..:: audio-music dot info ::..


Main Page      The Desert Island      Copyright Notice
 Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz


Bill Frisell: Guitar in the Space Age!

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Okeh Records
Released: 2014.10.06
Time:
 55:08
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] Pipeline (Brian Carman / Bob Spickard) - 7:06
[2] Turn! Turn! Turn! (Pete Seeger) - 2:40
[3] Messin' with the Kid (Mel London) - 2:59
[4] Surfer Girl (Brian Wilson) - 4:14
[5] Rumble (Milt Grant / Link Wray) - 4:56
[6] The Shortest Day (Bill Frisell) - 4:57
[7] Rebel Rouser (Duane Eddy / Lee Hazlewood) - 3:39
[8] Baja (Hazlewood) - 3:37
[9] Cannonball Rag (Merle Travis) - 2:56
[10] Tired of Waiting for You (Ray Davies) - 6:02
[11] Reflections from the Moon (Speedy West) - 3:21
[12] Bryant's Boogie (Jimmy Bryant) - 3:09
[13] Lift Off (Frisell) - 2:17
[14] Telstar (Joe Meek) - 3:15

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Bill Frisell - Electric Guitar
Greg Leisz - Pedal Steel Guitar, Electric Guitar
Tony Scherr - Bass, Acoustic Guitar on [7]
Kenny Wollesen - Drums, Percussion, Vibraphone

Lee Townsend - Producer
Lynne Earls - Engineer
Tucker Martine - Engineer
Michael Finn - Assistant Engineer
Adam Muñoz - Mixing
Greg Calbi - Mastering
Paul Moore - Art Direction, Design, Photography
Adam Blomberg - Production Assistant

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2014 CD Okeh - 88843074612

Recorded at Flora Recording & Playback, Portland, OR. Mixed at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, CA. Mastered at Sterling Sound, New York.



For his new album, "Guitar in the Space Age!," guitarist and composer Bill Frisell mines the catalog of guitar-based music from the 1950s and 1960s that first inspired him to pick up the instrument. Joining Frisell for this album of musical memories are the members of his working trio, bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen, along with frequent collaborator Greg Leisz, a master of the lap and pedal steel guitars. This superb quartet explores the music of Pete Seeger, The Byrds, Junior Wells, Dick Dale, The Ventures, The Astronauts, Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and others with Frisell's own compositions sprinkled in. "Guitar in the Space Age!" offers a rare look into Bill Frisell's formative influences, from a time when the electric guitar was in its infancy and creating a startlingly new sound, pushing popular music into the future.

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 a 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.

billfrisell.com
okeh-records.com



Guitar in the Space Age! finds guitarist Bill Frisell going back in time to the guitar music of the country, surf, blues, and early rock & roll of the late 1950s through the mid-'60s: the music that initially inspired him. His band - Greg Leisz on guitar and pedal steel, drummer /vibraphonist Kenny Wollesen, and bassist Tony Scherr - are all longtime associates. Though most of these songs are classics - there are two originals - Frisell reimagines them in a jazzman's context while remaining faithful to familiar presentations. This is demonstrated amply on the opening surf nugget "Pipeline." Rather than go straight for the jugular the way most (gimmicky) remakes do, he slows its pace by half and focuses on the intricate melody at work, slightly skewing its rhythmic attack toward moody post-bop swing. Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn" mirrors the Byrds' version with its guitar jangle, but also blurs the space between folk's simple presentation, rock & roll's hooky harmonies, and jazz's nuance. Junior Wells' "Messin' with the Kid" contains some of the swaggering boogie of the original, but there's more restrained precision in Frisell's staccato playing, as well as an intense wah-wah groove; it's at a low boil rather than a roiling one. Brian Wilson's "Surfer Girl" asks the question as to why the Beach Boys' famed composer doesn't get the interpretive treatment from jazzmen that other pop acts of the era do. Link Wray's "Rumble" gets the serious wailing blues-cum-surf workout it's always deserved, with an orgy of tremolo and reverb reflecting its debt to the composer. "Rebel Rouser" reveals more clearly than any other version its lyric inspiration - "When the Saints Go Marching In" - without giving up the strutting twang. The intro to "Baja" - Lee Hazlewood's 1963 hit for the Astronauts - with Leisz on alternate lead guitar showcases remarkable interplay with multi-textured dynamics and popping rock & roll drums. "Reflections from the Moon" and "Bryant's Boogie," by instrumental country duo Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant, respectively, shine in their hard-swinging jazz syncopations and advanced harmonics. The closer is an absolutely majestic version of Joe Meek's "Telstar," with Leisz's pedal steel extrapolating on Frisell's gorgeous articulation of the melody. Scherr wraps his bass between the two as Wollesen simultaneously swings and rocks. Guitar in the Space Age! is a joyous recording. Far from an exercise in mere nostalgia, it reveals new reasons as to why these tunes are eternal. Frisell and his collaborators understood exactly what they were going for, and it sounds like they had a hell of a great time getting there.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



