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Bill Frisell: Big Sur

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Okeh Records
Released: 2013.06.18
Time:
 64:25
Category: Jazz
Producer(s): Lee Townsend
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.billfrisell.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2016
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] The Music of Glen Deven Ranch (Bill Frisell) - 3:46
[2] Sing Together Like a Family (Bill Frisell) - 4:22
[3] A Good Spot (Bill Frisell) - 0:53
[4] Going to California (Bill Frisell) - 3:17
[5] The Big One (Bill Frisell) - 2:44
[6] Somewhere (Bill Frisell) - 1:32
[7] Gather Good Things (Bill Frisell) - 5:31
[8] Cry Alone (Bill Frisell) - 3:18
[9] The Animals (Bill Frisell) - 1:39
[10] Highway 1 (Bill Frisell) - 4:51
[11] A Beautiful View (Bill Frisell) - 4:05
[12] Hawks (Bill Frisell) - 4:40
[13] We All Love Neil Young (Bill Frisell) - 1:39
[14] Big Sur (Bill Frisell) - 3:05
[15] On the Lookout (Bill Frisell) - 2:01
[16] Shacked Up (Bill Frisell) - 4:11
[17] Walking Stick (For Jim Cox) (Bill Frisell) - 4:10
[18] Song for Lana Weeks (Bill Frisell) - 4:14
[19] Far Away (Bill Frisell) - 4:36

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Bill Frisell - Guitar
Jenny Scheinman - Violin
Eyvind Kang - Viola
Hank Roberts - Cello
Rudy Royston - Drums

Lee Townsend - Producer
Adam Muñoz - Engineer, Mixing
Greg Calbi - Mastering
Adam Blomberg - Production Assistant
Paul Moore - Art Direction, Design
Monica Frisell - Photography
Wulf Müller - A&R

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2013 CD Okeh - 88883717382

Recorded and Mixed at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, CA. Mastered at Sterling Sound, New York, NY.



Bill Frisell's Big Sur, on Sony's resurrected Okeh imprint, collects 19 individual pieces in a suite commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival. He spent ten days in retreat at Big Sur's Glen Deven Ranch, where he composed most of it. His band on this date includes his 858 Quartet - Jenny Scheinman: violin; Eyvind Kang: viola; Hank Roberts: cello - and his drummer Rudy Royston; Kang and Royston are from his Beautiful Dreamers group, making this an unorthodox string quartet with drums. Those drums not only keep things grounded and earthy, they add force, dimension, and dynamics even on the ballads. As is typical for Frisell's ensembles, it's not about soloing so much for these players - though all are given opportunities - as the strength of the work through the voice of the group, with Frisell's guitar as the unifying factor, whether it's in the opening waltz "The Music of Glen Deven Ranch," the slowly unfurling, darkly tinged ballad "Going to California," or "The Big One," which references surf rock. There is a five-note vamp the guitarist uses in several pieces here as a way of bringing the listener back to the fact that despite the varying nature of these pieces, they make up a significant whole. "We All Love Neil Young" is a duet for Frisell and Kang with the violist taking up the "vocal" part as the guitarist fills and weaves through his lines. The gradually unfolding nature of "Highway 1" is an excellent and wonderfully quirky showcase for Scheinman and Kang in dialogue, and for the staggered use of dissonant harmony as Frisell's effects. The title track is a wonderful showcase for Roberts, while "The Animals," though brief, offers fine interplay between the violinist and violist as they weave through Frisell and Roberts with a Celtic-tinged folk music. "Hawks" is the most driven thing on the record, though it flirts with classical and folk music by turns, and in and out statements by all group members, driven by Royston, offer a deft quickness that gives the impression of flight. While the aforementioned tracks are noteworthy examples, this hour-long work is at its absolute best when taken as a whole. On Big Sur, Frisell delivers an inspired musical portrayal of the land, sky, sea, and wildlife of the region with majesty, humor, and true sophistication.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



