Bill Frisell – electric and acoustic guitars, loops
Dave Holland – bass
Elvin Jones – drums
Produced by Lee Townsend & Michael Shrieve
recording engineers: Joe Ferla, Adam Munoz & Rory Romano
mixing engineer: Joe Ferla
edited by Adam Munoz
mastering by Greg Calbi
Nonesuch Records
Art by Jim Woodring
All Compositions by Bill Frisell (Friz-Tone Music/BMI) except “Moon River” by Henry Mancini and “Hard Times” by Stephen Foster
REVIEWS
Ever prolific avant-Americana guitarist Bill Frisell continues his Nonesuch odyssey with this trio that includes two jazz heavyweights: bassist Dave Holland (former Miles Davis band member and current ECM recording artist) and drum legend Elvin Jones (one-quarter of the classic John Coltrane Quartet of the ’60s and still an indefatigable rhythmist). Frisell leads the threesome through a book of his own highly individual, atmospherically compelling tunes, including such recent favorites as “Strange Meeting” and “Blues Dream”; the trio also essays two vintage numbers that do a good job of bookending Frisell’s own brand of rootsy lyricism – Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” and Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times.” Hardly obvious candidates as Frisell collaborators, Holland and Jones warm well to the folk-inflected material, complementing the guitarist’s offbeat charm and unerring taste with their muscular authority. Frisell fans will rejoice once again, and newcomers might find this an ideal introduction. – Billboard, October 27, 2001
BILL FRISELL With Dave Holland & Elvin Jones
Performance * * * *
Sonics * * * * *
Bill Frisell’s allegorical approach to storytelling draws on a wealth of sounds and styles, and is informed by a jazz attitude. His music is ideally suited to the challenges of the trio format, in which each player is exposed and naked, sharing the rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic responsibilities while trying to project the orchestral dimension of a big band.
Bill Frisell with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones is the most down-home, folkish expression yet of the guitarist’s borderless blues music. It is perhaps the most expansive, perfected vision of this trip-tych of all-star audiophile recordings, which began with Charlie Haden and Ginger Baker on the drummer’s Going Back Home and continued with bassist Viktor Krauss and mandarin L.A. studio drummer Jim Keltner on Frisell’s Gone, Just Like a Train.
The big difference here is Frisell’s laying-on of mucho post-production touches to flesh out the music in a fascinating mélange of overdubbed acoustic and electric voices. Bassist Holland tolls away with egoless grace and power while drummer Jones plays the blues with cool, understated conviction, filling in the textural holes with his trademark sizzle-cymbal/bass-drum moan and airy, wind-driven sheets of snare precipitation on surprisingly straightforward grooves that evoke visions of Highway 61. Jones does all this so straightforwardly – as in his hypnotic time-keeping on “Coffaro’s Theme” and his unadorned shuffle on “Outlaws” – that it might come as something of a shock to those who still associate him mainly with the fervent interplay and complexity of John Coltrane’s quartet.
Why should we be so shocked to hear Elvin playing straight time? He sounds as if he’s having the time of his life. Listen to the deliciously slow groove of “Blues Dream.” But then, this album’s first four tunes are fleshed out in great detail with guitar overdubs; in such elaborate orchestrations less is often more, rhythmically speaking – a big, round, evenly spaced quarter note can be just as profound as the most complex polyrhythmic layering.
In responding to Frisell’s spacious brand of rhythmic/melodic invention, Holland and Jones bring things to a simmer rather than a full boil, as on “Tell Your Ma, Tell Your Pa,” in which one of Jones’ trademark rolling intros leads to a fattening tom-tom drone with Holland and overdubs depict a distant thunderstorm, Frisell’s solo providing what lightning there is.
Sonically and spiritually, the music takes on a more or less “jazz” dimension when they play as a straight trio. This happens to glorious effect on a tenderly swinging “Moon River,” in which Hones’ brushwork and Holland’s counterpoint flesh out Frisell’s sublime acoustic guitar harmonies; on the mysterious cymbal-driven changes of “Strange Meeting”; and in the shuffling “Convict 13.” But to hear these three surge together, as they do in the closing strains of “Smilin’ Jones,” is to recognize that perhaps this isn’t a “jazz” album at all.
Whatever you call it, the wonderful bass extension and holographic textural dimension in Bill Frisell with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones make it a definite audiophile’s delight. And in its ritualistic portrayal of Americana we gain a new insight into the collective prism of the improviser’s art, while Frisell’s visceral orchestrations suggest still bolder swatches of color to come.- Chip Stern, Stereophile, January 2002