Though prototype electric guitar first appeared in the early 1930s, the instrument only became a staple of popular music in the 1950s and 1960s. As a musical revolution was evolving, so was a different type altogether -space exploration. Sixty years on, in an age when the challenge is just to keep abreast of technological innovations it takes an effort to imagine the seismic shift that the electric guitar and space travel—and television that brought such adventures into millions of homes—signified for youngsters like Bill Frisell.

Growing up in Denver, Frisell was just eleven when Telstar made headlines as the first direct relay communications satellite to be launched into space. He was barely in his teens when Chicago blues, surf music and the era's alt-country that has so informed his playing first impacted. Here Frisell re-explores his musical roots—or perhaps joins the dots—once again in the soulful company of Greg Leisz, Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollesen, who wove their collective charms on Frisell's John Lennon tribute All We Are Saying (Savoy Jazz, 2011).

That album and Guitar in the Space Age feel in some ways like companion pieces—sonic sculptures hewn from similar source material. However, if there's a suggestion that Frisell is getting a little nostalgic in the autumn of his years it's worth remembering that Frisell's two releases sandwiched between All We Are Saying and Guitar in the Space Age were the avant-garde solo guitar album Silent Comedy (Tzadik, 2013) and the contemporary chamber-meets-country suite Big Sur (Okeh, 2013). With Frisell, there's a time for stretching the boundaries and, as with Guitar in the Space Age, there's a time for plain-old having fun.

Scherr's hypnotic two-note bass line forms the backbone of "Pipeline," The Chantay's grooving 1962 surfer hit. Frisell and Leisz ride in unison, embellishing the melody with sustain, peeling notes, crying slide, and reverberating shimmer and twang. Frisell's trademark loops add a personal seal. There's more than a hint of Hank Marvin's influence here and even more so on Joe Meek's cantering "Telstar," which sounds like the sister theme to the TV western series The High Chaparral.

On most of the songs Frisell remains faithful to the spirit—and occasionally the letter—of the originals; Peter Seeger's biblically-inspired "Turn, Turn, Turn" and Mel London's "Messin' with the Kid" are plucked from the mold, though Leisz and Frisell's solos on the latter lend bluesy bite. "Surfer Girl"—the first song Brian Wilson ever penned—is taken at the same dreamy pace as the original, with Leisz's pedal steel sighing like Hawaiian guitar. Ballsier is Link Wray's down-'n'-dirty "Rumble." This 1958 instrumental effectively invented the power trio and the power chord, brought distortion and feedback to the table and influenced every guitar-wielding musician. Frisell's quartet gives a ripping, reverb-heavy interpretation with the dual guitars fired up.

Two Frisell originals snuggle amongst the covers. A shimmering nostalgia imbues the first half of "The Shortest Day" before Frisell's catchy melody and Wollesen's kick inject new spirit. "Lift Off"—minus drums—is a dreamy vignette, sparse and moody and echoes the vibration of Speedy West's "Reflections From the Moon." Duane Eddy/Lee Hazlewood's "Rebel Rouser" seduces with its country swing. Another Hazelwood tune, the distinctive "Baja"—a minor hit for the landlocked, earthbound surfer band The Astronauts—sees Frisell and Leisz dovetail beautifully.