Most, if not all, musicians value the relationships—both musical and friendship—that they build over the years, but few are as loyal as guitarist Bill Frisell. One look at his various releases over the past couple of decades and it becomes instantly clear that, once he has established a successful working and personal relationship with another musician, he rarely ever calls on anyone else. With the exception of Rudy Royston—who, since first collaborating with the guitarist in 2007, has regularly split the drum stool with Kenny Wollesen—every member of the group on Big Sur has been Frisell's sole choice on their instruments. That degree of loyalty also has a lot to do with trust, something that all musicians need , but in particular for Frisell, whose music demands a kind of unspoken confidence in everyone's ability to not just contribute individually, but to come together as a whole far great than the sum of its parts.

Big Sur—Frisell's debut for Sony's restarted Okeh imprint and the guitarist's return to a major label after spending a couple years on the independent Savoy Jazz—brings together two of his groups, the trio responsible for Beautiful Dreamers (Savoy Jazz, 2010) and his longstanding 858 Quartet, last heard on Sign of Life (Savoy Jazz, 2011). With violist Eyvind Kang (and, of course, Frisell) the connecting thread between the two groups, what Big Sur is, then, is a string quartet (with Frisell replacing one of the violins) with a stronger pulse.

858 has, of course, always been able to shape its own rhythms, as it most assuredly did at its 2010 Ottawa Jazz Festival performance, but with the addition of Royston, it allows the music of Big Sur to unfold with an even stronger sense of groove...rocking out, even, as it does on "A Good Spot" and "The Big One," a riff-driven blues with a go-go beat that evokes images of the 1960s and the importance of the California area of Big Sur that, with its long stretches of surf-ready coastline, became an important focal point of inspiration for not just rock (The Beach Boys and, more recently, Death Can for Cuties), jazz (Charles Lloyd and classical (John Adams) music, but an important epicenter for photographers like Ansel Adams and writers like Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson.

Frisell's 65-minute suite was commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival—the absolutely appropriate source, situated, as it is, just north of Big Sur's largely unpopulated 90-mile stretch of coastline. Largely composed during a 10-day stay at Big Sur's Glen Deven Ranch and later rehearsed there by the entire quintet—Frisell paying tribute on the opening "The Music of Glen Deven Ranch," which feels almost like an overture to a suite cinematic in scope and evocative of this unique place in the world—it was a rare opportunity for Frisell, who seems to almost always be on the road or busy with a recording, to have some real down time to write.

The result is a work that somehow manages to evoke not just the part of the country which is its inspiration, but American music as a whole. There are, with Frisell now in his fourth decade as a recording artist, plenty of others informed by the humble guitarist's gentle yet, at times oblique lyricism, his ability to play even the simplest triad-based chord without losing his voice, and his unmistakable idiosyncrasies that render repeated readings of popular cover songs like Hank Williams, Sr.'s "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" utterly personal. But as much as certain Frisellian signatures have been seconded by others, he remains a guitarist often imitated but never duplicated.

With Royston driving the group with a stronger pulse—even on the more balladic tracks like "Song for Lana Works," featuring cellist Hank Roberts, or "Going to California," with Frisell's layers of overdriven, tremolo'd and ever-sweet clean tone at the fore—Big Sur provides Frisell's 858 Quartet to be stronger and more immediate. And if Frisell's guitar remains unifying throughout, so, too, is the entire group's approach—a constantly evolving one that, over the past several years and numerous permutations and combinations, largely supplants individualism with the mitochondria-leveled symbiotic synergism that defines Big Sur and demonstrates just how, with the seemingly mere addition of one musician in Royston, the collective multilateralism is significantly altered.

That's not to say everyone doesn't get the chance to shine; only that it's less about creating a context for soloing and more about an instrumental mix that's constantly and organically shifting, so that Kang and violinist Jenny Scheinman interweave over Frisell and Roberts' pedal tone on the harmonically static, near-Celtic traditionalism of "The Animals," while cellist Hank Roberts rises to the top on the ethereal "Big Sur," doubling Frisell's serpentine melody while Scheinman and Kang's ascending and descending harmonies provide a gentle, constantly shifting foundation.

