past
06.K.T.
07.This Nearly Was Mine
08.Party Line
09.Light Blue
10.Time And Time Again.



Paul Motian - Drums
Bill Frisell - Guitar
Joe Lovano - Saxophones.

Gary Peacock & Bill Frisell - Just So Happens (1994)

01.Only Now
02.In Walked Po
03.Wapitis Dream
04.Home on the Range, No. 1 Traditional
05.Home on the Range, No. 2 Traditional
06.Through a Skylight
07.Red River Valley Traditional
08.Reciprocity
09.Good Morning Heartache
10.N.O.M.B.
11.Just So Happens.

Review by David R. Adler
Gary Peacock's duo album with Bill Frisell is rewarding, though a bit repetitive. Most interesting is the sonic contrast between Peacock's imposing upright bass and Frisell's quirky electric guitar. After eight tracks, however, the appearance of Frisell's acoustic guitar — on the standard "Good Morning, Heartache" — comes as a welcome change. Most of the pieces are free improvisations, and while they all have their moments, some wind up treading water. "In Walked Po," an oblique take on the blues, is an exception. "Reciprocity" and "N.O.M.B." are the only originals credited solely to Peacock, leading one to believe they were written before the session. Perhaps not surprisingly, these two tracks are the most coherent on the record. The duo also plays two versions of "Home on the Range" (one would have sufficed), and Peacock renders "Red River Valley" as an unaccompanied solo. For Frisell, at least, this could have been a sign of things soon to come: His Nashville album was released about a year later.

Bill Frisell - Lookout for Hope (1987)

Shot at 2009-05-0901.Lookout for Hope
02.Little Brother Bobby
03.Hang Dog
04.Remedios the Beauty
05.Lonesome
06.Melody for Jack
07.Hackensack
08.Little Bigger
09.The Animal Race
10.Alien.

Joey Baron - Drums
Kermit Driscoll - Bass
Bill Frisell - Guitar (Acoustic), Banjo, Guitar (Electric), Performer
Hank Roberts - Cello, Vocals, Voices.

Review by Michael G. Nastos

Bill Frisell's early work even in its retrospectively rawest form holds all of the values that he has evinced through his entire career. Country and eastern sounds merge with a signature sky church electric approach that is unique unto only himself. Lookout for Hope -- his first recording for the ECM label -- brands Frisell as a visionary, a virtuoso, and a fusioneer of many sounds that set him far apart from labelmates Pat Metheny, John Abercrombie, and Terje Rypdal. While both Frisell and Rypdal give giant kudos to Jimi Hendrix, there is a sense of peace and serenity that puts soulfulness on a different plane. Cellist Hank Roberts and bassist Kermit Driscoll have much to do with giving Frisell his head, weaving similar silver sounds in and through him. Then add Joey Baron's deft, precise, and colorful drumming to put the exclamation point on Frisell's new approach to improvised music. Where the haunting, ringing, rocking, strident sound of Hendrix is resurrected and modernized during the title selection, "Hang Dog" has the Afro-Asian minimalist resonance of Steve Reich accented in 7/8 time by Frisell's banjo. Nods to Ornette Coleman's puzzle-pieced surety on the peppy head arrangement of "The Animal Race" and the twangy, witty, cartoonish take of Thelonious Monk's "Hackensack" brands Frisell a true maverick and individualist. At its best, east and west merge someplace in between during the memorably beautiful overdubbed and echoing sounds on "Lonesome," while the slight yet sincere expectation evinced on "Animal Prints" is the seamless and alluring alchemy of natural, spiritual, and ethereal. With Lookout for Hope, Bill Frisell is not so much setting trends and fashion as he is establishing a fresh sound, utterly unique from all others, and laying a foundation for many things to come.

Bill Frisell - In Line (1983)

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Bill Frisell - Nashville (1995)

01.Gimme a Holler
02.Go Jake03.One of These Days
04.Mr. Memory05.Brother06.Will Jesus Wash the Bloodstains from Your Hands
07.Keep Your Eyes Open
08.Pipe Down
09.Family
10.We're Not from Around Here
11.Dogwood Acres
12.Shucks13.The End of the World
14.Gone.

Bill Frisell (guitar)
Robin Holcomb (vocals)
Ron Block (acoustic guitar, banjo)
Jerry Douglas (dobro)
Adam Steffey (mandolin)
Pat Bergeson (harmonica)
Viktor Krauss (bass).

Bill Frisell is a gentle giant of modern guitar, pure in his jazz-influenced mission to uncover and reinvent American music across a disparate styles. At once unmistakable for the fluid, elastic sound of his instrument and restless in his pilgrimage across often widely varied sources, Frisell can find the lyrical gold beneath pop, rock, and classical sources--devling into Madonna, Aaron Copeland, and John Hiatt with equal success. Nashville finds Frisell exploring the kindred small group dynamics and string-bending aesthetics of country and bluegrass in the company of a shrewdly-chosen players including members of Alison Krauss' esteemed Union Station band, virtuoso dobro player Jerry Douglas, and vocalist Robin Holcomb, who confers an earthy beauty to the set's three vocals culled from Neil Young ("One of These Days"), Hazel Dickens ("Will Jesus Wash the Bloodstains from Your Hands"), and Skeeter Davis's country crossover, "The End of the World." Keening lyricism, soul-deep emotions, and the kinship of wonderful musicians communicating across putative stylistic borders make Nashville a stunning achievement. --Sam Sutherland.