Their intuitive dialog is more expansive still on Ray Davies "Tired of Waiting for You," which grows—not unlike a Grateful Dead tune—from a pretty pop melody into a grooving psychedelic jam with ringing guitar lines and soaring loops. Merle Travis' sunny "Cannonball Rag" and Jimmy Bryant's "Bryant's Boogie" sparkle with the country-swing that forms a big part of Frisell's musical DNA.

Guitar in the Space Age is a delightful celebration of a musical era that still resonates. As good an introduction to this most influential of guitarists as any entry in Frisell's discography, it's essential listening for Frisell fans looking for an insight into the multiple musical strands—surf, blues, country, swing and rock—upon which he has built his unique six-stringed idiom.

Ian Patterson - November 7, 2014
© 2016 All About Jazz



It was in February of 2011 that a friend of mine and I caught a premier performance of Bill Frisell’s band performing the songs of Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant. It was named Not So Fast, a mantra that the legendary jazz guitarist would use from time to time to describe his own career. The music of West and Bryant, a hyper drive take on dueling electric guitar and lap steel recorded in the days of astronaut worship and pills swallowing, had far more in common with the Atkins/Paul and Travis/Maphis records of old than anything Frisell had ever committed to tape. After all, Bill Frisell was not all that familiar with the music of West and Bryant when approached about the commission. But once he heard the original recordings, Frisell went about making the music his own. Pedal steel guru Greg Leisz was in the band that night, helping Frisell summon the recognizable lead in every song despite the slow tempos. The two performances booked for that night were sold out and the show was a success. Walking out of the building and to my friend’s car, we assured ourselves that, one day, Not So Fast would see an official release.

The closest thing we have now is Guitar in the Space Age!, another one of Bill Frisell’s exercises in nostalgia, much like his 2011 John Lennon tribute All We Are Saying…. But can one really blame him for wanting to revisit this era? You had the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Kinks, the moon landing, James Dean, Elvis Presley, Fender guitars, surf rock and sexual liberation. To have those things swirling around the collective consciousness during one’s formative years would have been a…well, a trip. But the flip side of that coin was the cold war, duck-and-cover nuclear drills, Vietnam, Watergate, the assassinations of Dr. King and the Kennedy brothers and watching civil rights demonstrators getting abused by police dogs and high pressure fire hoses. Too much went wrong in order to let the good stuff last. One of those traits lost is mankind’s sense of exploration. A Tom Wolfe essay from a few years ago lamented the fact that we just don’t get excited about space travel like we used to. Baby boomers grew up with a mixture of scientific optimism and dread. We can land on the moon! Oh, also, we can all be vaporized in a nuclear flash. Frisell and his band take a stab at striking this balance on Guitar in the Space Age!. Even the press release finds him reluctant to paint those decades as rosy ones. Of the time’s darkness, he simply said “it just had to leave a mark on you.”

If you are at all familiar with Bill Frisell’s style, you can probably already hear his arrangment of “Turn! Turn! Turn!” in your head. It doesn’t stray far from the popular Byrds recording, right down to the 12-string chimes. His cover of “Messin’ with the Kid”, as popularized by Junior Wells, can’t afford to be messed with too much. Come to think of it, there’s probably nothing that can be done to Link Wray’s simple, iconic instrumental “Rumble” that would enhance it. It’s during these times that any mark Frisell wishes to make upon the songs comes down to his band’s energy. Oddly enough, that’s a factor that takes a backseat on a cover of the Chantays’ “Pipeline”. Here Frisell and Leisz pluck out the melody so tentatively, almost avoiding your attention. But one cover that could beautifully pass for a Frisell original is the Beach Boys’s “Surfer Girl”, the b-side to the first 45 that Frisell first purchased. Frisell’s desire to approach the guitar as a vocal instrument motivates the track’s pastoral beauty.

