Jazz Reviews : Bill Frisell Offers Own Brand of New Music

Bill Frisell is definitely on to something. The New York City-based guitarist (actually, he lives across the Hudson in Hoboken) has been touted for years by critics and musicians as one of the most gifted players to arrive on the scene in the ‘80s.

Sunday night at At My Place, in the Los Angeles debut of his quartet, Frisell left little doubt that his good notices have been more than justified.

The music was a turbulent mixture of sounds in which solos and composed sections were constantly bouncing and spinning around each other. Frisell seemed to be posing the question of whether it was possible to fragment, then reconstruct--in a kind of musically Cubist fashion--various kinds of contemporary forms, from pop and country to blues and Western swing.

Curiously, it recalled a similar question posed by Ornette Coleman 30 years ago, when he attempted to restructure jazz by tearing apart traditional improvisational styles and then putting them back together in ways that reflected his own disjunct musical perspectives.

In Frisell’s case, the new slant worked--but not all the time. The evening’s major composition, “Hard Plains Drifter,” was a case in point. Arranged by John Zorn from a collection of Frisell themes, the long, multisectional piece randomly presented a series of melodies and solos (running the gamut from jazz to country), then shuffled, trimmed, varied and altered the segments until they were totally transformed. The effect was like watching a series of fast-moving clouds coalesce and change into ever-altering but always somewhat recognizable images.

But the virtually chance-like, disconnected juxtaposition of elements, startling as it sometimes was, failed to sustain interest for the full run of the piece. Structure, after all, can have its own value.

The shorter works were far more effective, in part because of the quirky appeal provided by the almost cinematic quick cuts between little fragments of style--a minor blues here, a jaunty Western rhythm there.

Cellist Hank Roberts, sharing the solos with Frisell, was a major factor in the music’s success. His phrasing--via bow and pizzicato--exploded with a rush and drive rarely heard from the other jazz/pop/fusion practitioners of his instrument.

Drummer Joey Baron and bassist Kermit Driscoll functioned as equal partners, their contributions absolutely vital to a collection of works in which there were no “back-up” parts.

Caveats aside, Frisell’s music--both as guitarist and composer--demanded the kind of attention that must be given an artist with serious intentions. If this performance was any indication, he may well become one of the most provocative voices of the ‘90s.