journal.nonesuch.com

Financial Times: Frisell Combines Many Elements "Brilliantly" on New Album

Bill Frisell's latest Nonesuch release, the two-disc History, Mystery, is out today. The Financial Times gives it four stars, saying "the austere drumbeats, plaintive strings and stark brass hang together brilliantly, welded by the leader's resonant guitar and cinematic vision." Reviewer Mike Hobart credits Bill's "off-kilter version of Americana" with having "the same delicacy, precision and grace as court music, though with bags more bite." To read the review, visit ft.com.

The Times (UK) also has a four-star review of the album, with John Bungey finding it "hard to think of an electric guitarist who has explored so much musical territory and always claimed it as his own," as Bill has. Bungey concludes:

Frisell's gently beautiful, wistfully offbeam scores predominate but there is a soulful cover of "A Change Is Going to Come." On "Struggle Part 2," his burning solo is a reminder that if someone gave him some tight trousers and a bad attitude, Frisell could even make a decent substitute for Keith Richards.

To read the review, visit entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.

The Boston Globe's Steve Greenlee echoes Bungey's evaluation, saying that "the coolest stuff" on the album includes Bill's "soul-jazz cover" of the Cooke tune "and a hot jazz-bebop hybrid version of Lee Konitz's 'Sub-Conscious Lee.'" The review can be found at boston.com.

The Independent names History, Mystery the Jazz Album of the Week, with the paper's Tim Cumming calling it "extraordinarily eclectic" delivered in "an all but seamless suite that's full of musical contrasts, rich textures, lengthening shadows, and unexpected turns." Cumming says "it's consistently engaging" with a closing guitar solo that's "just wonderful." His colleague Nick Coleman adds that on this collection, listeners will find the "Frisell who makes great soundtrack music; the one who rejoices in sieving the Hot Club de Paris out of Thelonious Monk." To read Coleman's review, visit independent.co.uk.

You can listen to Bill and his quintet's performance at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival from last Sunday, which first aired on BBC Radio 3's Jazz on 3 last Friday. It will be available online through Friday of this week at bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazzon3.

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Click here to add the two-disc History, Mystery directly to your Shopping Cart for $17 and download the album MP3s at no additional cost.

Guardian: Four Stars for Frisell's New Gem-Studded Album

Bill Frisell's latest Nonesuch release, History, Mystery, a two disc collection, is due out this Tuesday. The BBC's Chris Jones exclaims: "[T]he whole album stands as yet another testament to the man's place at the very epicentre of modern American music. Yes, he's done it again."

"Some artists, as they grow older, have a tendency to retreat into a safety zone that displays their skill but doesn't expand their repertoire or provide impetus for keeping up," says Jones. "Not so guitarist Bill Frisell ... [H]e's been refining and expanding his palette with every release." And with the new album, he "does it again."

Balancing "traditionalism with some remarkably subtle bleeps and loops," the album features a number of Bill's own tunes ("the standard is amazing"), as well as his take on works by others that "demonstrate why he's such a great interpreter as well." A highlight for Jones is the rendition of Boubcar Traore’s Baba Drame: "This hypnotic weave through the Malian's blues is spellbinding. And just so right ..."

To read the review, visit bbc.co.uk.

Bill's performance at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival this past Sunday, which The Times (UK)'s Alyn Shipton calls "the highlight" of the event, will air on BBC Radio 3's Jazz on 3 program, with host Jez Nelson, tonight at 11:30 PM GMT. The episode includes an interview with Bill from Cheltenham and songs from his new quintet's set there: "Monroe," "Probability Cloud," and "A Change Is Gonna Come," which are on the new record, as well as "Benny's Bugle" by Benny Goodman and Ron Carter's "Mood." To listen live online, visit bbc.co.uk/radio3.

The Guardian, in a four-star review of History, Mystery, says the album is "studded with gems," featuring a line-up of musicians that reviewer John L. Waters calls "a kind of roots-jazz-classical chamber hybrid, though with none of the hang-ups that might imply." Waters sees "a genuine thoughtfulness" from Bill, who, he writes, "has the surest touch as a musician." It is an attribute "that is true for his playing, where he can invest a single note with meaning, and it's true in the way he organises his music and musicians."

To read the review, visit arts.guardian.co.uk.

To learn more about the album and hear three full-length tracks, visit nonesuch.com/historymystery.