The recordings of the Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant pieces that my friend and I have waiting for come in two tracks, “Reflections from the Moon” and “Bryant’s Boogie”. Everything I said about “Surfer Girl” can be applied to “Reflections from the Moon”. As far as “Bryant’s Boogie” goes, Frisell and his band can keep the toes-a-tappin’ without the speed West and Bryant probably thought necessary. Bassist Tony Scherr picks up the acoustic guitar on the band’s cover of Duane Eddy’s “Rebel Rouser”, another instance where mentally grafting Frisell’s style onto the original gives you a pretty good idea of how it sounds. Drummer Kenny Wollesen feels under-utilized on Guitar in the Space Age!, which is a pity since Bill Frisell himself refers to this quartet as “one of the best bands I’ve ever had.”

Guitar in the Space Age! has only two originals, “The Shortest Day” and “Lift Off”. They show us that, even in the throes of a nostalgia project, Bill Frisell is still a composer to contend with. But we didn’t need to be reminded of that. He has been on a steady roll since leaving his contract with Nonesuch and some recent recordings show us that his sense of creativity is alive and potentially dangerous. But stuff like Guitar in the Space Age! is professionally executed place holding. I’m not saying you have to be a baby boomer to enjoy it, but you probably need to be one in order to rank it as one of Frisell’s top five recordings.

John Garratt - 9 October 2014
© 1999-2016 Popmatters.com



“Does it help to let you know I was born in 1951?” asked Bill Frisell last Friday at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Appel Room, before easing into the second show of “Guitar in the Space Age,” a program of the postwar country, blues and rock ’n’ roll that inspired him as a boy. Accompanying Frisell were Greg Leisz on pedal steel and guitar, Tony Scherr on upright and electric basses and Kenny Wollesen on drums and vibraphone—longtime collaborators with an especially developed understanding of the leader’s style-melding, chamber-like take on American music.

To know that Frisell is a baby-boomer was important, yes. The music he played, by the Beach Boys, Duane Eddy, the Chantays, Link Wray and others, is the stuff of childhood innocence for the Vietnam generation—the beach-party calm before the storm of cultural explosions that would transform America in the second half of the ’60s. But other résumé bullets would have been equally beneficial in making sense of the following 90 minutes: that Frisell performed in one of jazz’s most deeply interactive trios, with Paul Motian and Joe Lovano, for three decades; or that he helped to redefine the jazz guitar as a textural instrument while a go-to player for ECM Records. To put it more directly, this was a rock ’n’ roll gig executed with the temperament and group dynamic of postbop.

Because the repertoire was so familiar, you couldn’t help but think of the original arrangements, and then of how Frisell and company were artfully remaking them: turning streamlined melodies into polyphony on the frontline, reinventing standard backbeats with swing and groove and space. Even the action onstage dipped in the direction of a communicative jazz band, with Frisell facing and lurching toward his rhythm section. (It’s a kind of anti-showmanship that works better in the Village Vanguard than in a concert hall, and Frisell owned up to that fact with a joke: “I hope you don’t mind looking at my rear end.”)

Frisell is a melodist first and foremost, and a lot about this set was strikingly beautiful. Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!” skewed harder toward Nashville than the Byrds did; the Beach Boys’ “In My Room” made you wonder why the Lennon-McCartney book has become standard jazz source material but Brian Wilson’s songs have not; and Frisell’s “Shortest Day” offered the sort of bittersweet earworm motif you want to hear again as soon as it ends.

This program and its related album, to be released in October, made plainer than usual the idea that Frisell is a guitar fanatic but doesn’t subscribe to the many tropes that plague the instrument. He clearly relishes the electric guitar as a marvel of American technology. He used his trusted combination of Fender Telecaster-style ax, Fender tube combo amp and delay and looping effects to achieve his melancholy, art-house version of surf and vintage Nashville tone. But his take on this chopsy repertoire—Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West; surf instrumentals, with their emphasis on rapid-fire picking—was expectedly genteel. He focused on sonics, the liquid give-and-take between himself and Leisz, and his savvy negotiation of harmonic and rhythmic contours. (You could say the same for his jazz playing, but jazz guitar has more forebears who placed elegance above technical flash.)

