Bill Frisell Live In New York, NY 09/26/96 Set 1

SONG SAMPLES:

x.mp3 Tales From The Far Side
x.mp3 The Rain in Spain
x.mp3 Strange Meeting
x.mp3 Were Not From Around Here
x.mp3 Bob's Monsters

MUSICIANS:

Bill Frisell - electric guitar
Ron Miles - cornet
Eyvind Kang - viola
Curtis Fowlkes - trombone
Don Byron - clarinets

SONG LIST:

01 Improvisation #1 6:13
02 Tales From The Far Side 6:41
03 The Rain In Spain 7:40
04 Strange Meeting 11:02
05 Improvisation #2 5:40
06 We're Not From Around Here 9:40
07 The Gallows 8:17
08 Dead Ranch 7:07
09 Bob's Monsters 9:03

total running time: 1:11:18

All tracks composed by Bill Frisell except "The Rain In Spain" by Alan Lerner & Frederick Loewe

All songs written by Bill Frisell except: Lost Highway (Leon Payne), S.K.J. (Milt Jackson) and Follow Your Heart (John McLaughlin)  

Recorded by Claudia Engelhart at the Knitting Factory in New York City
Frisell Archivist: Martin Lane
Produced by Adam Blomberg

A Songline / Tone Field Production

REVIEW

All About Jazz
January 26, 2011
By John Kelman

Here's another unusual entry... Frisell's titular group from 1996's Quartet, but here expanded to a quintet with the addition of Don Byron, who'd been a regular Frisell partner since the guitarist's Have a Little Faith (Elektra/Nonesuch, 1993) and the clarinetist's own milestone, Tuskegee Experiments (Elektra/Nonesuch, 1992). Quartet represented a significant stylistic shift for Frisell; with the dissolution of his longstanding trio with Kermit Drisoll and Joey Baron, the guitarist decided, at least for a time, not to try and replace the format; instead, opting for a rhythm section-less group with Eyvind Kang, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes and cornetist Ron Miles.

 Unlike #006, which presented an album tour that culled most of its materialfrom the album, here Frisell's Quartet+1 only covers four songs from the album, looking to other sources, including a skewed New Orleans-centric version of "The Rain in Spain," from the hit 1956 Broadway musical My Fair Lady, with Byron's bass clarinet soaring across its full register; a curious version of Rambler's "Strange Meeting," where Byron's bass clarinet acts as both bass line and rhythmic anchor;and an early version of Nashville's "We're Not From Around Here" that, again, proves the inherent flexibility of Frisell's writing to fit into any context, whether it's the brass-heavy version here or the more bluegrass-informed takeon the studio album from the following year.

 In concert, the quartet's ability to seamlessly shift responsibilitieslike a well-honed tag-team is all the more incredible for its doing so, at least some of the time, without the benefit of structure and, instead, fromin-the-moment and intuitive decision-making. Frisell had, by this time, struckup a friendship with The Far Side cartoon creator, Gary Larson, and much of Quartet's music was written for a television special. In addition to the knotty and cartoonishly melodramatic "Tales from The Dark Side," the surprisinglyambling "Dead Ranch" and more brooding "Bob's Monsters" are included in thishour-long set that demonstrates Frisell's own twisted musical approach as aperfect dovetail for Larson's dry satire.  - John Kelman - All About Jazz

For the complete Download Series review visit All About Jazz here.

by All About Jazz / John Kelman

For the complete Download Series review visit All About Jazz here.

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