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Click here to pre-order Bill Frisell's two-disc History, Mystery for $17 and download the album MP3s, at no extra charge, on release day, May 13.

Bill Frisell, Highlight of Cheltenham Festival, "Trumps Again" with New Album

Bill Frisell introduced his new quintet to European audiences at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival this past Sunday, and, writes The Times (UK)'s Alyn Shipton, it was "the highlight" of the four-star event. "A musician of eclectic tastes," says Shipton, Frisell "explored swing, South African rhythms, and old-style bebop with freshness and invention, as the drummer Rudy Royston and bassist Larry Gernadier pushed the group into ever-more exciting ingenuity." Read the Cheltenham review at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.

The Telegraph's Ivan Hewett writes that snagging Bill and his quintet was "quite a catch" for the festival. Frisell offered his trademark "beautifully shaped lick," bringing the set into focus with his "favourite territory of musical Americana, with blues and bluegrass and Miles Davis alongside Frisell's own compositions," a repertoire mix similar to that of his forthcoming two-CD Nonesuch release, History, Mystery, due out next week.

Hewett says of Bill's "equally engaging" quintet members:

There was bassist Larry Grenadier [also of the Brad Mehldau Trio], shooting up and down the finger-board with pinpoint accuracy; drummer Rudy Royston, elegant and sharp; saxophonist Chris Cheek, conjuring a sound of Ben Webster-ish softness; and cornet-player Ron Miles, who was like one of those dinner guests who doesn't have much small talk, but when he says something it's really worth hearing.

Read the review at telegraph.co.uk.

Ron Miles joined Bill on cornet for the History, Mystery recording, as did violinist Jenny Scheinman, violist Eyvind Kang, cellist Hank Roberts, clarinetist/tenor sax player Greg Tardy, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Kenny Wollesen.

All About Jazz Senior Editor Chris May, says Bill "comes up trumps again" with History, Mystery, an album that mixes "bop, post-bop, Malian desert blues, Delta blues, 1960s soul, urban groove and low slung rock ... woven together by Frisell's attractive string arrangements."

May calls this "engrossing, grown-up music---but, crucially, grown-up music in which the memory of teenage kicks lives on ... It's a delight of the first order." History, Mystery, he concludes, is "serious, substantial stuff---and a whole lot of fun too."

To read the review, visit allaboutjazz.com. The review points to a number of highlights on the album, including the Frisell original "Probability Cloud," which you can hear at nonesuch.com/historymystery.

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Click here to pre-order Bill Frisell's two-disc History, Mystery for $17 and download the album MP3s, at no extra charge, on release day, May 13.

Nonesuch Events This Weekend

Below is information on just some of the many events going on this weekend across the globe featuring Nonesuch artists. Enjoy!

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Violinist Leila Josefowicz will join the Saint Louis Symphony, led by conductor Marin Alsop, for three performances of John Adams's The Dharma at Big Sur this weekend at Powell Hall in St. Louis. Also tonight, the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra led by Raymond Leppard will perform Adams's Violin Concerto at the Euskalduna Palace in Bilbao, Spain, featuring violinist Chlöe Hanslip, and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI led by Trevor Pinnock will perform the composer's 1990 orchestration of Liszt's The Black Gondola, in Turin, Italy.

Saturday night, the San Francisco Ballet presents the Mark Morris Dance Group's Joyride, featuring Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony, at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, as part of the continuing New Works Festival.

Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine gets three playings this weekend: Saturday night at the Saenger Theater in Mobile, Alabama, by Scott Speck and the Mobile Symphony, and Bloomington High School in Bloomington, Indiana, by Jose Valencia and the Musical Arts Youth Orchestra; and Sunday night at Royal Albert Hall, London, by Mark Gooding and the Harrow Young Musicians Philharmonic.

More information: boosey.com.

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Kronos Quartet plays the last of three performances at the Mondavi Center at the University of California, Davis, tonight: John Cage's Thirty Pieces for String Quartet with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Tickets: mondaviarts.org.

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Laurie Anderson will bring Homeland to the Moscow International Performing Arts Center in Russia on Saturday. On Sunday night, Laurie will join the weekend-long Symposium on Sound, a gathering of scientists, performers, and artists, at Leiden University in the Netherlands, for a discussion of the event's theme of mutual influence between art and science, especially as it relates to sound. Info: veenfabriek.nl.