You could easily accuse Frisell of being too precious with this material. Why let Junior Wells’ “Messin’ With the Kid” simmer and not burn? But there are so many other places to go for that. And to his credit, Leisz picked up the slack for conventional guitar heroism, countering Frisell’s inclination to, as Ron Carter would put it, “play clouds.”

Another real achievement here had to do with the handling of instrumental surf music, a midcentury phenomenon that deflated with the arrival of the Beatles. Its influence on popular music is incalculable—it expanded pop’s sonic language toward psychedelia and set new standards for virtuosity in rock ’n’ roll—but its legacy is one of kitsch and cult devotion. (Most of the great surf revival acts of the past 30 years have relied on a very good visual gimmick.) Frisell made surf music a plainclothes proposition, taking on genre standards like “Pipeline” in a way that restored their seriousness; these were and are compositions full of shadowy feeling and immaculate tunefulness. Wollesen’s secondary work on vibraphone, which he employed during atmospheric rubato introductions, further captured the intelligence and noir cool of first-generation surf, lounge and exotica.

Evan Haga - 06/13/14
© 1999–2015 JazzTimes



This is an old-school electric guitar fan’s album, played by one of the most creative guitar fans in the world. Bill Frisell is a lifelong lover of the quintessentially American invention, drawing on everything from Charlie Christian swing through 50s tremolo twangs to cutting-edge pedal technology. But it’s also a fine display of bluegrass and rock-inspired contemporary music, in which Frisell’s intelligent, jazz-informed sensibility is applied to 1950s and 60s classics by Duane Eddy, the Beach Boys, the Kinks and more. On a casual listen, he might seem to be treating the Chantays’ Pipeline or the Junior Wells blues Messin’ With the Kid as if he’s still a teenage guitar prodigy who has just excitedly learned them off the singles - but in fact this is as serious, witty, layered and subtle as any of his more abstract work. Check out a rapturously tender Surfer Girl, a delicately spacey Tired of Waiting for You - and Kenny Wollesen’s deep, casually flappy percussion, which elegantly counterbalances the metallic clangs all the way through.

John Fordham - 2 October 2014
© 2016 Guardian News and Media Limited



Guitar in the Space Age! is an album by Bill Frisell featuring interpretations of songs and instrumentals from the 1960s which was released on the OKeh label in 2014. The Buffalo News' Jeff Simon quoted Frisell as stating "after playing for more than 50 years, it just feels right to once again play some of the music which shaped my consciousness during my formative years, even to play some of it for the first time … and maybe get it right. Guitar in the Space Age! isn’t really an exercise in nostalgia but about a recommitment to keep learning, to firm up the foundation and showcase one of the best bands I ever had."

In his review for Allmusic, Thom Jurek notes that "Guitar in the Space Age! is a joyous recording. Far from an exercise in mere nostalgia, it reveals new reasons as to why these tunes are eternal. Frisell and his collaborators understood exactly what they were going for, and it sounds like they had a hell of a great time getting there". The Guardian's John Fordham observed "This is an old-school electric guitar fan’s album, played by one of the most creative guitar fans in the world". PopMatters Associate Music Editor John Garratt was less enthusiastic and said "Guitar in the Space Age! is professionally executed place holding. I’m not saying you have to be a baby boomer to enjoy it, but you probably need to be one in order to rank it as one of Frisell’s top five recordings"

wikipedia.org



Bill Frisell zählt ohne Frage zu einem der besten und einflussreichsten Gitarristen der Welt und genießt als Meister der Klangfarben Kultstatus. Mit seinem neuen Album Guitar in the Space Age. wendet er sich wieder der Musik zu, die einst seine Fantasie beflügelte. Als Babyboomer, der in den 50er und 60er Jahren aufwuchs, erkundet Frisell zusammen mit seinen langjährigen Partnern Greg Leisz (Gitarre), Tony Scherr (Bass) und Kenny Wolleson (Schlagzeug und Vibraphon) ein Repertoire, das inhaltlich und klanglich zweifellos autobiografische Elemente aufweist. "Im letzten Frühjahr wurde ich 63, und nach über 50 Jahren war für mich die Zeit gekommen, erneut jene Musik zu spielen, die mich in meiner Jugend prägte. Bei Guitar in the Space Age! schwelge ich aber nicht in Nostalgie, sondern mache deutlich, dass man nie auslernt und ein festes Fundament braucht."

