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Bill Frisell: When You Wish Upon a Star

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: OKeh Records
Released: 2016.02.05
Time:
 63:31
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] To Kill A Mockingbird, Pt. 1 (Elmer Bernstein) - 3:10
[2] To Kill A Mockingbird, Pt. 2 (Elmer Bernstein) - 4:52
[3] You Only Live Twice (John Barry, Leslie Bricusse) - 5:10
[4] Psycho, Pt. 1 (Bernard Herrmann) - 1:58
[5] Psycho, Pt. 2 (Bernard Herrmann) - 2:07
[6] The Shadow Of Your Smile (Dave Heywood, Johnny Mandel, Leroy Heywood*, Paul Webster) - 5:10
[7] Bonanza (Jay Livingston / Ray Evans) - 1:35
[8] Once Upon A Time In The West [Theme] (Ennio Morricone) - 4:09
[9] Once Upon A Time In The West [As A Judgement] (Ennio Morricone) - 4:30
[10] Once Upon A Time In The West [Farewell To Cheyenne] (Ennio Morricone) - 4:35
[11] When You Wish Upon A Star (Leigh Harline, Ned Washington) - 3:08
[12] Tales From The Far Side (Bill Frisell) - 4:59
[13] Moon River (Chris Walden, Henry Mancini, James McMillan, Johnny Mercer) - 3:46
[14] The Godfather (Nino Rota) - 9:32
[15] The Bad And The Beautiful (David Raksin) - 2:56
[16] Happy Trails (Dale Evans) - 1:49

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Bill Frisell - Electric & Acoustic Guitar, Arrangements

Petra Haden - Voice
Eyvind Kang - Viola
Thomas Morgan - Bass
Rudy Royston - Drums, Percussion

Lee Townsend - Producer, Management
Adam Blomberg - Producer Assistan
Tucker Martine - Engineer
Keegan Curry - Assistant Engineer
Michael Finn - Assistant Engineer
Adam Muñoz - Mixing
Greg Calbi - Mastering
Paul Moore - Art Direction, Design, Photography
Monica Jane Frisell - Photography
Paul Hicks - Booklet Spread Photography
Phyllis Oyama - Management

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2016 CD Okeh - 88875142212

Recorded at Flora Recording and Playback, Portland, OR. Mixed at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, CA. Mastered at Sterling Sound, NYC.



When You Wish Upon a Star features Grammy Award®-winning jazz guitarist Bill Frisell s arrangements and interpretations of music for film and television. The album is more than an homage to a set of iconic scores and the choice of music is both inspired and carefully balanced. For the first time in many years, Frisell used vocals on many of the tracks. Petra Haden, daughter of the late bass player Charlie Haden, is the featured vocalist and her vocal style is a perfect fit for Frisell s arrangements. Included on the album are the classic music themes from To Kill a Mockingbird, Psycho, Once Upon a Time in the West and The Godfather all with Bill s refined interpretations.

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



When You Wish Upon A Star, the latest project from legendary guitarist/composer Bill Frisell is set for release on January 29 via OKeh Records. Comprised of music from iconic film and television scores, the LP is conceived not only as an homage, but as a celebration of music-making with longtime collaborators and their collective commitment to refined interpretation of material. The album will be available for pre-order on December 4 and Frisell will tour widely in support of it—see below for tour dates.

Produced by Lee Townsend (Loudon Wainwright III, John Scofield, Carrie Rodriguez), the LP brings together an all-star “dream team” of Frisell’s frequent partners in crime: violist Eyvind Kang, drummer Rudy Royston, bass player Thomas Morgan and vocalist Petra Haden. Frisell describes the group of friends’ unique process as beginning with listening to as many versions of the pieces as possible and committing any lyrics to heart, followed by total immersion in the original score (harmony, phrasing, arrangement), learning the notes and hours of practice. “Finally, when it’s in the blood,” he says, the musicians are ready to deliver their interpretations.

The cornerstones of the album are four “suites” of music that reside deep within the collective psyche: To Kill A Mockingbird, Psycho, Once Upon A Time In The West and The Godfather. These are joined by new versions of well-known songs that describe the mysterious power of dreams: “You Only Live Twice,” “The Shadow Of Your Smile,” “Moon River” and “When You Wish Upon A Star.” Finally, the set is rounded out with music from TV series “Bonanza” and “Happy Trails,” the film noir classic The Bad and The Beautiful and Frisell’s own work from the TV show “Tales From The Far Side.” Taken together, the selections touch upon a wide swath of mid-twentieth century values, major events and cultural touchstones. “I’ve been watching TV and movies my whole life,” Frisell notes. “What I’ve seen and heard there is a huge part of, and is embedded so deeply into the fabric of what fires up my musical imagination.”

