HARMONY Bill Frisell

• 1Everywhere05:35
• 2God's Wing'd Horse04:07
• 3Fifty Years04:06
• 4Hard Times03:56
• 5Deep Dead Blue03:07
• 6There In A Dream04:40
• 7Lonesome03:20
• 8On The Street Where You Live03:23
• 9How Many Miles?02:28
• 10Lush Life03:54
• 11Honest Man01:17
• 12Red River Valley02:00
• 13Curiosity01:40
• 14Where Have All The Flowers Gone?03:12
• Total Runtime46:45

Info for HARMONY

Acclaimed guitarist Bill Frisell will release his Blue Note Records debut of his newest project HARMONY. Produced by his longtime collaborator Lee Townsend—and recorded by Tucker Martine at Flora Recording in Portland, Oregon—HARMONY features Frisell with a wholly distinctive quartet comprising two longtime collaborators—Petra Haden, voice; Hank Roberts, cello and voice—plus a relative newcomer, Luke Bergman, on acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, bass and voice.

The result of a commission from the FreshGrass Music Festival, an organization dedicated to the vitality of contemporary American roots music, HARMONY features new compositions, imaginatively reworked music from Frisell’s catalog and a typically sharp selection of jazz and Americana staples. Throughout, Haden’s dreamlike, often wordless lead vocals and the trio’s quietly powerful harmonies grant Frisell’s music dimensions it’s never known before. Remarkably, the thoughtful beauty and evocative patience that mark his guitar playing are both smartly accented and greatly magnified.

Longtime fans will recognize Frisell’s ongoing calling to both honor the totality of American music and represent his personal history with integrity. “If I think back throughout my whole life, all the music that I’ve loved,” he says, “why can’t it all be there at the same time? You can play a Bob Dylan song and you can play a standard song or a Charlie Parker song, and they can fit together. Why not? There’s no reason why you can’t have ‘Lush Life’ and ‘Red River Valley’ on the same album. They’re both beautiful songs.”

Frisell had long wanted to match these particular talents and test the alchemy of this unique, drum-less configuration. Hovering between a chamber ensemble, small-group jazz and a classic American harmony group, the dynamic and sense of interplay here are organic and unmistakable—not least between Frisell and Haden, who are essentially family. Petra’s father, the late bass champion Charlie Haden, was a mentor of sorts to Frisell, who played with Charlie in revered bands featuring the drummers Paul Motian and Ginger Baker. Frisell and Petra have developed their own sublime accord, which they’ve showcased on projects like Frisell’s gracefully nostalgic 2016 album When You Wish Upon a Star.

Frisell, who does not sing, has worked with plenty of brilliant vocalists in the past, he points out. But HARMONY is something altogether different, he explains. “We premiered in San Francisco in 2016,” Frisell says, “and, kind of at the last minute, I thought, ‘Wow, everybody sings.’ They sang a few things, and I was like, ‘OK, now I think we’re really on to something.’”

Bill Frisell, guitar
Petra Haden, vocals
Hank Roberts, cello, vocals
Luke Bergman, vocals, baritone guitar

Bill Frisell
Frisell’s career as a guitarist and composer has spanned more than 40 years and many celebrated recordings, whose catalog has been cited by Downbeat as "the best recorded output of the decade."

Released March of ’18, Frisell’s latest album for OKeh/Sony is a solo album titled, Music IS - "Taken as a whole, the album beautifully encapsulates Frisell’s depth and range in all its meditative glory."- Chicago Reader. It was recorded in August, 2017 at Tucker Martine’s Flora Recording and Playback studio in Portland, Oregon and produced by longtime collaborator Lee Townsend. All of the compositions on Music IS were written by Frisell, some of them brand new – Change in the Air, Thankful, What Do You Want, Miss You and Go Happy Lucky – others being solo adaptations of now classic original compositions he had previously recorded, such as Ron Carter, Pretty Stars, Monica Jane, and The Pioneers. In Line, and Rambler are from Frisell’s first two ECM albums.

Frisell’s previous project, the Grammy nominated When You Wish Upon a Star also with OKeh/Sony, germinated at Lincoln Center during his two-year appointment as guest curator for the Roots of Americana series (September ’13 – May ’15). It features Frisell with vocalist Petra Haden, Eyvind Kang (viola), Thomas Morgan (bass) and Rudy Royston (drums) performing Frisell’s arrangements and interpretations of Music from Film and Television. Jazz Times described the project as follows: "unforgettable themes are the real draw here, reconfigured with ingenuity, wit and affection by Frisell and a terrific group."

"Frisell has had a lot of practice putting high concept into a humble package. Long hailed as one of the most distinctive and original improvising guitarists of our time, he has also earned a reputation for teasing out thematic connections with his music... There’s a reason that Jazz at Lincoln Center had him program a series called Roots of Americana." - New York Times

Recognized as one of America’s 21 most vital and productive performing artists, Frisell was named an inaugural Doris Duke Artist in 2012. He is also a recipient of grants from United States Artists, Meet the Composer among others. In 2016, he was a beneficiary of the first FreshGrass Composition commission to preserve and support innovative grassroots music. Upon San Francisco Jazz opening their doors in 2013, he served as one of their Resident Artistic Directors. Bill is also the subject of a new documentary film by director Emma Franz, entitled Bill Frisell: A Portrait, which examines his creative process in depth.

This album contains no booklet.