by Manuel Gonzales

The stars at night
Are big and bright,
Deep in the heart of --

Something about Bill Frisell: he's got some crazy vision running through his head. Another thing about Bill Frisell: you can see, first hand, his musical, tonal antics in October as Bill Frisell's Quartet swing through Austin's Bates Recital Hall, flying into town on their space chariot. And don't be surprised to see Gary Larson at the festivities, in spirit if not body.

In 1996, guitarist Bill Frisell released a work of art entitled, simply, Quartet. It is not his latest release, but is definitely one of his most fantastic, combining the diversity and talents of Eyvind Kang on violin and tuba, Ron Miles playing trumpet and the piccolo trumpet, Curtis Fowles on trombone, and Bill Frisell, whose fancy-free fingers lead electric and acoustic guitar into the magical, and often the absurd. It is, in a sense, chamber music: chamber music best suited for Gary Larson, Buster Keaton, and Italian film director Daniele Luchetti, as it combines music written expressly for their films (Tales from the Far Side, Convict 13, and La Scuola). In fact, only three tracks belong to Quartet and only Quartet, which might lead one to expect a disjointed and choppy CD, akin more to a Bill Frisell: Movie Samplings than the smooth and polished bit of improvisational fancy which Mr. Frisell has provided for us. Each song flows nicely, seamlessly, into the next as Frisell develops and maintains over his 13 mini-works of art a theme of the absurd, the choral, the beautiful, celebrating jazz by pushing its boundaries to include honky-tonk and blues, tastes of Americana and orchestra, spacemagiclunar effects and back-to-earth crunching and stomping solos, all through minimalization, minimalization, minimalization. The three Ms my friend, the three Ms.

At age seven, Bill Frisell took up the clarinet. Private lessons, band practices, before school, after school, marching, competing, learning Tchaikovsky, Bach, "Stars and Stripes Forever." He read music, played notes by heart, fingered flawlessly, never missing beat, note, or step. So how did this young, bright, energetic clarinetist -- or, this member of the band regime, known for its Gestapo tactics and finely tuned notes, become one of the day's leading improvisational, ground-breaking, throw - your - grease - on - the - fire - and - let - her - fly, jazz guitarist? Why, he picked up a guitar. "When I first started playing guitar," explains Frisell, "it was like a completely different side of my brain working. Clarinet was a real intellectual process. I read well, read music and played in orchestras and chamber groups. But when I started playing guitar, I just sort of did it all on my own. It was weird. I couldn't read music on the guitar, but I could figure out stuff from records." He later learned how to read music for guitar and combined his ear for guitar (and Americana and jazz and whatever other sound floats through his head as he sleeps) with musical, technical knowledge. Musicality and music-ology. He trained at the University of Northern Colorado and then Berklee College of Music Boston. In 1978, he lived for a year in Belgium, composing and listening and learning. He then began a trio with Kermit Driscoll on bass and Joey Baron on drums, and pushed his skill and love for music to its limits, and then beyond, stepping out of the trio's bounds, adding horns and accordions, building sextets and septets.

Then, Joey Baron left.

Rather than replace Baron and continue working with Kermit Driscoll, Bill Frisell took this as an opportunity to chase after the ever-elusive sounds he'd been hearing, on the streets, in people's voices, in his head, in a car engine, in a factory belt. The sounds of time and of the grotesque, those things frightening and beautiful, simple and complex. The sounds of space.

In 1995, he recorded Music for the Films of Buster Keaton: Go West and The High Sigh/One Week, where he and his guitar play storyteller, mixing the magic of their sound with the magic of Buster Keaton's slips, trips, and visual quips. And when his next door neighbor, Gary Larson, asked him to create a musical background to his land of walking and talking cows, dogs, geeks and freaks, Frisell composed a score more than suitable to The Far Side landscape, at once insightful and surreal, the voices of Quartet's guitar, violin, and horn blending into laughing harmonies, bewildered and playful melodies, and phantom rhythms.

Most recently released by Bill Frisell is Nashville, a tribute to Americana, to country, to good-ole picking and strumming, simple rhythms, simple melodies, and a simple, pure voice to remind us of simpler days. Good summer listening. Sit on your porch, in the shade, Frisell's acoustic passing through you like a breeze; or in your car, driving through Lubbuck (or leave it), along the panhandle by-ways and West Texas highways, traveling to the music that carries you home; or at Donn's Depot, shaking the sawdust from your feet as you stamp and clap, stomp and romp to good old-fashioned honky-tonk. Victor Krauss (of the Lyle Lovett scene) on bass, Adam Steffey on mandolin, Ron Block on banjo and guitar, dobro player Jerry Douglas, and sweetashoney vocalist Robin Holcomb add their talents to Frisell's latest accomplishment. Eleven original tunes by Bill Frisell and three covers: Neil Young's "One of These Days"; Hazel Dicken's "Will Jesus Wash the Bloodstains from Your Hands"; and Skeeter Davis' "The End of the World." A big step away from (or right into or clear around) the mystical sounds of Quartet, Nashville brings Frisell's earlier hints of country influences to the foreground and puts his stylized gee-tar pickin' to the test. All in all, he stands up nicely and gives us a musical interlude the color of my grandaddy's well-worn and well-loved Stetson.

But don't expect any of that honky-tonk twang this time around. Fall is jazz for Frisell and his performance in Austin will consist of his Quartet. Bill Frisell's Quartet will be performing as part of the Performing Art Center's Fall season, at Bates Recital Hall, October 4, 1997. Call the PAC at (512) 471-2787 for further ticket information.