Sep 2008
Bill Frisell in Bellingham
Sep/09/2008 *
music reviews
* permalinkage
Can sound take on physical form? Does it have texture? How about temperature? Can one actually taste music?
I expect to answer these questions, and other ones I haven't thought of yet, next week when Bill Frisell sits down to play his guitar in the redwood sanctuary of the Church House.
I've been
dying to get inside of Pat Wickline and Sharon
Streams' renovated-church venue on Mill Avenue in
Fairhaven since they started hosting concerts there
last year. Intimate affairs, their concerts have been
more like living room hootenannys as the intimate
space only accommodates125 people. But my, what a
living room: a former Methodist church originally
built in Fairhaven's 1890 building boom, it boasts
over 3,000 square feet of old-growth California
redwood boards paneling 25 foot-high ceilings that
soar upwards in graceful arcs. "The ceilings looks
like the hull of a ship," Wickline once remarked to
the Herald.
The design of the space and use of natural materials reportedly combine to create a warm, one-of-a-kind reverberation and compression that brings out the best in vocals, acoustic instruments and drums.
Frisell, under these circumstances, seems like a natural fit for the Church House. His penchant for generating ambient abstractions, and the creative ways in which he coaxes a wide range of sonic spectrums from his guitar, leads me to believe he is going the make the whole room sing.
Since Frisell's Valentine's Day 2007 performance with Greg Leisz at the Nightlight Lounge, the Bainbridge Island-based musician has continued with his prodigious output of albums – each one seemingly inventing its own new category of music – his most recent release being the double-CD set History, Mystery. Trying to describe it with a friend the other day, we came up with "americana/soundtrack," "avant-garde jazz" and "postmodern bluegrass chamber music," but we didn't know what it was called when you released a record that contains all of those genres, sometimes in the same song.
Most of History, Mystery was recorded live with a very talented octet including Ron Miles, Jenny Scheinman, Eyvind Kang, Tony Sherr and Kenny Wollesen. Together, they weave across the map of Frisell's many different musical styles. An unusual hybrid of songs that Frisell wrote for various side projects, sometimes they feel like a gesture or a brief thought, maybe a passing mood. Short bridges like the one-minute "Probability Cloud 2" or the 36-second "A Momentary Suspension of Doubt" stitch the larger suite together.
The best model one might look to anticipate what this talented musician might play would be to give a listen to Ghost Town, his 2000 solo release on which he plays acoustic and electric guitars, bass and the 6-string banjo, as well as deftly builds and bends woozy loops of his various instruments. He has a fondness for electronic effects and at performances is often seen twiddling knobs, pressing buttons and tapping foot pedals. Frisell's is the light touch however, and his audial manipulations are typically restrained and subtle, providing depth and mysteries to his compositions.
He'll be playing the Bellingham solo show coming hot off a 5-night stand at the Village Vanguard in New York City, where he'll have performed with his long-time jazz trio with Paul Motian on drums and Joe Lovano on saxophone. Hopefully he'll have time to take a deep breath of the autumn-tinged maritime air in our fair burg before his fall tour launches him to Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro, Lisbon, Zurich, Istanbul, Budapest, Zagreb, Rotterdam, London and points in between, all before Thanksgiving.
To say the City of Subdued Excitement is fortunate to host Frisell at the Church House is an understatement. One thing's for certain: he's going to deliver a sermon to remember.
The design of the space and use of natural materials reportedly combine to create a warm, one-of-a-kind reverberation and compression that brings out the best in vocals, acoustic instruments and drums.
Frisell, under these circumstances, seems like a natural fit for the Church House. His penchant for generating ambient abstractions, and the creative ways in which he coaxes a wide range of sonic spectrums from his guitar, leads me to believe he is going the make the whole room sing.
Since Frisell's Valentine's Day 2007 performance with Greg Leisz at the Nightlight Lounge, the Bainbridge Island-based musician has continued with his prodigious output of albums – each one seemingly inventing its own new category of music – his most recent release being the double-CD set History, Mystery. Trying to describe it with a friend the other day, we came up with "americana/soundtrack," "avant-garde jazz" and "postmodern bluegrass chamber music," but we didn't know what it was called when you released a record that contains all of those genres, sometimes in the same song.
Most of History, Mystery was recorded live with a very talented octet including Ron Miles, Jenny Scheinman, Eyvind Kang, Tony Sherr and Kenny Wollesen. Together, they weave across the map of Frisell's many different musical styles. An unusual hybrid of songs that Frisell wrote for various side projects, sometimes they feel like a gesture or a brief thought, maybe a passing mood. Short bridges like the one-minute "Probability Cloud 2" or the 36-second "A Momentary Suspension of Doubt" stitch the larger suite together.
The best model one might look to anticipate what this talented musician might play would be to give a listen to Ghost Town, his 2000 solo release on which he plays acoustic and electric guitars, bass and the 6-string banjo, as well as deftly builds and bends woozy loops of his various instruments. He has a fondness for electronic effects and at performances is often seen twiddling knobs, pressing buttons and tapping foot pedals. Frisell's is the light touch however, and his audial manipulations are typically restrained and subtle, providing depth and mysteries to his compositions.
He'll be playing the Bellingham solo show coming hot off a 5-night stand at the Village Vanguard in New York City, where he'll have performed with his long-time jazz trio with Paul Motian on drums and Joe Lovano on saxophone. Hopefully he'll have time to take a deep breath of the autumn-tinged maritime air in our fair burg before his fall tour launches him to Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro, Lisbon, Zurich, Istanbul, Budapest, Zagreb, Rotterdam, London and points in between, all before Thanksgiving.
To say the City of Subdued Excitement is fortunate to host Frisell at the Church House is an understatement. One thing's for certain: he's going to deliver a sermon to remember.