There are numerous homages throughout Big Sur—some direct, like the folkloric "We All Love Neil Young," a duet for Frisell and Kang; others more implicit, like the surf rock-inspired "The Big One" and more harmonically recondite "Highway 1," where Frisell's quirkier side comes forward." Together, Big Sur is an album that, as with other thematically conceptualized Frisell recordings like Disfarmer (Nonesuch, 2009) and History, Mystery (Nonesuch, 2008)—an album that also expanded the 858 Quartet but, in that case, with a much larger configuration—is best absorbed in its entirety rather than as individual tracks.

Is it jazz? Hard to say. Does it matter? Not one whit. There's no doubt that the improvisational spirit of jazz imbues and informs Big Sur and its reliance on interpreting Frisell's all-original set of 19 miniatures (only one cracking the five minute mark, more than half coming in under four). Instead, Big Sur represents Frisell's ongoing consolidation and confluence of a growing number of touchstones and, after his focus on the music of John Lennon on All We Are Saying (Savoy Jazz, 2011) and subsequent touring in 2012 (including a transcendent Ottawa performance), is a superb and most welcome return to not just Frisell the wondrous guitarist, but Frisell the inimitable composer.

John Kelman - June 11, 2013
© 2016 All About Jazz



Bill Frisell has had a lot of practice putting high concept into a humble package. Long hailed as one of the most distinctive and original improvising guitarists of our time, he has also earned a reputation — over the last 30 years, and especially within the last 10 or so — for teasing out thematic connections with his music.

The tenor of his work, and the slant of his signature, has kept Mr. Frisell, 62, at the forefront of a hybrid you might call jazz Americana. His style suggests a folklike vernacular that finds purchase in country, Protestant hymns, jazz and blues. He has drawn recent, long-form inspiration from the rural portrait photography of Mike Disfarmer and the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. This spring at SFJazz, he performed multimedia tributes to Allen Ginsberg and Hunter S. Thompson.

“Big Sur” (OKeh), his gorgeously evocative new album, fits squarely into this portfolio, with a welcome twist. As the title implies, it’s about the rugged sweep of California coastline that runs south of the Monterey Peninsula, with a sound that often courts the majestic. But the album doesn’t strike a dialogue with Henry Miller or Jack Kerouac, who each put a claim on the region. That literary filter would be true to Mr. Frisell’s established pattern of inquiry, maybe even a little too on-the-nose.

What “Big Sur” represents is at once simpler and more ambitious. Commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival, where it had its premiere last year, this suitelike work attempts to evoke an experience, a sense of place. Mr. Frisell composed all the music in seclusion on a sprawling property owned by the Big Sur Land Trust, during a 10-day residency there. Most of the album’s 19 tracks bear titles seemingly copied out of a pocket notebook: “On the Lookout,” “A Good Spot,” “The Animals.”

The sound of these pieces convincingly suggests a blush of discovery bound by larger purpose. The tunes don’t become a tasteful blur, like those on “Disfarmer,” from 2009. They don’t form a crowded canvas of disconnected ideas, as on “History, Mystery,” from the previous year. They aren’t experiments in texture, like so much of “The Intercontinentals” and “Unspeakable,” from roughly a decade ago. (Each of those albums, released on Nonesuch, has been justly acclaimed.)

Bill Frisell composed his new album in Big Sur, Calif. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times
What’s striking about “Big Sur” is its determined strength of melody, along with its shrewd marshaling of resources. It merges two of Mr. Frisell’s recent bands: his 858 Quartet, essentially a string ensemble, and Beautiful Dreamers, a hardier postbop trio. So along with its leader, “Big Sur” features the violist Eyvind Kang, the violinist Jenny Scheinman, the cellist Hank Roberts and the drummer Rudy Royston: musicians with a strong feeling for Mr. Frisell’s language.

