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A close encounter with the Grim Reaper can spark a newsreel review of one’s entire life. In an interview last month, Bill Frisell was still feeling under the weather after tangling with COVID-19, but that had nothing to do with why his 71 years on Earth had recently flashed before his eyes.
Rather than confronting his mortality, he’d been engaged in the surreal experience of peering at his life through a microscope, a lens provided by Philip Watson in the granular biography “Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed The Sound of American Music.” As an artist not given to personal revelation, Frisell found reading the text more disorienting than distasteful, while expressing admiration for Watson’s meticulous research.
“He was very careful and I spent a lot of time with him,” Frisell said. “Finally, a few months ago, he called and said, OK, it’s all done now, and asked me to read the whole thing to make sure it’s correct. It was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life, very weird and amazing to sit there and go through every step of my life in extreme detail. I feel really lucky, but can’t help thinking, why me?”
It’s not false modesty that raises the question for Frisell, who’ll be signing copies of the bio after his upcoming Bay Area shows. He experiences music as a vehicle for communion with fellow creators rather than as a stage for self-promotion. But a good answer to his question can be found at Freight & Salvage in the coming days, when he settles into his second four-night residency at the Berkeley venue Sept. 8-11.
Performing with a different configuration each night, he opens the run Sept. 8 with the West Coast debut of his duo with Berkeley trumpet star Ambrose Akinmusire, who launched the collaboration in 2014 when he invited Frisell to join him as part of the Montreal International Jazz Festival’s invitational series. They’ve reconnected occasionally over the years, most recently during Akinmusire’s SFJAZZ residency last March, which introduced the new trio Owl Song with Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley.
Growing up in Oakland, Akinmusire often played along with Frisell’s albums, enamored by “the same thing that draws me to every musician, curiosity,” he said. “Bill is one of my role models. It’s beautiful he’s been able to maintain that curiosity for such a long career. He still questioning and pushing.”
The Sept. 9 concert presents Frisell at his most unfettered, alone on stage with various guitars and effects (“Beautiful Dreamer” takes lascivious delight in his harem of guitars). Frisell’s trio with drummer Rudy Royston and Hayward-raised bassist Thomas Morgan, which is featured on the masterly 2020 Blue Note album “Valentine,” plays Sept. 10 at the Freight, as well as his two shows Sept. 13 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz.
The trio builds on Frisell’s uncanny mind-meld with Morgan (documented on the 2017 duo ECM album “Small Town”), who was already working with jazz’s deepest explorers when they’re collaboration took root. Playing regularly with drum legend Paul Motian, with whom Frisell was associated for decades, Morgan got to know the guitarist while recording Motian’s final album, 2011’s “The Windmills of Your Mind” with vocalist Petra Haden.
“That’s where we super bonded,” Frisell said. “And then right after that I had these shows at SFJAZZ where I invited him to play with Petra and Geri Allen. Thomas came for that, and since then we’ve been doing all kinds of stuff together.”
The Bay Area also figures prominently in launching Harmony, Frisell’s song-oriented ensemble that closes the Freight residency on Sept. 11. Featuring singer Haden, Luke Bergman on guitar and vocals, and cellist Hank Roberts, who was part of Frisell’s storied 1980s quartet, Harmony was born out of the inaugural commission of the FreshGrass Foundation, a nonprofit seeking to create innovative news sounds in bluegrass and Americana music. Frisell premiered the new ensemble in 2016 at San Francisco’s The Strand Theater, and after recording the music for the 2019 Blue Note album “Harmony” they didn’t regroup until his Freight residency that year.
“From there we went on and did the whole bunch of stuff,” Frisell said. “I think of that as the beginning, and then we started adding all these other songs, a bunch of stuff we’ll probably do in Berkeley.”
It’s not just the group’s repertoire that’s expanded. For the Sept. 11Freight show, Frisell is melding Harmony with his trio, adding Morgan and Royston into the mix for the first time. For Royston, a top-tier accompanist in an era brimming with exceptional drummers, the experience of playing with the telepathic tandem of Frisell and Morgan has taught him about the power of subtraction.
“Playing with Bill is always about, what are we giving to each other?,” Royston said. “What are we giving this music? It’s funny, I play less with that trio. It’s really helped me mature in that context. I’ve learned to play less and listen more for the conversation.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at [email protected].
BILL FRISELL
At Freight & Salvage: 8 p.m. Sept. 8-10m, 7 p.m. Sept. 11; 2020 Addison St., Berkeley; $40-$55; www.thefreight.org
Kuumbwa Jazz Center: 7 and 9 p.m. Sept. 13; 320 Cedar St., Santa Cruz; $21-$52; www.kuumbwajazz.org.