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T Bone Burnett continues his tour with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at New Orleans' famed Jazz & Heritage Festival, aka Jazz Fest. The three are scheduled to take the Acura Stage this afternoon at 3:30 PM. Next, they'll head to Birmingham, Alabama, where they'll play the BJCC Arena Saturday night. Tickets: nojazzfest.com (4/25); bjcc.org (4/26).

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Bill Frisell closes out his two week residency at New York's Village Vanguard with performances all weekend. Playing with Bill are Chris Cheek on sax, Ron Miles on trumpet, Tony Scherr on bass, and Rudy Royston on drums. Tickets: villagevanguard.com.

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Satyagraha, Philip Glass's 1980 opera centered around Mahatma Gandhi's early years in South Africa, continues tonight at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The performance is sold out. More information: metoperafamily.org.

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Richard Goode will perform a free concert in New York City as part of the annual Free for All at Town Hall concert series. See the post in today's Nonesuch Journal for more information.

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Emmylou Harris takes the stage at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in downtown Nashville tonight for Premiere Evening, an annual fund-raising event to benefit the Center's educational and cultural programming. Tickets: tpac.org.

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k.d. lang's continues the Australian leg of her Watershed tour at the Entertainment Center in Adelaide Saturday night. Tickets: theaec.net.

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Brad Mehldau is in Quebec, Canada, tonight for a solo show at the Palais Montcalm. He returns to the States on Saturday for a performance with the trio with whom he recorded the new album Live at the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, and a Sunday night show at the Annenberg Center's Zellerbach Theater in Philadelphia. Tickets: palaismontcalm.ca (4/25); hop.dartmouth.edu (4/26); pennpresents.org (4/27).

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Youssou N'Dour will perform a special benefit concert tonight at New York's intimate venue Joe's Pub as part of a fund-raising effort for the Youssou N'Dour Foundation and his worldwide advocacy efforts. The acoustic set will be modeled on the smaller sets he leads at his club in Dakar. Tickets: joespub.com.

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Randy Newman will play a solo date tonight at the Riley Center at Mississippi State University's Meridian Campus. Tickets: msurileycenter.com.

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Nicholas Payton stays close to home for New Orleans' Jazz Fest. He and his quintet will take the stage in the WWOZ Jazz Tent at 4:05 PM on Sunday. Among the other performers at this year's festival are Stevie Wonder and Al Green, as well as Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with T Bone Burnett (see above). Tickets: nojazzfest.com.

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Steve Reich's Eight Lines will be performed by Ensemble Intercontemporain led by Ludovic Morlot tonight at Cité de la musique, Salle des concerts, in Paris.

Reich's Desert Music, will presented at the University of California, Berkeley, Saturday, as Drumming will be performed by percussionist Colin Currie at the Concert Hall in Perth, Scotland. Currie earned four stars in the Herald (UK) for his performance there earlier this week of Reich's Music for Pieces of Wood that "mesmerised." Also Saturday, the Smith Quartet brings the Triple Quartet to the Jacqueline du Pre Music Building in Oxford, England.

On Sunday, Reich's Cello Counterpoint will be performed at the Purcell Room in London by Endymion and his Vermont Counterpoint can be heard at Ford Hall at Ithaca College, with Melissa Wertheimer on flute.

More information: boosey.com

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The national tour of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, based on the 2005 Broadway production helmed by John Doyle, began its run at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre early this week. Performances continue there through May 4. Tickets: sweeneytoddtour.com

Bill Frisell Begins Two-Week Village Vanguard Residency Tonight

Bill Frisell begins a rare two-week residency at the Village Vanguard tonight in the first two of 13 sets with his 858 Quartet: Jenny Scheinman on violin, Eyvind Kang on viola, and Hank Roberts on cello. After a day's break, Bill will be back at the Vanguard for his second week of sets, this time with his quintet: Chris Cheek on sax, Ron Miles on trumpet, Tony Scherr on bass, and Rudy Royston on drums. For more information, visit villagevanguard.com.

Bill's next Nonesuch release, History, Mystery, is due out on May 13. Check in next week to pre-order the album from the Nonesuch Store.