It isn’t really an album for those who come to Mr. Frisell for his calmly inquisitive brand of guitar wizardry. (“Silent Comedy,” the experimental solo recording he put out this year on John Zorn’s label, Tzadik, is one of many other places to find that fix.) With the exception of a passable surf-rock track, it’s not an album that hangs on the guitar playing in general, deriving more purpose from chamberlike actions. The big picture is the point, and as usual, credit is due to Lee Townsend, Mr. Frisell’s longtime producer.

But it’s Mr. Frisell’s fingerprints that are all over this music. “A Beautiful View,” with its convergence of Copland-esque grandeur and arpeggiated shimmer, could hardly have come from another source. Likewise with “Going to California” and its air of noble austerity. And “Shacked Up” is a slow-drag country waltz that milks the half-step dissonance in its melody, as if Bob Wills were tipping his hat to Thelonious Monk.

And while a lot of Mr. Frisell’s recent music has shied away from aggressive rhythm, he strikes a strong balance on “Big Sur.” Mr. Royston knows how to put a hard bounce beneath any groove without sounding overbearing, and from the first moments here, on “The Music of Glen Deven Ranch,” his presence is crucial. It helps prevent the album from being swallowed by interiority, or tapering off into sameness. Joey Baron used to do the same thing on Mr. Frisell’s early albums in this spirit, like “This Land,” from 1994.

It’s clear, in any case, that Mr. Frisell has been thinking along these lines almost since the beginning. There’s a reason that Jazz at Lincoln Center had him program a series called “Roots of Americana” for its coming season. The first concerts, in the Allen Room on Sept. 20 and 21, will include the singer, banjoist and fiddler Sam Amidon; the mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran; and her husband, the pianist Jason Moran. Their repertory will feature a kind of proto-Americana: music by the 18th-century choral composer William Billings, as well as by Stephen Foster and Charles Ives.

Frisell-ologists will recall that his 1992 album, “Have a Little Faith,” included themes by Foster, Ives, Aaron Copland and John Philip Sousa. So it might seem as if he were coming full circle here, to some degree.

As it happens, Mr. Frisell is due to appear on Sunday at the Montreal Jazz Festival, in collaboration with Mr. Moran and the venerable saxophonist and flutist Charles Lloyd. Mr. Frisell has recalled that his first encounter with live jazz was seeing Mr. Lloyd in concert in 1968 — just a few years before Mr. Lloyd withdrew from the scene, finding sobriety and spiritual clarity in Big Sur. He and Mr. Frisell, having admired some of the same vistas, will have plenty to talk about.

Nate Chinen - June 23, 2013
© 2016 The New York Times



At this point in the career of guitarist Bill Frisell, there’s not much point in continuing to talk about his music as “jazz”—or as “Americana” . . . or really as anything for that matter. Frisell has cornered the market on something wholly his own: an instrumental form that uses elements of different genres to create cinematic soundscapes that lope or slither, walk or skitter like a great character making his way across a movie screen.

Big Sur is an outing for the leader’s “858 Quartet”, which is Frisell plus Jenny Scheinman on violin, Eyvind Kang on viola, and Hank Roberts’ cello, plus the drummer Rudy Royston. Frisell wrote this music (19 somewhat connected short tunes) on a commission while staying on a ranch at Big Sur, inspired by classic California coastline. The sound is mostly open and pleasing, and maybe sometimes just a little too nice—a little boring—in the way that beauty sometimes can be.

So, to be sure, this is mostly very “pretty” music, and that may be its glory and its problem. Although there is plenty of folky edge here—a kind of funky sweetness that suggests authenticity—most of the music on Big Sur is consonant, mid-tempo stuff. It’s soulful, like, dig “Highway 1”, with Jenny Sheinman’s violin bending notes and the strings generally playing syncopated patterns over a two-chord groove. Or how about the delightful but lightweight “We All Love Neil Young”, a duet between Frisell and Kang that is a charming minute and a half of skipping guitar and pure melody? Nice stuff.

