Doc's Jazz Music Reviews

I am not too familiar with Bill Frisell and I say this to my own amazement. Where has he been hiding? This album is innovative and creative. I recommend you give it a try, my order is in the mail.

Editorial Reviews

Two CD set. Bill Frisell’s History, Mystery is a series of short pieces, alternately elegant and playful, written by Frisell for an octet comprised of the guitarist himself and a group of longtime collaborators-friends. One evocative snippet melds into another to form a virtually seamless work that unfolds over the course of this double-disc package. It has an engrossingly theatrical quality, as if it were the score to some unseen play. Some of these tracks were originally written for Mysterio Sympatico, a 70-minute multi-media dialogue between Frisell and fellow Seattle based artist/comic book author Jim Woodring that premiered in 2002 at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, featuring Frisell’s compositions and Woodring’s surreal projections, and that has subsequently been reprised around the country.

Still Growing on Me
By Ron Hartman

This holds together much better then one might think, 30 tracks from different sources. There is a very nice flow to it. I like this more then East/West, less guitar histrionics (but there is a bit). It most reminds me of his "The Intercontinental", probably my favorite Frisell recording.
His version of "A Change is Gonna Come" on here is gorgeous!

Music for Grownups
By Eliot Gardenstreet

Miles Davis once said that the secret to playing jazz was capturing the feel of children's rhymes like "Patty Cake." Bill Frisell captures it perfectly, and his music is simple, playful, and fun. It's also serious and complex. No contemporary jazz artist (other Keith Jarrett) puts me in touch with the poignancy of life the way Bill does, with the sweetness of being alive, with delight in what's transient and beautiful in the face of great loss and inevitable death. Bill (like Keith) understands how important it is to keep jazz connected to its roots in blues and American popular song. ("All Blues" would be a good title for Bill's entire oeuvre.) I think this is why I resonate more to his music than to trickier cutting edge jazz, which sometimes sounds like an unfun puzzle. History, Mystery has the kind of artistic scope of Blues Dream, but it's even larger, more natural, and more satisfying. It contains echoes of The Intercontinentals, but sounds deeper, less concepty, and more settled. The pairing of guitar and violin has an illustrious history: Rheinhardt and Grapelli, McLaughlin and Goodman, McLaughlin and Shankar, Abercrombie and Feldman. Add Frisell and Scheinman to that list.

Bill Frisell solo - Wildwood Flower / Poem for Eva