I knew I wouldn't get too terribly far into this list without bringing up Bill Frisell. To say that Bill Frisell changed my musical life is pretty much an understatement. Back in the early 90's, I did actually listen to some instrumental music/light jazz and/or New Age, as it was called back then, but I honestly didn't take it that seriously at the time. Next to the rock music that I heavily listened to, the instrumental albums seemed a bit flimsy, old fogey-ish, and something not terribly sustainable for a listener. Yes, that was my old self talking. I tended to use instrumental music much more as a background or music simply to veg and relax to.
And then, I met someone at work that changed my musical life. It was I believe the very first time I met this man that he mentioned "...I think you'd like Bill Frisell...ever heard of him?" My answer was "Bill who?!". Now, I guess my statement above about instrumental music isn't all true because I do believe I owned Pat Metheny's "Secret Story" album at the time, an album I still think is quite amazing and doesn't get enough credit, but I listened to it more back then for the world beat aspect rather than the jazz part. This new friend/workmate of mine promptly brought in something like 6-7 CD's the very next day and suggested that I take them home and listen to them at my leisure. I was slightly flabbergasted but also highly intimidated by the whole thing. 6-7 jazz albums?! Seriously?! I planned to give them a whirl but I pretty much knew this would go nowhere.
...or so I thought. Now, I'm not saying that this clicked with me right away because it most certainly did not. But, there was some kernel in there, some tiny spark, that absolutely piqued my interest. I don't remember every album that he gave me but I know 100% for certain that the first Frisell album I listened to was "This Land", and I'll never forget putting that album on for the very first time. I know that I initially found it rather strange but also highly corny, especially with the horns, something I never really listened to at all, and I recall thinking, "how does this guy listen to this all the time?" But again, some tiny flame was ignited inside of me.
I listened to "This Land" all the way through but didn't really focus on it. I then listened to the first part of the album multiple times, though, and started getting favorites from it. It still hadn't "landed" for me, mind you, but the seeds were thus planted. My friend at work then pretty much gave me every Frisell album he owned, and I started going through these little by little. The guitar sound and tone alone was absolutely foreign to me; in fact, I couldn't even get my head around it. And then, there was Joey Baron on the drums, who pretty much defies all words because his playing and style were again like nothing I had ever heard. It was almost as if aliens had come and left recorded music from another planet for me to listen to.
At this point, I was hooked but more in a manner where I started exploring a lot of different artists, albums, genres, etc. It was like a whole new world had opened up to me. It wasn't long before I started going to jazz shows, buying countless albums myself, and so on. Pat Metheny Group quickly rose to the top for me, all while Frisell and his strange sound kept percolating under my skin.
I then happened upon an ad in the LA Times showing that Bill Frisell was going to be playing solo at the Skirball Center. I had never driven out of state alone before, and it should be mentioned that I had no idea where the Skirball Center actually was since this was long before the days of GoogleMaps. I debated about it a whole 5 minutes and then decided...yes, indeed, I would drive out to LA alone and see this show. I simply had to! Now, I should probably add that I actually got a bit lost on the way, and looking back on it now, I probably drove across the majority of LA on side streets because I had absolutely no concept where the Center was actually located. I somehow managed to still make it on time, though, and by then I had purchased a handful of Frisell's albums and so the thought of seeing him live in the flesh was a bit unreal. Needless to say, his on stage shyness and persona just made the man that much more curious. The audience was filled to the brim with guitarists, all desperately trying to figure out what exactly this man was playing half the time. This show was a pivotal moment in both my show going and "growing up" days since I did the whole thing alone.
And then, it finally all came together and happened: in 1999, Bill Frisell released "Good Dog, Happy Man", an album that not only blew my mind but also grabbed me immediately on first listen, and also pretty much got worn out in my CD player. To say that I loved this album is putting it mildly, and to me it was the album that finally cemented Frisell as one of the all time musical heroes in my life. It should be mentioned that this album was released almost side by side with "The Sweetest Punch" but I'll get into that more in a different post later on. The idea that he had 2 amazing albums out at once completely mesmerized me. How is that even possible?!
It should be stated that Frisell really has two main periods: his earlier, more avant-garde work that's quite often with Joey Baron, et. al., where his sound uses a lot of volume techniques as well as a Klein guitar that he more or less became synonymous with, and then his folk based period which really starts around 1997 with the album "Nashville", drifting away from the Klein. The two segments are very different from one another but it's the folky era that got him the contract with Nonesuch, and therefore the overall recording quality and production of the albums became top notch. It's really this latter period that he's more known for but that's not to say that his early work isn't amazing as well...it's just different.
For me, "Good Dog, Happy Man" was the best album I had heard from Frisell and still remains probably my favorite album of his, although that's tough to say due to the enormous number of albums he's played on, coupled with the high bar of quality that his work has. It's really even difficult to talk about best tracks on an album this good but I do have a few. "Roscoe" was an immediate and very lasting favorite track of mine, to this very day in fact, and it almost exemplifies the "Frisell" way of composing, hitting, say, a low note when you expect it to hit a high note. "My Buffalo Girl" is another standout but "Shenandoah" has to be one of the all time classic Frisell tunes, or at least arrangements. "Cold, Cold Ground" is another track filled with irresistible riffs, and the closing track "Poem for Eva" seems to trail off endlessly in pure bliss. In listening to this album tonight, I really marveled at how there's not one major guitar solo in the entire album. Instead, it's recorded in a very round robin sort of small riff solo way, and the addition of famed steel guitar player Greg Leisz is a perfect compliment. There's also a ton of acoustic guitar riffing on the album, and the coupling of the electric guitar with the steel guitar manages to paint just an amazingly lovely flow of both sound and songs. The album is truly sublime, in my opinion.
I listened to this album when it was released very heavily when I was travelling back and forth from Sacramento, CA, and I remember distinctly listening to it on a trip through the Napa Valley area. The music seemed to be a perfect backdrop to the visual of driving through the countryside and I've never forgotten that visual, even to this day. I think this is also one of my favorite album covers for Frisell's work as well, not to mention titles, and that's a really high bar as well. I've been a diehard Frisell fan ever since this album was released and I simply can't say enough about how much this man has altered my musical life. If you've never heard an album by Bill Frisell, I simply can't recommend him enough, and this is really a perfect album to start with.
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