Bill Frisell Quintet - Moon River
Sorry this is on the late side... I was tweaking the Easter, so to speak. Ever tweak the Easter? It can crack your Egg. But let's March on with this super milestone birthday for a major player of our times.
He should need minimal, if any, introduction to anyone familiar with, oh I dunno.... music? I covered him a decade-plus ago when I first started this page, but since he's hitting 75 today let's do one of Joshy's li'l obsesso-posts. You know, where I post way too much music because I can't choose one thing, because it's all so tremendously awesome and all that Jazz.
Is he the most ego-less guitar player ever to pick it? I swear, when I was preparing this post I was dumbstruck -- given how geetarists are notoriously high on the notes-per-dollar, hey! this is my band and I haven't dominated the tune in nearly 11 seconds! Turn it up!! quotient -- by how our daily Maestro is so comfortable laying out and giving his mates the spotlight for extended stretches, and by how economically perfect his choice of notes and phrases always is.
It's gotta be in some way due to this predilection for brevity and the terse, impactful line over the thunderstruck, loud one that really defines him as a player, and enables him to function in so many contexts at such a high level of musicality.
The one time I ever saw him in person, it was 11AM on a Saturday morning in a church in SF, for free too. His music fits between the pews or in the Rock arena, and everywhere in between. It doesn't hurt that he's one of the most recognizably-toned guys ever to do it, either, with a sound that varies from the crystalline to the crunchy.
You know what? If I had to boil it down, about what makes Bill Frisell the living legend he is, it'd be to paraphrase Miles Davis (100 in May!) and say that whatever he plays, he plays it cliché-free.
And that's not something very many guitar players can claim with a straight face. Usually they're making a LOOK AT ME face, right? Talk about cliché.
Since he's undeniably one of the toppermost guitarists of our lifetimes, I have put together a little folderino worthy of the towering talent, so to say.
There's two full shows, from 2006 and 2015, totaling three hours that goes by in about three minutes, because the music is so good and transportive in that classic way that suspends time, or seems to.
Additionally, at the last minute at 1AM last night, I was bored with the usual cavalcade of numbtastic violence and depredation on YouTube Premium and decided to take a crack at a little Easter Egg compilation.
Taking as my canvas the Live Download Series our hero had up online starting back in 2008, where he did digital-only issues of 22 different concerts spanning 1989 to 2015, I took one song, more or less at random, from each volume he put out and strung them together into one of my long, non-existent macro-shows.
It consists almost entirely of covers, where BF takes a standard tune of the last 100 years and twists it into an inviting confection on the spot, and with one track from each volume it totals an additional three hours. That oughta keep y'all busy for a minute!
Anyway I just kinda tossed it together in under 24 hours, so hopefully I got all the tracks at a similar volume. Just don't expect anything but the usual all killer, no filler fare you'd expect from a Maestro the caliber of Bill Frisell.
1.
Bill Frisell Quintet
Jazzbaltica 2006
Kulturzentrum Salzau
Salzau, Germany
7.1.2006
01 You Are My Sunshine
02 1968
03 Probability 13
04 Raise 4
05 Monroe
06 What the World Needs Now
07 Subconscious Lee
Total time: 1:11:35
Bill Frisell - guitar
Ron Miles - trumpet
Greg Tardy - reeds
Tony Scherr - bass
Kenny Wollesen - drums
256/48K audio extracted from a PAL DVD of a European digital satellite broadcast
spectral analysis is lossless to 20 kHz, making this essentially equivalent to a preFM source
converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, tracked & remastered by EN, March 2026
538 MB FLAC/link is below
538 MB FLAC/link is below
2.
Bill Frisell Quintet
"When You Wish Upon a Star"
Jazz At Lincoln Center
Appel Room
Lincoln Center
New York City, New York USA
1.16+17.2015
01 J@LC intro & band introductions
02 When You Wish Upon a Star
03 The Days of Wine and Roses
04 Once Upon a Time In the West
05 As a Judgement
06 Farewell to Cheyenne
07 The Windmills of Your Mind
08 Moon River
09 Tales from the Far Side
10 Goldfinger
11 You Only Live Twice
12 Psycho 1
13 Psycho 2
14 Alfie
15 Alfie's Theme
16 The Shadow of Your Smile
17 Suite from "The Godfather"
18 Theme from "Batman"
19 The Fishin' Hole (Theme from "The Andy Griffith Show")
20 Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Total time: 1:29:11
disc break goes after Track 11
Bill Frisell - guitar
Eyvind Kang - viola
Thomas Morgan - bass
Rudy Royston - drums
Petra Haden - vocals
the ensemble provide action narration on Track 18
256/48k audio extracted from an HD YouTube Premium file of the "Jazz At Lincoln Center" livestream of the event
spectral analysis is lossless to 16 kHz with music to 20 kHz, making this essentially equivalent to an excellent FM source
converted to 16/44 CD Audio, de/remuxed for better balance, edited, tracked, repaired & remastered by EN, March 2026
I know it's a bit to chew on, but you'll probably survive all these wonderful sounds, made by the very greatest practitioners of the Art, some kind of way. I believe in you, OK?
I'll be back come Sunday, with yet another Six String Samurai, to whom I'll offer necessary and well-deserved tribute, and on yet another milestone birthday too. But do enjoy the birthday boy's toys here as we honor Bill Frisell, born this day in 1951 and showing no signs of the fatigue usually present when someone wields an axe this impressively.--J.
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