Sacks & Co.



While jazz and interpretation are hardly strange bedfellows, few musicians have managed to be both as deeply reverent to his source music and profoundly personal and in his approach as guitarist Bill Frisell. That's not to suggest his re-imaginings of other composers' works have been anything remotely approaching predictable; as early as his first "covers" record, Have a Little Faith (Elektra/Nonesuch, 1993), Frisell managed to create a congruent program out of disparate sources ranging from Aaron Copland, John Phillip Sousa and Charles Ives to Sonny Rollins, Muddy Waters, Madonna, John Hiatt and Bob Dylan. Subsequent albums, like All We Are Saying... (Savoy Jazz, 2011), may have been far more focused in their source material but, as Frisell demonstrated when he brought that John Lennon tribute music to the 2012 TD Ottawa Jazz Festival, he possesses a rare ability to truly get to the heart of the music while still imbuing it with his often idiosyncratic musical dispositions...and an ever-unabashed love of all music that has made him one of the most important guitarists and conceptualists of his generation...in any genre.

Frisell also has an uncanny knack for putting together unusually configured groups, and while When You Wish Upon a Star is relatively straightforward, it remains the kind of group that only the guitarist would choose to pay tribute to film scores from Bernard Hermann, Ennio Morricone, Nina Rota, David Raskin and Elmer Bernstein, along with songs from films including 1965's The Sandpipers ("The Shadow of Your Smile"), the title track to the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice, Disney's 1940 animated film Pinocchio ("When You Wish Upon a Star"), and the theme song to the radio and television show, The Roy Rogers Show, of the 1940s/50s ("Happy Trails"). A heartfelt recording that follows his similarly nostalgic look at the music he grew up with in the 1950s and '60s, Guitar in the Space Age (Okeh, 2014), When You Wish Upon a Star not only pays tribute to the films (and television shows) and their music, but to the musicians who were instrumental in bringing the original music to life: musicians like Dick Nash, Bob Bain, Dennis Budmir, Gene "Clip" Cipriano and countless others who toiled, largely in obscurity, with little or no credit.

When You Wish Upon a Star's quintet is anchored by a "proper" rhythm section featuring now-longtime Frisell mate, drummer Rudy Royston, and bassist Thomas Morgan—making his first appearance on a Frisell recording but far from a stranger to the guitarist, the pair having collaborated on two of Danish guitarist Jakob Bro's wonderful Loveland Records trilogy, specifically 2011's Time and 2013's December Song (the trilogy completed by 2009's Balladeering, where the bassist was Ben Street). But it's the addition of another longtime Frisell collaborator, violist Eyvind Kang, whose relationship with the guitarist now stretches back 20 years to 1996's Bill Frisell Quartet (Nonesuch), and singer Petra Haden—daughter of the late bassist Charlie Haden and with whom Frisell collaborated on the sparely beautiful Petra Haden and Bill Frisell (Skip, 2004)—that gives When You Wish Upon a Star it's unique complexion, beyond the unmistakable imprint that Frisell, Morgan and Royston place on this music, playing as much from an orchestral perspective as they do a rhythmic team.

Frisell's arrangements are as respectful as they are personal. Many are relatively through-composed, like his two-part extractions from Bernstein's soundtrack to the famous 1962 drama based on Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Hermann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Robert Bloch's 1959 short novel, Psycho (1960)...and a brief but wry look at the theme to Bonanza, the western-themed television show that ran from 1959 to 1973. But the instrumentation—and Frisell's ever-present allowance for his band mates to interpret his charts freely even as they're asked to follow them—are what brings them to life...and suggest how, as was the case with his Lennon tribute, this is music that will likely assume even greater freedom and collective/collaborative expansion in a live context.

Frisell's ability to create lengthy sustaining lines that shimmer beneath Kang and Haden when they're the featured voices has never been more gentle, more elegant, more flat-out beautiful. Still, the guitarist proves equally capable of sharp staccato punctuations and oblique harmonies in the two-part "Psycho" suite, where his ability to reduce music originally performed by a string orchestra down to a mere quintet—a reduction, in itself, already made by Hermann due to the film's reduced budget but one that remains so iconic that the sound of its screeching violins during the infamous shower scene remains instantly recognizable when used in any context—is downright remarkable. Kang, Frisell and Haden (again, wordlessly) assume various instrumental roles, along with a propulsive and, at times, more orchestral percussion approach by Royston, with Morgan ever-present yet never intrusive.

