BILL FRISELL - Harmony
Blue Note
Bill Frisell (guitar); Petra Haden (vocals); Hank Roberts (cello, vocals); Luke Bergman (guitars, bass & voice)
A new addition to the seemingly inexhaustible catalogue of ubiquitous guitar-maestro Bill Frisell is always welcome on any reviewer’s desk. In a nigh-on four decade genre-defying career Frisell has skirted convention by jumping feet first into experimental noise-rock, contemporary classical, country-tinged Americana, the Nordic sensibility of ECM, reimagined jazz guitar and explorations of a variety of song-books including those of John Lennon and American classical and popular music.
Here, in the company of vocalist Petra Haden, vocalist and cellist Hank Roberts and Luke Bergman on guitars, bass and voice, Frisell presents ‘Harmony’, a intimately folksy and carefully considered excursion into American roots music. Through this drummer-less quartet, the music calmly ebbs and flows with melody and vocal harmonies at the fore, Haden’s vocalese stylings providing focus within a bedrock carefully textured harmonic backdrops.
Harmonically the album doesn’t challenge or stretch the ear to any great degree and, as with Frisell’s 1999 release ‘Good Dog, Happy Man’, the joy is in the interwoven and interdependent lines and use of space that together create a comfort-blanket of wholesome honesty. The fifth track ‘Deep Dead Blue’ provides a little more of the angularity that we have come to associate with Frisell’s harmonic and formal musical concept while remaining firmly in the small ensemble parlour setting. The seventh track, ‘Lonesome’ restates Frisell’s hallmark language of country-blues inflected Americana with somewhat vague vocal meanderings taking both top-line and harmony roles.
Taken as a whole this album affords a generally pleasant break from contemporary math-jazz but perhaps fails to deliver a convincing sense of bite and musical engagement, with tracks such as ‘On The Street Where You Live’ skirting dangerously close to the kitsch – music that’s presumably a lot of fun to perform but, to this listener at least, less so to listen to. The album’s penultimate track, ‘Curiosity’ provides a portal into a more interesting sound world and the journey is capped off with a stunningly beautiful reworking of ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’ in which the individual ensemble members contribute sensitively to the whole in creating a vibrantly fresh and contemporary take on Pete Seeger’s well-worn folk standard.
Reviewed by Haftor Medbøe
Blue Note
Bill Frisell (guitar); Petra Haden (vocals); Hank Roberts (cello, vocals); Luke Bergman (guitars, bass & voice)
A new addition to the seemingly inexhaustible catalogue of ubiquitous guitar-maestro Bill Frisell is always welcome on any reviewer’s desk. In a nigh-on four decade genre-defying career Frisell has skirted convention by jumping feet first into experimental noise-rock, contemporary classical, country-tinged Americana, the Nordic sensibility of ECM, reimagined jazz guitar and explorations of a variety of song-books including those of John Lennon and American classical and popular music.
Here, in the company of vocalist Petra Haden, vocalist and cellist Hank Roberts and Luke Bergman on guitars, bass and voice, Frisell presents ‘Harmony’, a intimately folksy and carefully considered excursion into American roots music. Through this drummer-less quartet, the music calmly ebbs and flows with melody and vocal harmonies at the fore, Haden’s vocalese stylings providing focus within a bedrock carefully textured harmonic backdrops.
Harmonically the album doesn’t challenge or stretch the ear to any great degree and, as with Frisell’s 1999 release ‘Good Dog, Happy Man’, the joy is in the interwoven and interdependent lines and use of space that together create a comfort-blanket of wholesome honesty. The fifth track ‘Deep Dead Blue’ provides a little more of the angularity that we have come to associate with Frisell’s harmonic and formal musical concept while remaining firmly in the small ensemble parlour setting. The seventh track, ‘Lonesome’ restates Frisell’s hallmark language of country-blues inflected Americana with somewhat vague vocal meanderings taking both top-line and harmony roles.
Taken as a whole this album affords a generally pleasant break from contemporary math-jazz but perhaps fails to deliver a convincing sense of bite and musical engagement, with tracks such as ‘On The Street Where You Live’ skirting dangerously close to the kitsch – music that’s presumably a lot of fun to perform but, to this listener at least, less so to listen to. The album’s penultimate track, ‘Curiosity’ provides a portal into a more interesting sound world and the journey is capped off with a stunningly beautiful reworking of ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’ in which the individual ensemble members contribute sensitively to the whole in creating a vibrantly fresh and contemporary take on Pete Seeger’s well-worn folk standard.
Reviewed by Haftor Medbøe
