Interview: Jazz Guitar Legend Bill Frisell Graces The Narrows With A New Trio
When it comes to the guitar, Bill Frisell is always exploring its possibilities. He’s been on this journey for over 40 years and it’s never gotten old for him with new approaches, techniques and visions consistently appearing. He usually has a couple talented individuals join him on this artistic expedition from time to time, and that’s exactly what’s going on at the Narrows Center for the Arts on 16 Anawan Street in Fall River on March 2. That’s where and when he’ll be joined by Rudy Royston on drums and Gregory Tardy on saxophone. The show starts at 8pm and it’s going to be capping off a tour that has these three musicians playing all over the New England region.
We had a talk ahead of the show about how he put this unique band together, the numerous collaborations that he’s done throughout his career, not having to fly as part of a tour this time around and what he has planned for the coming months.
This current trio you’re leading features drummer Rudy Royston, who was involved in the making of your 2020 album Valentine, and saxophonist Gregory Tardy, who was on your most recent album Four that came out back in 2022. How did you get both Rudy and Gregory into this project with you with them both coming from different recording experiences?
Well, I feel like they’re both sort of my brothers. We’ve been through all kinds of thick and thin together and we’ve done all kinds of gigs together in different combinations. Rudy has known Gregory for a long time, we’ve all known each other and we’ve all played together in different contexts, but never as a trio. It’s kind of an odd combination, although I’ve played in a lot of trios with no bass. It’s not a typical instrumentation, but it’s more about having such a strong bond with these guys and having such a large body of music to draw from.
There’s a lot of trust with us and I’m super excited about it, starting up this group.
It sounds very exciting. Going along with what you just said about not having a bassist involved, how have you, Rudy and Gregory gone about capturing the low end to round out your collective sound? Has it been more dependent on Gregory’s sax playing, is it dependent on something else or have you three canceled it out to begin with in order to have a different approach?
There’s so much low end in all these instruments. I remember the first time I played with just guitar, drums and saxophone was with Paul Motian’s trio in the early ’80s, so we’re talking about 40 years ago was when I first experienced that. Back then, there was a bit of canon, I would feel like I would have to play a bass note here or there, but if you just stop for a minute and listen, there’s all kinds of low end stuff naturally going on. With the guitar, there’s all kinds of stuff going on that sometimes it gets lost in these other frequencies. In the drums, you start hearing the bass drum and the toms and there’s all kinds of undertones and overtones that you start to notice, but it’s not so much about that.
It’s really about the listening and connecting with each other that gives the music the momentum and the forward motion. Everyone has their own unique sound and that’s what carries it along.
You’ve had an incredibly prolific career since the ’80s with over 30 studio albums under your belt along with numerous collaborations with the likes of John Zorn, Elvis Costello, Petra Haden, Lucinda Williams and Paul Simon among others. With this being said, what fuels your creative drive these days? What are you currently searching for as an artist?
Music is incredible, it always feels like we’re at the very beginning. No matter what you’ve done, you still have to wake up, you start and what’s out in front of you is infinite. I’ve said it so many times, but it still feels like I’m at the very beginning and it’s so amazing. It can be overwhelming and it can kind of crush you down to the point where you think that you’re never going to get it, but if you can come to terms with that then you’ll feel good about being in the process of discovering and finding new things. Every single song I play, every note I play or every chord I play, it’s like they’re all questions asking what you’re going to do next.
You play one note, now what’s the next note? There’s always a different way to go and it’s just an amazing world to be in. When I pick up my guitar, it’ll start asking me all these questions and I’ll just try to go with it to see where it leads me.
That’s a cool view to have on your music. Even though you’re from Baltimore, you spent most of your youth in Denver. Coming from this background, what are your thoughts on performing this run of shows in the New England region that includes this show you have coming up at the Narrows?
It’s hard to piece everything together because every single gig is sort of it’s own world. I travel so much, I go to Europe a lot and people ask me what the audiences in France are like and how they compare to the audiences in Italy, and I don’t know (laughs). You get to a gig and each one is unique, the sound of the room and whoever happens to be there, but I don’t know if it has much to do with the actual geography. I grew up in Denver but then I went to school in Boston, so New England triggers all kinds of memories from being up that way. I’ve spent so much time there, so I think I’m effected by whatever my own experience is in a place.
I’ll go somewhere and I can feel the history that’s there or I’ll have my own memories of being there. If it’s a brand new place, I’ll also be effected by that. It’s so many things, it’s hard to pin it down, but what’s really great is that we haven’t had to get on one airplane during this tour, which is a major blessing.
Yeah, that sounds nice.
We’ve been driving the whole way and it beats the unpleasantness of getting on and off an airplane. When you drive, you get more connected to your surroundings and you know where you are. It’s a different feeling than getting in this metal tube and coming out in some other world and you have no idea where you are. When you drive, there’s a sense of being connected to the Earth somehow.
You also don’t have to deal with jetlag, that’s always a pain to deal with when you’re flying.
Yeah, that’s another thing as well.
Along with touring with Rudy and Gregory, what are some other things you have going on this year in terms of recordings and collaborations?
There’s a lot of other things. I have an album coming out pretty soon in April that’s with a regular trio that I also have with Rudy that includes Thomas Morgan on bass. It’s like a double album with one being with a full philharmonic orchestra and the other is with a smaller group. Michael Gibbs, who was my teacher in Boston, did the orchestrations and arrangements, so I’m really excited about that. We’ve gotten to do it a few times live since we recorded it, but it’s definitely not a practical record to do a tour for.
We can’t just get a symphony orchestra, but it’s a rare thing and I’m just so thankful to have it documented like that.
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