But very nearly each of these little portraits leans on a certain kind of easy, loping vibe—a dreamy melodicism that comes with all the right kind of “authentic” American/folk affectations. It’s interesting and cool—but I admire this music more than I like it. The tunes feel a bit like museum exhibits. You might say that this music presents you with a bit of a guilt trip: Hey, man, you really should dig this, whether it’s terrific or not, just because it sounds so “real”.

So, here’s an example. “Walking Stick” starts with a hiply syncopated melody, jumping around an ostinato type of bass line played on cello. Then it shifts suddenly into a complementary melody played without syncopation over a country-ish backbeat. This shift continues, back and forth over a series of variations in the arrangement. It’s a neat trick, and the playing is wonderfully light and together, with each variation adding new little countermelodies and licks. No one ever really cuts loose, but the music lesson is clear: that the jazz content and folk-country content aren’t really all that different.

I just wish that Frisell or Scheinman or someone else in the band was cutting loose a bit more. I wish that “A Beautiful View” were a little less beautiful—or a little less delicately lovely in the way a tiny jewel box is beautiful—and a little more expansive. While I appreciate that “The Big One” is a rocking blues that features Frisell’s electric guitar sounding vaguely surf-rock-ish over Royston’s Big Beat groove, there’s something in the string trio’s part in the tune that makes this 2:43 of music feel the way “rock” feels when it’s played, say, on Broadway: a simulacrum of rock rather than the real thing.

But, sure, much of Big Sur is lovely, without reservations. I’m a fan of the loping 6/8 melancholy of “Cry Alone”, which is not only very pretty but also has a sad dancing feeling that complicates some as the strings harmonize the melody. “Shacked Up” is intriguing in a dissonant way—another abstract blues, but cast in droning harmonies have aren’t too easy to find charming, with a genuine cry and moan built into the composition. The closer, “Far Away”, is another gem. All five members of the band contribute to a slow build-up introduction in very subtle ways, and then the strings introduce a sinuous melody that Frisell blends into as well. On this track, as elsewhere, there really isn’t much jazz-style “soloing”, but the players all get to improvise in the crevices of the tune. It’s a beautiful mood piece, soundtrack stuff you might say, but every one of Royston’s backbeat hits of brushes-against-snare comes like a chip of ice in a warm drink.

Bill Frisell’s music has become a national treasure because it seems to whir together so many of the things that make American music a wonder. Sometimes I wish that the puree were a little less smooth, a little less like wallpaper, and that’s the case with Big Sur. But it’s still a lovely experience, made by one of the masters we have with us in this age.

Will Layman - 13 September 2013
© 1999-2016 Popmatters.com



Legendary jazz guitarist Bill Frisell's first release on OKeh Records, Big Sur, features all-new music commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival which premiered at their festival in 2012. While staying at the Glen Deven Ranch, Frisell was captivated by the beauty and grandeur of the Big Sur, California coastline which inspired him to write this transcendent new music. He is joined on the recording by the talented musicians of his Big Sur Quintet; Jenny Scheinman (violin), Eyvind Kang (viola), Hank Roberts (cello) and Rudy Royston (drums). Bill Frisell is one of the leading and most innovative guitarists of our time. Although his work is steeped in jazz, his music includes characteristics of rock, country, and bluegrass, among various other styles. Such liberality explains his willingness to expand his tonal palette beyond that of the typical jazz guitarist and he has carved out a niche by virtue of his sound. A Grammy winner for Best Contemporary Jazz Album in 2005, Bill is one of the most singular musicians of his generation and has released over 30 albums since his debut recording in 1983.