Mehldau, Frisell, Redman to Play JVC Jazz NY, Part of "One of the More Promising Lineups" in Years (NY Times)

Brad Mehldau, Bill Frisell, and Joshua Redman will be among the participants in this year's JVC Jazz Festival New York, for which tickets went on sale today. The event will run from June 15 through 28 in multiple venues, including Carnegie Hall---hosting a broad range of artists like João Gilberto, Herbie Hancock, Al Green, and Mos Def---and a new venue, Le Poisson Rouge, programmed exclusively by Festival organizers, Festival Network.

Brad Mehldau will perform in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on June 22. Bill Frisell's trio will perform at the new space, on June 19, as will Joshua Redman, on June 26 and 27, in performances with the band Soulive.

The New York Times' Ben Ratliff calls recent structural changes at the Festival organization one that left the event itself "undiminished and newly energized." He finds this year's programming "edging closer to a truer reflection of serious jazz, with one of the more promising lineups in recent years." To read his article on George Wein, the event's founder, and the 2008 Festival, visit nytimes.com.

For full program and ticket information, visit festivalnetwork.com.

Bill Frisell, Glenn Kotche Perform at MusicNOW Festival This Week

Bill Frisell and Glenn Kotche will be on hand in Cincinnati, Ohio, this week as the third annual MusicNOW festival, organized by native son Bryce Dessner of The National, gets under way at Memorial Hall tonight. The four-day festival, which, in its first two years, featured artists like Sufjan Stevens, My Brightest Diamond, and Clogs, welcomes for this year's concerts a broad array of performers, including composer Nico Muhly, avante-garde ensemble Bang on a Can, Brooklyn-based band Grizzly Bear, and The Dirty Projectors.

Glenn performed in the inaugural MusicNOW in 2006, with Bang on a Can All-Star percussionist David Cossin, and returns this Friday to perform with Dessner and Bang on a Can on a double bill with Dirty Projectors. Bill makes his MusicNOW debut tomorrow night in a performance with his 858 Quartet (Eyvind Kang, Hank Roberts, and Jenny Scheinman) and classical guitarist Benjamin Verdery.

For more information, visit musicnowfestival.org. To read an interview on the festival with Dessner in the Cincinnati Enquirer, visit news.enquirer.com.

Happy Birthday to Bill Frisell

Nonesuch Records wishes Bill Frisell a very happy birthday today. Bill, who turns 57, has a few days off from his very busy tour schedule but will be back on the road starting March 27 for three nights at the Regattabar in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He'll be coming to New York City next month for a remarkable two-week, 12-set residency at the Village Vanguard beginning April 15---with his 858 Quartet, featuring Kyvind Kang, Hank Roberts, and Jenny Scheinman for the first week, then with his Quintet, featuring Tony Scherr, Rudy Royston, Ron Miles, and Chris Creek, for the second. For ticket information, visit villagevanguard.com.

Nonesuch Artists Take Manhattan (and Brooklyn, Too) This Sunday

With the Brad Mehldau Trio's weeklong residency at New York's Village Vanguard well under way and running through Sunday, the city will also be playing host to performances by a number of Nonesuch artists this weekend.

Sérgio and Odair Assad will perform in both sessions of Sunday's Brazilian Guitar Marathon concert, a two-part, multi-artist event they co-curated. The Marathon begins at 2 PM at the 92nd Street Y and will be hosted by John Schaefer of WNYC radio. The event is part of the nearly monthlong New York Guitar Festival, which has presented more than 200 of the world's greatest guitarist since 1999, including Bill Frisell (who'll be performing upstate instead this Sunday at Peekskill's Paramount Center for the Arts) and Emmylou Harris (who'll be at Michigan's Folk Fest finishing up her tour with Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Buddy Miller). For more information on the Brazilian Guitar Marathon, visit newyorkguitarfestival.org.

Playing later Sunday afternoon on the west side of town is Richard Goode, who performs works by Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, and Fauré at the Rose Theater as part of Lincoln Center's Great Performers events and its Virtuoso Recitals series. For further program and ticket information, visit lincolncenter.org.

Even with subway trains running on a weekend schedule, that should leave enough time for folks to head down to Brooklyn's Union Hall in Park Slope for Laura Veirs's set at 9:30 PM. Advance tickets are sold out, but a limited number of tickets will be available at show time. For more information, visit unionhallny.com.

And as always, you can find the dates and locations of Nonesuch artists' tours throughout the world on nonesuch.com by clicking the Tours button at the right.

