Tag Archives: Bill Frisell

Recommended Event: A Tribute to Paul Motian @ Symphony Space (NY)

thumbDate: Friday, March 22, 2013
Time: 7 pm
Venue: Peter Jay Sharp Theatre /Symphony Space (2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York, NY 10025-6990)
Tickets: $45
Genre: jazz

An all-star cast of jazz greats come together to pay tribute to their colleague, legendary drummer and composer, the late Paul Motian, voted number one in the 2012Downbeat Critics Poll Hall of Fame. One of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, Motian played with Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Charlie Haden, Paul Bley, and many other bandleaders, including Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Mose Allison, Tony Scott, Stan Getz, and Johnny Griffin.

The concert, curated by Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano, features performances by Andrew Cyrille, Ben Monder, Ravi Coltrane, Ben Street, Bill Frisell, Billy Drewes, Jerome Harris, Billy Hart, Chris Cheek, Ed Schuller, Marilyn Crispell, Gary Peacock, Bill McHenry, Greg Osby, Tim Berne, Ethan Iverson, Jakob Bro, Joe Lovano, Joey Baron, Chris Cheek, Larry Grenadier, Mark Turner, Masabumi Kikuchi, Petra Haden, Steve Cardenas, Tony Malaby, and Billy Hart Quartet (Ethan Iverson, Ben Street, Mark Turner).

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Event recommendation: The Crossing The Line 2012 Festival (NY)

The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York’s premiere French cultural center, is pleased to open the Crossing the Line 2012 festival with three unique concerts by Grammy Award-winning guitarist and composer Bill Frisell . In a career spanning more than 35 years and over 250 recordings—including over 40 albums of his own—the guitarist, composer and bandleader has established himself as a visionary presence in American music. This series of events offers unconventional settings in which to experience Frisell’s singular artistry, including his first-ever early morning concert and a Crossing the Line commission in which he, violist Eyvind Kang, and visual artist Jim Woodring will use Frisell’s work notebooks to guide an intimate performance that includes live illustration and musical improvisation.

On Friday, September 14 at 8pm, Frisell opens FIAF’s newly renovated Florence Gould Hall with a special concert uniting two of his groups, the 858 Quartet (featuring Eyvind Kang, Hank Roberts, and Jenny Scheinman) and the Beautiful Dreamers trio (featuring Eyvind Kang and Rudy Royston).

Bill Frisell (photo by courtesy of CTL Festival)

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Concert review: Bill Frisell Plays The Music of John Lennon at La Poisson Rouge

Date: Thursday, 2 August 2012
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (NY)
Review by Matt Cole and photos by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

On Thursday, 2 August 2012, Bill Frisell and his talented band played an evening of John Lennon’s music before a packed, seated house at La Poisson Rouge. The band consisted of Jenny Scheinman on violin, Greg Leisz on pedal steel, Tony Scherr on bass, and Kenny Wollesen on drums. The band played selections from Frisell’s 2011 album, All We Are Saying, a collection of John Lennon’s songs played by the same band we were hearing live.

The music began with Frisell alone, then the rest of the band coming in one-by-one, in a dreamy jam that coalesced into “Across the Universe.” After an almost Beatlesesque treatment of the melody (helped along by Kenny Wollesen’s excellent and tasteful drumming in this idiom, which continued throughout the night), the band went back into free and dreamy territory. This pattern would continue for most of the night, with most songs starting free, and then alternating between Beatles-like sounds and free but not dissonant improve sections. A few times, no doubt aided by the sounds of Leisz’ pedal steel, the band entered the edges of country-rock territory, one example being on Lennon’s ode to his son, “Beautiful Boy,” another in “In My Life” towards the end of the set (the psychedelic ending of which, curiously, also reminded me a little of the intro to Rush’s epic “Xanadu”).

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