A few years ago I interviewed Justin Vernon, frontman and creative force of acclaimed indie-folk band Bon Iver, while he was in Dublin to play a festival. The subject of our conversation was not Vernon himself, however; it was a player and composer 30 years his senior who is largely associated with a style he doesn’t play – jazz. That musician was the American guitarist Bill Frisell.
The interview was part of my research for a biography I’ve written on Frisell, which has just been published by Faber, and as well as discovering that Vernon was far more of a devoted superfan than I had ever imagined – he even has a tattoo at the top of his back of one of his favourite Frisell tracks, That Was Then – it emerged that the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist places Frisell in the highest echelon of modern American music, up there, for example, with one of its greatest composer-geniuses, Duke Ellington.
“That comparison to Ellington, for me, puts Frisell in the right class and category; I think he’s that important,” Vernon told me. “What I love is that, although Bill Frisell is not a household name, almost every musician who’s serious knows who he is. Even though Ellington was much more popular in his era than Frisell is in his, Bill’s influence and impact on music is maybe just as deep.”
Over the past 45 years, 41 albums as leader, appearances on more than 300 recordings, and innumerable tours and live performances – at the end of this month he makes one of his infrequent visits to Ireland to play the Bray Jazz Festival – Bill Frisell has established himself as one of the most innovative and important musicians at work today.
Composer and improviser
It is true that 71-year-old Frisell is most often celebrated as a jazz player, composer and improviser. He has been called “the musing poet of the jazz guitar” and hailed in the New York Times as “the most significant and widely imitated guitarist to emerge in jazz since the beginning of the 1980s”. Frisell has topped jazz charts and polls, worked with many jazz greats and won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.
Frisell has become the most unlikely of guitar heroes, a gentle iconoclast who has looked past and beyond genre to work in a new realm that thrillingly ignores categories and constraints
“I’m actually fine with being described as ‘a jazz guitarist’, and I respect that, and there’s certainly plenty to do within that form,” he says. “It’s just that when I think about some of the people who’ve inspired me – Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis – for me, jazz is not so much a style as a way of thinking, a process of transforming what’s around you. What bothers me is when the word is used to describe some music that excludes something else; it’s like there are these rules that keep people apart. I’m just trying not to shut anything out.”
Frisell’s admirably open and adventurous approach to music is a major part of his wider appeal. His reach and dedicated following stretch far beyond the freeform yet sometimes introspective borders of jazz into a musical world shaped and inspired by a vast range of forms, from bluegrass to pop, Americana to avant-garde, blues to West African, folk to film music, ambient to alt-rock, country to classical.
By so seamlessly and successfully synthesising all these styles and interests into his playing, soft-spoken and self-effacing Frisell has become the most unlikely of guitar heroes, a gentle iconoclast who has looked past and beyond genre to work in a new realm that thrillingly ignores categories and constraints. He has expanded and changed the sound of jazz, the sound of the guitar, and the sound of American music.
“I’m just trying to use what I know and put my own experience into what I’m doing without limiting anything,” Frisell once said. “For me, music has always been this world where anything is possible.”
Wonderfully diverse repertoire
The trio that Frisell is bringing to Bray is a prime example of that musical philosophy. An agile and long-standing unit with bass player Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen, the trinity has the ability to take the music in any direction, at any time – to play a wonderfully diverse repertoire that ranges from Frisell’s captivating originals to classic pop songs, from jazz standards to traditional folk tunes, and breezy film themes to, given our turbulent times, poignant versions of Bob Dylan’s Masters of War, Burt Bacharach’s What the World Needs Now is Love and the civil rights anthem We Shall Overcome.
Not only does the inclusion of Frisell continue a tradition at Bray Jazz of booking leading lights in modern American jazz, but other headliners at the Mermaid Arts Centre also shine a light on some of Europe's finest talents
The defiance inherent in that last song somewhat echoes the attitude adopted by the organisers of the Bray Jazz Festival. The pandemic may have cancelled the last two May bank holiday festivities, and this year the event has been scaled back, with fewer concerts and a focus on “quality over quantity”, but the small but perfectly-formed festival with an international reputation is back almost as strong as ever.
Not only does the inclusion of Bill Frisell continue a tradition at Bray Jazz, now in its 21st year, of booking leading lights in modern American jazz – previous years have featured, among others, Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano, John Scofield and Steve Coleman – but other headliners at the Mermaid Arts Centre also shine a light on some of Europe’s finest talents.
Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen’s delicate and lyrical trio will no doubt draw upon his fine new ECM album, Opening, while the “psychedelic Arabic jazz” of British-Bahraini trumpet and flugelhorn player Yazz Ahmed compellingly blends improvisation with beats and electronics. The festival continues to champion Irish musicians too, from bassist and “godfather of the Irish contemporary jazz scene” Ronan Guilfoyle to upcoming vocalist Aoife Doyle – both in standalone concerts and, as a bonus this year, as openers for the main acts.
Highly positive
The response to the return of the festival has been highly positive. “We expect Bill Frisell’s concert and several others to sell out in advance,” says co-director George Jacob. “There’s a great audience appetite to get back to live music.”
Frisell has noticed something similar. “I am playing slightly differently, partly because of all the joy and energy of actually getting to tour after all this time away,” he says. “It’s more intense, for us and the audience. It feels like it’s important that we’re all together again.”
The Bill Frisell trio plays the Bray Jazz Festival (brayjazz.com) on Friday, April 29th, at 8pm. Philip Watson’s biography, Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed the Sound of American Music, is published by Faber. Watson will be discussing Bill Frisell and the book at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork (triskelartscentre.ie) on Thursday, April 21st, at 7pm as part of the Cork World Book Fest (corkworldbookfest.com).