Bill Frisell, Glenn Kotche to Perform at 2008 MusicNOW Festival

The line-up for Cincinnati's 2008 MusicNOW festival has been announced. The four-day multimedia event, running April 2-5, will include a concert on April 3 celebrating American guitar with Bill Frisell's 828 Quartet (Eyvind Kang, Hank Roberts, and Jenny Scheinman) as well as an April 4 program for which Glenn Kotche joins Dirty Projectors, Bang on a Can, and festival curator Bryce Dessner of The National.

For more information on the festival and tickets to these events, visit musicnowfestival.org.

Bill Frisell Plays Yoshi's Jazz Club in San Francisco

Bill Frisell and his trio, featuring drummer Joey Baron and bassist Tony Scherr, have set up shop at Yoshi's jazz club in San Francisco through the weekend. For the occasion, Beyond Chron , the city's alternative online daily, features an in-depth look at Bill's life and career, with details on the many albums in his prolific discography. "The breadth of his performing and recording situations is a testament not only to his singular guitar conception," writes E. "Doc" Smith, "but his musical versatility as well."

To read Smith's article, visit beyondchron.org.

LA Times: Frisell and Baron Do More with Less

Previewing Bill Frisell's concert last Friday at Santa Barbara's Lobero Theatre, the Santa Barbara Independent wrote that "if anyone can make big, deep music from the lean setting of a duo with his longtime ally, drummer Joey Baron, this Seattle-ite is the one."

The pair had proven that to be the case in the previous night's concert at the Jazz Bakery in Culver City, CA. In his review of that performance, Los Angeles Times critic Don Heckman writes that Frisell and Baron showed that "in the hands of gifted players, even the sparest elements can produce remarkable results." Heckman says that the duo's playing was "as challenging and exploratory as it was engaging and entertaining" and provided further proof of Frisell's "capacity to find challenging qualities in far-reaching genres."

To read the complete review, visit calendarlive.com. For upcoming tour information, click here.

Santa Barbara Independent: Bill Frisell This Week's Show of the Week

The Santa Barbara Independent takes advantage of the start of the New Year to combine the paper's list of the best of last year with a look at the best of what's to come. There Will Be Blood is among the best films of 2007, and among the city's best live shows last year, the Independent's Josef Woodard lists both Wilco's concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl in support of Sky Blue Sky and the Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau Quartet gig at Campbell Hall.

For this week's Show of the Week, Woodard names Bill Frisell's return to the city's Lobero Theatre, where "the always intriguing and poetic guitarist" will perform on Saturday with drummer Joey Baron. Woodard recalls Bill's 2004 performance at the Lobero as "one of the more enchanted musical encounters in the long history" of the Theatre, and says that Frisell "continues to surprise and delight," citing the guitarist's "dynamic" 2006 Nonesuch release with the "inspired" Ron Carter and Paul Motian.

To read the article, visit independent.com. For more information on Bill's show this Saturday, visit lobero.com.

Frisell, Mehldau in New Photo Book with Intimate Look at Jazz World

Just in time for the holidays, famed jazz photographer Jimmy Katz has published Jazz Katz: Jazz in NY, a collection of black-and-white photos that All About Jazz calls "a feast for the eyes." The book featuring jazz luminaries, including Brad Mehldau and Bill Frisell, on stage and behind the scenes. For more information, visit allaboutjazz.com.

Guardian Names 1,000 Must-Hear Albums (Part 1: A-M)

With iPods now holding up to 160 gigabytes of your favorite music, it might not be such a bad idea to start thinking of the 1,000 or so albums you just can't live without. Or, as the Guardian (UK) has put it, the 1,000 albums you must hear before you die. All this week, the Guardian is revealing, day by day, the records its music team thinks are must-hears "before you shuffle off your mortal coil."

Out so far on the list, released alphabetically by artist, are groups A through M. Here's some of what the Guardian's music mavens had to say about the Nonesuch albums they included:

• Amadou & Mariam: Dimanche à Bamako (2005) "This husband-and-wife rhythm and blues pairing from Mali were already huge in France before they added even more sparkle by hiring Manu Chao as producer. A sublimely paced record of pedal-to-the-metal acceleration and relaxed, freewheeling charm."

• Laurie Anderson: Big Science (1982, r. 2007) "Her dry humour, abrasive instrumentation and technological obsessions sound as current as ever: 'So hold me Mom, in your long arms. In your petrochemical arms. Your military arms. In your electronic arms.'"