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A close encounter with the Grim Reaper can spark a newsreel review of one’s entire life. In an interview last month, Bill Frisell was still feeling under the weather after tangling with COVID-19, but that had nothing to do with why his 71 years on Earth had recently flashed before his eyes.
Rather than confronting his mortality, he’d been engaged in the surreal experience of peering at his life through a microscope, a lens provided by Philip Watson in the granular biography “Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed The Sound of American Music.” As an artist not given to personal revelation, Frisell found reading the text more disorienting than distasteful, while expressing admiration for Watson’s meticulous research.
“He was very careful and I spent a lot of time with him,” Frisell said. “Finally, a few months ago, he called and said, OK, it’s all done now, and asked me to read the whole thing to make sure it’s correct. It was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life, very weird and amazing to sit there and go through every step of my life in extreme detail. I feel really lucky, but can’t help thinking, why me?”
It’s not false modesty that raises the question for Frisell, who’ll be signing copies of the bio after his upcoming Bay Area shows. He experiences music as a vehicle for communion with fellow creators rather than as a stage for self-promotion. But a good answer to his question can be found at Freight & Salvage in the coming days, when he settles into his second four-night residency at the Berkeley venue Sept. 8-11.
Performing with a different configuration each night, he opens the run Sept. 8 with the West Coast debut of his duo with Berkeley trumpet star Ambrose Akinmusire, who launched the collaboration in 2014 when he invited Frisell to join him as part of the Montreal International Jazz Festival’s invitational series. They’ve reconnected occasionally over the years, most recently during Akinmusire’s SFJAZZ residency last March, which introduced the new trio Owl Song with Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley.
Growing up in Oakland, Akinmusire often played along with Frisell’s albums, enamored by “the same thing that draws me to every musician, curiosity,” he said. “Bill is one of my role models. It’s beautiful he’s been able to maintain that curiosity for such a long career. He still questioning and pushing.”
The Sept. 9 concert presents Frisell at his most unfettered, alone on stage with various guitars and effects (“Beautiful Dreamer” takes lascivious delight in his harem of guitars). Frisell’s trio with drummer Rudy Royston and Hayward-raised bassist Thomas Morgan, which is featured on the masterly 2020 Blue Note album “Valentine,” plays Sept. 10 at the Freight, as well as his two shows Sept. 13 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz.
The trio builds on Frisell’s uncanny mind-meld with Morgan (documented on the 2017 duo ECM album “Small Town”), who was already working with jazz’s deepest explorers when they’re collaboration took root. Playing regularly with drum legend Paul Motian, with whom Frisell was associated for decades, Morgan got to know the guitarist while recording Motian’s final album, 2011’s “The Windmills of Your Mind” with vocalist Petra Haden.
“That’s where we super bonded,” Frisell said. “And then right after that I had these shows at SFJAZZ where I invited him to play with Petra and Geri Allen. Thomas came for that, and since then we’ve been doing all kinds of stuff together.”
The Bay Area also figures prominently in launching Harmony, Frisell’s song-oriented ensemble that closes the Freight residency on Sept. 11. Featuring singer Haden, Luke Bergman on guitar and vocals, and cellist Hank Roberts, who was part of Frisell’s storied 1980s quartet, Harmony was born out of the inaugural commission of the FreshGrass Foundation, a nonprofit seeking to create innovative news sounds in bluegrass and Americana music. Frisell premiered the new ensemble in 2016 at San Francisco’s The Strand Theater, and after recording the music for the 2019 Blue Note album “Harmony” they didn’t regroup until his Freight residency that year.
“From there we went on and did the whole bunch of stuff,” Frisell said. “I think of that as the beginning, and then we started adding all these other songs, a bunch of stuff we’ll probably do in Berkeley.”
It’s not just the group’s repertoire that’s expanded. For the Sept. 11Freight show, Frisell is melding Harmony with his trio, adding Morgan and Royston into the mix for the first time. For Royston, a top-tier accompanist in an era brimming with exceptional drummers, the experience of playing with the telepathic tandem of Frisell and Morgan has taught him about the power of subtraction.
“Playing with Bill is always about, what are we giving to each other?,” Royston said. “What are we giving this music? It’s funny, I play less with that trio. It’s really helped me mature in that context. I’ve learned to play less and listen more for the conversation.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at [email protected].
BILL FRISELL
At Freight & Salvage: 8 p.m. Sept. 8-10m, 7 p.m. Sept. 11; 2020 Addison St., Berkeley; $40-$55; www.thefreight.org
Kuumbwa Jazz Center: 7 and 9 p.m. Sept. 13; 320 Cedar St., Santa Cruz; $21-$52; www.kuumbwajazz.org.
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