Amazon.com



In 2012, the Monterey jazz festival put composer/guitarist Bill Frisell in a cabin at a remote ranch on the Big Sur coastline, and left him there to come up with his reactions to the landscape. The project - combining the guitarist's chamber-musical 858 Quartet and more country-tinged Beautiful Dreamers trio - produced a festival performance and this abundantly varied 18-track studio album. Like all Frisell's inimitable impressions of America, it's joyous, mournful, bluesy, minimal, intricate, direct as a pop song and impressionistically mysterious by turns. In a highly diverse tracklist, the almost Sgt. Pepper-like Going to California rubs shoulders with The Big One's typically Frisellian rocking-blues feel, followed by the wistful, echoing melody of Somewhere and the Celtic-sounding Cry Alone. Eyvind Kang's quivering viola melody and Jenny Scheinman's dark cello chords make a desolate drama out of The Animals, and Shacked Up a wonderful bleary blues. Frisell's consistent inventiveness is remarkable, and Big Sur sounds as close to essential as most of his recent work.

John Fordham - 11 July 2013
© 2016 Guardian News and Media Limited



"Frisell is without a doubt, the single most important guitarist in jazz, a genius who is going to have the kind of influence on his instrument Jimi Hendrix and Wes Montgomery had before him "

Seattle Times



A suite commissioned by and premiered at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 2012, Big Sur was composed by Bill Frisell while in a 10-day residence at the Glen Deven Ranch in Big Sur. Utilizing a hybrid group culled from Frisell’s 858 Quartet string ensemble and post-bop Beautiful Dreamers trio, Big Sur is not a dreamy, pastoral depiction of the wooded California coast along Highway 1. Instead, Frisell’s unique amalgam of blues, country and jazz combine to form a dynamic invocation of the breathtaking collision of oceanic vistas, redwood forests and rolling plains that mark the magical area south of Monterey - an area that has transfixed generations of artists and writers including Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller. The quartet boasts a formidable lineup of long-time Frisell accomplices including string players Jenny Scheinman, Eyvind Kang and Hank Roberts along with drummer Rudy Royston, most recently heard at SFJAZZ as part of Frisell’s Beautiful Dreamers band. It is this group that appears on Frisell’s latest album, Big Sur, one of the first CDs released by Sony Classical’s revived OKeh label.

Copyright © 2016 SFJAZZ



Big Sur is an album by Bill Frisell which was released on the OKeh label in 2013. In his review for Allmusic, Thom Jurek notes that "this hour-long work is at its absolute best when taken as a whole. On Big Sur, Frisell delivers an inspired musical portrayal of the land, sky, sea, and wildlife of the region with majesty, humor, and true sophistication".

wikipedia.org



Von der Faszination des kalifornischen Küstenstreifens Big Sur haben sich schon viele einfangen lassen. So hat Henry Miller einst in „Big Sur und die Orangen des Hieronymus Bosch“ mit Begeisterung darüber berichtet, wie er seinen Hausmüll einfach die Steilküste hinabgeworfen hat. Auch Bill Frisell offenbart nun ein persönliches Verhältnis zu dieser Gegend.

Der Jazzgitarrist, der im Ostküstenstaat Maryland geboren und in den achtziger Jahren als Teil der Downtown-Szene New Yorks bekannt wurde, beschäftigt sich seit einigen Jahren verstärkt mit ländlichen Klängen. Im April 2012 hat er sich für knapp zwei Wochen in der Glen Deven Ranch in Kalifornien einquartiert und dort die neunzehn Songs geschrieben, die nun sein neues Album „Big Sur“ füllen. Dabei hat er sich vor allem von der lieblichen und majestätischen Landschaft inspirieren lassen, wovon Songtitel wie „Going to California“ oder „A Beautiful View“ Zeugnis ablegen. Wer nun aber meditatives Klangwolken-Gesäusel erwartet, liegt falsch.

Mit einem äußerst originell besetzten Quintett, zu dem bis auf den Schlagzeuger Rudy Royston ausschließlich Streicher gehören, setzt Frisell vielmehr zu einem gewagten Ritt durch sämtliche musikalischen Klischees an, die man gemeinhin mit Kalifornien verbindet. Die größte Überraschung dabei ist, dass sein Ensemble wie eine Rockband klingt.