• Buena Vista Social Club: Buena Vista Social Club (World Circuit/Nonesuch; 1997) "A bunch of elderly Cubans were unlikely candidates to displace Portishead as the dinner party soundtrack du jour but, with Ry Cooder's patronage ... the power and charm of its protagonists ensured theirs was a long-told tale ..."

• Brian Eno & David Byrne: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981, r. 2006) "Underloved at the time but hugely cherished since, this album sees Byrne and Eno travel into the heart of darkness, their art-rock fuelled and flavoured by African percussion, Egyptian pop singers and samples of crabby radio DJs and a real-life exorcism. An experiment, but utterly absorbing nonetheless."

• Ali Farka Touré: Savane (World Circuit/Nonesuch; 2006) "Ali Farka Touré, who died in March 2006, was the finest and best-loved African guitarist of his generation. Often described as the godfather of the desert blues, he proved through his hypnotic instrumental work and singing that the blues must have originated from his home country of Mali ... He recorded a series of classic albums, ... but this album, released after his death, is arguably his finest. That's certainly the way he saw it ...  [On this album,] he produced some of the most compelling guitar work of his career ..."

• Ibrahim Ferrer: Buenos Hermanos (World Circuit/Nonesuch; 2003) "Backed by Ry Cooder's dream team—the jazz bassist Cachaito, the surf-rock guitarist Manuel Galbán and the Blind Boys of Alabama on backing vocals—Ferrer's effortlessly soulful voice has never sounded better: crooning the boleros, rolling his Rs on the salsas and making staggering vocal improvisations sound as casual as clearing his throat."

• Bill Frisell: Have a Little Faith (1993) "Jazz, folk, classical, pop—like a small-town electrical store, Frisell's landmark album has it all. Made with an unusual jazz quintet that includes Guy Klucevsek's accordion, it's a kind of love letter to American music, with John Hiatt's rolling title track and tunes by Copland, Ives, Foster, Rollins, Dylan and even Madonna."

• Kronos Quartet / Pat Metheny / Steve Reich: Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint (1990) "Different Trains, with its locomotive rhythms and melodies generated by the cadences of speech, is a meditation on Reich's wartime childhood and the fate of Jews in the Holocaust; it's the composer's most moving work."

• Orlando Cachaito López: Cachaito (World Circuit/Nonesuch; 2001) "Even though the Buena Vista Social Club franchise had thoroughly shaken up world music, nobody was quite ready for this sprawling, eclectic and slightly bonkers album from bassist Cachaito and producer Nick Gold, which mashes reggae, jazz, and French hip-hop with Cuba's finest."

Also on the list were Ry Cooder (Chicken Skin Music), k.d. lang (Ingénue), The Magnetic Fields (69 Love Songs), Brad Mehldau Trio (The Art of the Trio, Vol 4: Back at the Vanguard), and Pat Metheny (80/81).

For all the artists A through M, visit music.guardian.co.uk. Stay tuned for N through Z!

The Secret of Bill Frisell's Success

In a feature published earlier this month in All About Jazz, writer Nenad Georgievski examines the fruitful recording career of Bill Frisell, now approaching its quarter-century mark:

Clearly one of the most original and most proficient guitarists now playing, he is acknowledged as one of the most influential and exciting jazz guitarists to emerge in the latter half of the 20th century. Noted for his unparalleled sensibilities, over the years Frisell has pursued emotional honesty over technical perfection to achieve a specific sound that is both powerful and beautiful. As a solo artist, he has explored various music venues and taken his listeners to a lot of places ... Simply put, you never know what to expect from Frisell.

An important part of Frisell's prolific output has been his stints with a veritable Who's Who of musical innovators, from Arto Lindsay to John Zorn. And though he has worked with some very distinctive voices—his most recent Nonesuch release is an album with Ron Carter and Paul Motian—Bill's own has always remained a recognizable contribution to his collaborations. "What I like about certain musicians," Georgievski writes, "is their ability to add their magic regardless of the context and at the same time to keep their identity and credibility intact and strong. Therefore whether playing other people's music or his own, his sound is unique and vibrant with rich and often unexpected harmonics."

The article offers what may be the best explanation for Frisell's continued success when Georgievski asks the guitarist about his seemingly non-stop touring schedule. Frisell's response: "There's nothing I'd rather do than play music."

Read the complete article at allaboutjazz.com.

For information on catching Bill on tour, click here.