ALBUM REVIEWS : BILL FRISELL “Is That You?” <i> Elektra Musician</i> ** 1/2

Frisell ignores the jazz guitar rule book--he’s more concerned with creating atmosphere and texture than unleashing supersonic virtuoso runs or mellow chordal comping. Working with keyboardist Wayne Horvitz and drummer Joey Baron on “Is That You?,” his second Elektra Musician album, Frisell dispenses with standard compositional frameworks in favor of a meandering stream of music that encompasses spare rock-inclined solos, a country steel guitar tone on “Half A Million” and near-chamber music formality on occasion. His genre-hopping, mix-and-match inventiveness borders on the overly evanescent but the multiple shifts in tempo and texture usually are more interesting than enervating.