Amazaom.de



„Mit feinem Gespür für die Balance zwischen Nostalgie, Niveau und eigenem Klangideal transportiert [Frisells] Band Rock-, Blues- und Surfklassiker in die Gegenwart. Im Team […] bescheren sie […] den Hits eine puristisch-schöne, schnörkellose Wiedergeburt.“

Rondo, 5/2014



„Dieses fluffige Album ist die jazzmusikalische Umsetzung eines umwerfend optimistischen Lebensgefühls, das damals den Menschen bis auf den Mond brachte.“

Jazz Zeitung, Nr.22/2014



„Eine Dream Band ist da zugange. […] Unglaublich, wie Frisell & Co das hinkriegen, aus Link Wrays „Rumble“ einen fröhlichen Höllenpfuhl aus dem XXI. Jahrhundert zu machen, im „Cannonball rag“ souveränes Travis-Picking in moderne Klamotten zu wickeln und aus „Bryant’s boogie“ einen unübertrefflich rock’n’rollig swingenden Abräumer zu machen - und bei aller Modernisierung nichts, aber auch gar nichts vom alten Adel kaputt zu machen“

Jazzpodium, 11/2014



„Hörenswert“

KulturSpiegel, 11/2014



„Mit Guitar in the Space Age hat Bill Frisell ein Meisterwerk seiner langen Karriere eingespielt. Das musikalische Territorium des Albums umfasst die Zeit zwischen den späten fünfziger und den späten sechziger Jahren - eine Zeit von Optimismus und Aufbruch.“

Jazzthetik, 11/12/2014



„Zusammen mit seinen Weggefährten […] macht Frisell ganz großes Kino […]: majestätisch, hinreißend, wehmütig und zugleich ermutigend! […] Die sublim agierende Rhythmusgruppe liefert live den perfekten Backbeat und kann die Illusion endloser Weite von Strandlandschaften ebenso erzeugen wie die schwitzige Ekstase eines Rock-‘n‘-Roll-Tanzwettbewerbs. […] Mit seiner wunderbar eingespielten Band zelebriert Frisell seine Fender-Telecaster als ein Wunderwerk amerikanischer Technologie. […] Hier poliert jemand das Familiensilber, entstaubt die alten Kostbarkeiten und bringt sie genüsslich zu neuem Glanz.“

FAZ; 05.11.2014



„Was an dieser Musik Jazz ist? Die Art, wie hier gespielt wird, wie hier Klang-Kunstwerke in leise-funkelnde Kammermusik übersetzt werden. […] Schlichtweg bezaubernd.“

BR, 08.11.2014



„[Bill Frisell] hat einen ganz eigenen ‚American-Jazz-Sound‘ destilliert, dessen Schönheit, Einfachheit und Entspanntheit Maßstäbe gesetzt hat. Unter Musikern gilt dieser Klang längst als legendär. […] Beeindruckend wie beispielsweise Pete Seegers Gassenhauer ‚Turn, Turn, Turn‘ unter dem Zusammenspiel der beiden Gitarristen unmerklich anschwillt zu einem unkitschigen Bombast abheben lässt. Jeder Ton ist hier wie ein filigran von Hand gearbeitetes Kleinteil, das am Ende einen perfekten Hochleistungsmotor ergibt, der dann aber nicht zum Rasen, sondern zum entspannten Cruisen genutzt wird. Das ist die Magie der musikalischen Gelassenheit.“

Tonart, Winter 2014
 

 L y r i c s


Currently no Lyrics available!

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


Currently no Samples available!