Frisell's arrangements may be relatively faithful—his nine-minute reduction of Rota's music from The a Godfather another example of the guitarist's ability to distill a much larger piece of music down not only for a smaller ensemble, but into a much shorter timeframe—but the entire album seems to also reflect a kind of unfettered freedom that makes it a worthwhile listen many times over. The three-part "Once Upon a Time in the West" may feel so utterly true to its roots that you can feel the dust and grime in your boots, and the heat of the sun on your brow; but equally, there's a certain sense of innocence and youth in the first of Frisell's two-part adaptations of Bernstein's To Kill a Mockingbird score, while the second part grooves in a way Bernstein's score never did...and yet feels absolutely like it could have.

On the songs that feature lyrics, Haden proves a similarly respectful interpreter who never resorts to gymnastics or pyrotechnics; instead, the slightest gesture, the subtlest of nuance make songs like "You Only Live Twice" her own...and a far cry from Nancy Sinatra's more dramatic approach to the original. Backed by a group as ethereal as it is gently grounded, Haden's approach to Frisell's rubato arrangement of the album's title track (reprised, in considerably different form, from Petra Haden and Bill Frisell) is a quiet high point of the entire set—a relatively brief but positively celestial reading that's largely carried by some of Frisell's most unique playing on the record. He's a guitarist who may seem to have gone through his greatest evolution in his younger days, but albums like When You Wish Upon a Star demonstrate that, even in his mid-sixties, he continues to build upon and evolve his utterly personal language. It may not be as dramatic as it once was, but it's there nevertheless, and particularly there to be seen and heard on When You Wish Upon a Star, despite it being an album that features little in the way of defined or delineated soloing.

And for those who opine that he's lost his edge, Frisell demonstrates it's still there when he wants it. On the only Frisell original—a reprise of "Tales from the Far Side," his soundtrack to Gary Larson's animated films of the same name also featured on Bill Frisell Quartet—the guitarist moves gradually from clean, tremelo'd Telecaster to more heavily overdriven, effects-laden lines that soar abstrusely above Haden's singing of the composition's main theme, as Morgan and Royston build along with him to a peak that's both climactic to the song...and the album.

Frisell has always been a musician for whom diversity is something to be celebrated—whether it's the original composition, horn-driven focus of This Land (Elektra/Nonesuch, 1994), altered string quartet music of Sign of Life (Savoy Jazz, 2011), collage approach of Floratone (Blue Note, 2007), near-bluegrass of Nashville (Nonesuch, 1996), roots Americana of Good Dog, Happy Man (Nonesuch, 1999) or sample-based music of Unspeakable (Nonesuch, 2004). With When You Wish Upon a Star, Frisell can add a collection of film and television music to his body of work; an album that, in its own inherent diversity and performed by a stellar group that features, for the first time, a vocalist in his lineup, ranks not only as one of the guitarist's best albums in recent years, but one of his best recordings ever.

John Kelman - February 1, 2016
© 2016 All About Jazz



Even when at his most impressionistic, guitarist Bill Frisell manages to emphasize the importance of melody, building fragments of hummable tunes around musically abstract compositions. It’s this blending of the accessible with the avant garde that has long made Frisell a fascinating, enigmatic artist, one who refuses easy categorization and for whom the term musician’s musician seems apt. Having released at least one album per year since 1995 – often as many as three in a year – Frisell has a amassed a sizable discography that has allowed him to explore a wide range of styles and sounds.

While capable of music as viscerally strident as contemporaries Fred Frith and Marc Ribot, Frisell has in recent years opted for a more nuanced approach to his recordings, creating temperate approximations of recognizable melodies that seem to work more with the colors, shapes and emotions evoked by each. In this, his jazz-influenced approach to pop melodies is similar to that of pianist Brad Mehldau as each respect the parameters of the original melody while finding new and different elements within each to create something simultaneously familiar and entirely foreign.

Apparently having found a veritable fount of inspiration in the music of the mid-20th century following 2014’s Guitar in the Space Age! with its reimagining of then-popular guitar styles, Frisell explores the world of television and film themes on his latest, When You Wish Upon a Star. With each, Frisell takes the most recognizable elements of each, building around this central theme and then subjecting each to a funhouse mirror approach that extends and distorts melodies and motifs to create an often gloriously mutated, albeit gentle, impression of the familiar.

