BILL FRISELL

'William Richard "Bill" Frisell' (born March 18, 1951) is a North American jazz guitarist, progressive folk musician and composer. Frisell uses a wide range of effects (delay, distortion, reverb, octave shifters, and volume pedals, to name a few) to create unique sounds from his instrument.

Contents

Biography

Discography

TV Appearances

References

External links

Biography

Frisell was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but spent most of his youth in the Denver, Colorado area and went to the University of Northern Colorado to study music. His original guitar teacher in the Denver area was Dale Bruning, with whom Frisell has released a duo album. After graduating from Northern Colorado, where he studied with Johnny Smith, Frisell went to Berklee School of Music in Boston and studied with Jim Hall. This experience was to make a lasting impression on his playing.
Frisell's major break came when Pat Metheny, unable to make a session, recommended him to Paul Motian, then playing for ECM Records^[1]. Frisell became ECM's in-house guitar player, and worked on several albums, most notably Jan Garbarek's 1981 ''Paths, Prints''. Frisell's first solo release was ''In Line'', and was solo guitar except for some tracks featuring Arild Andersen on bass.
Frisell's first group to receive much acclaim was his quartet with Kermit Driscoll on bass, Joey Baron on drums, and Hank Roberts on cello (later slimmed down to a trio when Roberts left). Many other albums with larger ensembles were recorded with this group as the core.
In the 1980s Frisell lived in New York City and was an active participant in the city's thriving music scene. He forged an early partnership with John Zorn—including as a member of quick-change band Naked City—and performed or recorded with many others. He also became known for his work in Paul Motian's group – originally a quintet, but which slimmed down to an unusual and influential bassless trio of just Motian, Frisell and Joe Lovano. In 1988 Frisell left New York City and moved to Seattle, Washington^[2].
In the 1990s Frisell made two of his most celebrated albums: first, ''Have a Little Faith'', an ambitious survey of Americana of all stripes, from Charles Ives and Aaron Copland (the entirety of ''Billy the Kid'') to Bob Dylan and Madonna (a surreal version of "Live to Tell"); and second, ''This Land'', a complementary set of originals. He also branched out into performing soundtracks to the silent films of Buster Keaton with his trio, and contributed to Ryuichi Sakamoto's album ''Heartbeat''.
In the mid-1990s, Frisell disbanded his trio. He continued the trend marked by ''Have a Little Faith'' by more explicitly incorporating elements of bluegrass and country music into his music. His friendship with Gary Larson led him to provide music for the TV version of ''The Far Side''^[3] (released on the album ''Quartet'' along with music written for Keaton's ''Convict 13'').
Some of Frisell's songs including "Over the Rainbow" and "Coffaro's Theme" were featured in the movie "Finding Forrester" (2000).
Between 2003 and 2005 Frisell acted as musical director for Century of Song, a series of concerts at the German arts festival RuhrTriennale. Frisell invited artists including Rickie Lee Jones, Elvis Costello, Suzanne Vega, Arto Lindsay, Loudon Wainwright III, Vic Chesnutt, Van Dyke Parks, Buddy Miller, Ron Sexsmith and Chip Taylor to perform their favourite songs in new arrangements.
In 2005, Frisell won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album for his album ''Unspeakable''.

Discography

★ ''In Line'' (1983) ECM

★ ''Theoretically'' (with Tim Berne) (1984)

★ ''Rambler'' (1984) ECM

★ ''Smash & Scatteration'' (with Vernon Reid) (1985)

★ ''Lookout for Hope'' (1987) ECM

★ ''Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films'' (1988) — One of Various Artists

★ ''Before We Were Born'' (1989) all Nonesuch henceforth

★ ''Is That You?'' (1990)

★ ''Where in the World?'' (1991)

★ ''Have a Little Faith'' (1992)

★ ''Live'' (1993)

★ ''This Land'' (1994)

★ ''American Blood/Safety in Numbers'' (1995)

★ ''Go West: Music for the Films of Buster Keaton'' (1995)

★ ''The High Sign/One Week'' {Keaton} (1995)

★ ''Quartet'' (1996)

★ ''Nashville'' (1997)

★ ''Gone, Just Like a Train'' (1998)

★ ''Good Dog, Happy Man'' (1999)

★ ''Ghost Town'' (2000)

★ ''Blues Dream'' (2001)

★ ''With Dave Holland and Elvin Jones'' (2001)

★ ''The Willies'' (2002)

★ ''The Intercontinentals'' (2003)

★ ''Unspeakable'' (2004)

★ ''Richter 858'' (2005)

★ ''East/West'' (2005)

★ ''Further East/Further West'' (2005) download

★ ''Bill Frisell, Ron Carter, Paul Motian'' (2006)

★ ''Frisell/Carter/Motian e.p.'' (2006) download

★ ''Floratone'' (2007)

TV Appearances

★ ''SOLOS: the jazz sessions'' (2004) Bravo! Canada

References

1. Jung, F. A Fireside Chat with Paul Motian. ''Jazz Weekly''
2. Seven, R. (2001) The Sound of One Man Dreaming. ''Pacific Northwest Magazine''.
3. Bill Frisell Biography

External links

★ Equipment

★ Official site

★ The Bill Frisell Discography

★ Bill Frisell Solo Transcriptions

★ Live performance images

★ The Bill Frisell Compositions database

★ Recent concert review of Bill Frisell at JazzChicago.net

★ 2003 Afropop Worldwide Interview with Bill Frisell