Mit dem Cellisten Hank Roberts arbeitet Bill Frisell schon seit Jahrzehnten zusammen. Die Geigerin Jenny Scheinman und der Bratschist Eyvind Kang gehören ebenfalls zu seinen Dauerpartnern. Sie alle verleihen seiner Musik einen frischen Kick, die „Big Sur“ zu einer der besten Platten in Frisells reichhaltigem Werk macht. Die Rolle des vitalen und geradezu hypernervös auftrumpfenden Schlagzeugers Rudy Royston kann man dabei gar nicht unterschätzen. Er stört die Band immer wieder auf, wenn sie im pastoralen Schönklang zu versinken droht. Und vor allem - er rockt einfach.

Im vergangenen September stieß die Band zu Frisell, um sich auf den Auftritt beim Monterey Jazz Festival vorzubereiten. Ein halbes Jahr später hat das Quintett das Repertoire dann schließlich in den Fantasy Studios von Berkeley aufgenommen. Frisells langjährigem Produzenten Lee Townsend ist es dabei gelungen, die Magie des bestens aufeinander eingespielten Ensembles adäquat und farbenprächtig einzufangen. Dem kurvenreichen „Highway 1“, einer der schönsten Küstenstraßen der Welt, folgt das gleichnamige Stück im ausgeruhten mittleren Tempo, Scheinman und Frisell setzen quietschende Akzente. Mit der sentimentalen Miniatur „We All Love Neil Young“ setzt der Gitarrist einem der berühmtesten Bewohner des Staates ein Denkmal. Und dann ist da noch „The Big One“, eine scheppernde Hommage an den Surf-Sound der fünfziger und sechziger Jahre. Damit ist natürlich die große Welle gemeint, auf die Surfer manchmal einen ganzen Tag warten. Mit einem geradezu gefährlich klingenden Gitarrenmotiv - auf der Bühne hat Frisell mehr die Ausstrahlung eines schüchternen Chemielehrers - leitet Frisell diese tour de force ein, bei der die Streicher mit rasanten Glissandi über ihre Griffbretter rutschen und die von Royston mit trockener Power angetrieben wird.

Im Verlauf des Albums streifen Frisell und seine Band dann noch klassische Elemente, melancholische Country-Anleihen und schlichte Folk-Melodien. Der verträumte „Song for Lana Weeks“ etwa könnte glatt aus der Feder von Jackson Browne stammen. „Es war außergewöhnlich“, schildert Bill Frisell seinen Inspirationsschub. „Ich war von Wald umgeben und konnte über einen kleinen Pfad bis zur Küste vorstoßen. Dort bricht das Land einfach ab, und man sieht das ganze Panorama der Küste von Big Sur mit dem Pazifischen Ozean. Damit bin ich jeden Morgen aufgewacht - unglaublich.“

Wie vielfältig und kontrastreich Bill Frisell das alles verarbeitet hat, ist dennoch, trotz solcher überwältigender Impressionen, ein kleines Wunder.

Rolf Thomas - 13.06.2013
© 2001-2016 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung



“Bill Frisell spielt Gitarre wie Miles Davis die Trompete.“

The New Yorker



Bill Frisell ist einer der führenden und innovativsten Gitarristen der heutigen Zeit und wird in einem Atemzug mit Größen wie John Scofield oder Pat Metheny genannt. Dabei hat Frisell sich nie auf ein Genre festlegen lassen und von Jazz über Pop und Filmmusik bis hin zur Neuen Musik gearbeitet. Auf seinem neuen Album Big Sur widmet sich Frisell wieder ganz dem Jazz und hat dafür 20 Songs komponiert. Die Inspiration hat er von der Glen Deven Ranch in Big Sur in Kalifornien bekommen. Produziert von Lee Townsend, wurde Frisell bei der Aufnahme auch von Jenny Scheinman (Violine), Carrie Rodriguez (Fidel und Tenorgitarre), Eyvind Kang (Viola), Hank Roberts (Cello) und Rudy Royston (Schlagzeug) unterstützt.

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