And while the approach in theory is often left-of-center, the results are anything but. The majority of When You Wish Upon a Star plays as pleasantly recognizable, if slightly skewed, background jazz. This is not music that requires your full and immediate attention. Rather it gently finds its way into your brain, hitting all the appropriate pleasure centers triggered by the familiar and/or nostalgic, before gradually making an impression with the musicality of each performance.

By and large, When You Wish Upon a Star feels almost somnambulant in its gentle approach. Melodies ease their way across the speakers, gently caressed by minimal percussion. In this, Frisell and company rarely rise much above a whisper. “Psycho Pt. 1”, however, is given an almost frenetic, klezmer feel, no doubt the residual influence of his time spent working with fellow musical iconoclast John Zorn. But by “Pyscho Pt. 2” the group is back to the more ethereal, with a delicate arrangement featuring frequent collaborator Petra Haden’s angelic, wordless vocals.

“The Shadow of Your Smile,” again with Haden on lead vocals, adheres to a standard jazz format. By playing it straight, the arrangement allows for a stylistic contrast in which subtle counter-melodies and ideas weave in and out of the tune without causing a distraction. So nuanced are many of these ideas that it takes several listens for the depth of the arrangement to sink in. While the ear is initially drawn to Frisell and Haden, it’s the melodic elements that exist just beyond the familiar that prove the most compelling, a tactic Frisell employs throughout much of When You Wish Upon a Star.

Somewhat surprisingly, much of this material has appeared before on previous albums. “Tales From the Far Side”, Frissel’s composition for Gary Larson’s titular comic strip adaptation, appeared on 1996’s Bill Frisell Quartet, while both the lovely arrangement of “Moon River” and the title track appeared previously on Frisell and Haden’s 2003 collaboration Petra Haden & Bill Frisell. As that album was billed more as Haden’s, it featured more straight-ahead pop and jazz material. Here this is Frisell’s show with Haden playing able collaborator throughout.

Equally surprising given the tenor of the album is the avant guitar freakout that closes “Tales From the Far Side”. Only here does Frisell elect to get noisy while the rest of the group gently carries on. Ultimately, it’s one of the few moments of genuine sparks in a largely subdued collection of the familiar. By stretching each just enough to make them interesting, Frisell and company manage to avoid creating the aural equivalent of wallpaper.

John Paul - 19 February 2016
© 1999-2016 Popmatters.com



When You Wish Upon a Star features Bill Frisell’s interpretations of film and television themes, some – like “Bonanza” and “Tales from the Far Side” – revealing fond memories of youthful gogglebox habits. He’s assisted by his jazz trio, expanded by the singer Petra Haden and violist Eyvind Kang – the latter effective in uncovering the Irish flavour of the lilting “To Kill a Mockingbird”, while Haden brings clarity and charm to “You Only Live Twice” and “When You Wish Upon a Star”, recalling Crystal Gayle’s work on One from the Heart. Frisell is meticulous throughout, never playing more than necessary, and slanting the arrangements to bring out the themes’ essential characters. The two major pieces are a three-part suite of Morricone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West”, which shifts between haunting, tense and elegiac, and a poignant 10-minute take on “The Godfather”.

Andy Gill - 12 February 2016
independent.co.uk



Der amerikanische Gitarrist, Komponist und Arrangeur Bill Frisell (*1951) ist dafür bekannt, sich häufig auch jenseits des Jazz zwischen den Grenzen von Progressive Folk, klassischer Musik, Country, Noise Music oder anderen Richtungen zu bewegen und somit eine ganz eigene musikalisch spannende Sprache zu entwickeln. Auf seinem neusten Album sind nun seine fesselnde Arrangements und Interpretationen von Musikklassikern aus Film und Fernsehen zu hören. Bekannte Melodien aus "Psycho", "Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod", "Der Pate" oder auch"Bonanza" erklingen dabei in Frisells unverwechselbarer Spielart. Komplettiert wird seine Musik durch den Gesang von Charlie Hadens Tochter Petra, mit welcher er bereits 2003 erfolgreich zusammen gearbeitet hat, sowie durch Eyvind Kang (Viola), Rudy Royston (Schlagzeug) und Thomas Morgan (Bass).

Amazon.de



"[Bei] Bill Frisell kann man sich sicher sein, dass jedes neue Werk mit neuem Team aus guten Stoffen verarbeitet und kein Etikettenschwindel ist. [...] Diese Coverversionen machen nur Sinn, wenn sie etwas Neues bieten und das klappt hier, weil alles subtil und sensibel gespielt ist."

Fono Forum 02/2016



"Was Bill Frisell aus Pop, Country, Jazz und Filmschlager rausholt bzw. macht, ist unglaublich, unberechenbar und manchmal auch einfach nur schön. [...] Großartig!"
 
Gitarre & Bass, 02/2016



"[Frisell] nimmt sich Film- und TV-Berühmtes vor, Herrmann, Morricone, Rota, "Moon River", den Titelsong und, ja, "Bonanza". Klein besetzt, öfter mit Eyvind Kangs Viola als stimmungsschaffendem Leadinstrument, ein paarmal wie im toll twang-psychedelischen "You Only Live Twice" oder nur als Sirenenton bei Morricone und "Psycho" mit Petra Haden als Sängerin. Toll, wie sie diese sehr bekannten Nummern atmosphärisch werkgetreu gerade um die paar kleinen, entscheidenden Instrumentaldrehs verschieben."

Rolling Stone 02/2016



"Seit drei Jahrzehnten zählt Bill Frisell zu den wichtigen Gitarristen des Jazz. Was Frisells Suche in abgelegenen Ecken so interessant machen kann, ist sein Talent, alte Substanzen zu entschlacken und auf den Punkt zu bringen. [...] Nun nimmt er sich Melodien aus der Filmwelt vor. Wieder ist Petra Haden dabei, [...] mit Eyvind Klang, Thomas Morgan und dem das Unhörbare ermöglichenden Rudy Royson an den Drums ergibt ein weiter gefächertes Klangbild, das für den alles andere als pyrotechnischen Virtuosen eine herrliche Vorlage gibt: egal ob es mit "Bonanza" im Galopp über die Prärie geht, "Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod" als Suite kommt oder der "Moon River" in seiner schlichten Schönheit besungen wird."

Jazzthing 02-03/2016



"Bei Bill Frisell kann man sicher sein, dass jedes neue Werk mit neuem Team aus guten Stoffen verarbeitet und kein Etikettenschwindel ist. [...] Coverversionen machen nur Sinn, wenn sie etwas Neues bieten und das klappt hier, weil alles subtil und sensibel gespielt ist. "Psycho", "The Shadow Of Your Smile" oder "Moon River", sogar das Thema aus "Bonanza" alles schon x-mal gehört und doch einen Tick anders."

Stereo 03/2016



"4 Sterne: Bill Frisell ist ein Zauberer. Auf seinem neuen kleinen Wunderwerk in Silber macht er aus jedem der Soundtracks von Morricone, Barry, Mancini, Rota und anderen einen eigenen neuen Film. Die zeitlosen Vorlagen entfalten durch Frisells Behandlung auf frappierende Weise ein Eigenleben. Kein anderer Gitarrist zerlegt Akkorde so wie er, keiner verfügt über ein solches Repertoire von eleganten Voicings und Klangideen. Die von Frisell benutzten Effekte, bei anderen wären sie gefährlich nahe am Kitsch, haben bei seiner Musik stets eine fundamentale Bedeutung."

Jazzthetik, 03-04.2016



"Bonanza", "Der Pate" und "Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod": Für Bill Frisell ist die Musik zu diesen Film- und TV-Klassikern ein Teil seiner DNA. "Ich habe mein ganzes Leben lang TV und Spielfilme gesehen. Was ich da gesehen und gehört habe, ist ein großer Teil von dem, was meine musikalische Fantasie anregt". "When You Wish Upon a Star" ist Frisells Hommage an die Helden von Flimmerkiste und Leinwand: Bernard Hermanns "Psycho"-Themen hat der US-Gitarrist genauso aufgenommen wie den Bond-Evergreen "You Only Live Twice" und Disney-Melodien.

Längst ist Bill Frisell mehr Nostalgiker als Neutöner. Viele seiner jüngsten Alben nehmen Vorlagen der Vergangenheit auf, seiner Kindheit - kleine Erinnerungsfetzen, aus denen die Vorlagen für große Themen werden. Hilfe bekam er diesmal wieder von alten und guten Freunden: Frisell spielt mit Eyvind Kang, Thomas Morgan und Rudy Royston. Petra Haden singt Songs wie "Moon River" und dann waren da noch alle möglichen Geister im Studio, so sagt Bill Frisell: Paul Motian war da - mit dem Drummer teilte Frisell sich die Liebe zum Broadway und den Filmsongs. Und dann die Cartwrights, Don Corleone, Norman Bates und Cheyenne.

Ralf Dorschel - NDR Info
 

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