January 20th, 2025 was an odd night to go hear music. It was an odd night to play music. The normally tight-lipped Bill Frisell came on to the bandstand at the Regatta Bar in Cambridge, MA, hesitated a moment, and said “What do you play on a night like this?”
Then ensued a little banter with the audience about whether he would also say something special. Frisell fans know he speaks little, and shyly when he does, so this was something out of the ordinary. Ultimately, he announced that he’d thought of two things to say, that being the names of his two trio-mates, drummer Rudy Royston and viola player Eyvind Kang. And then, as he generally does, he let his guitar do the talking.
Jazz has its odd rituals. Most of the time, jazz musicians start a tune by playing the melody, often perfunctorily, and then get to the fun part — the solos. After exhausting their own creativity, they ride out on the melody again. They don’t even call it the melody — for decades it’s been referred to as the head. Every once in awhile, you’ll see a band leader actually point at his or her head, to signal the band to go “back to the top” and play the melody out.
Not Bill Frisell. Virtually alone among contemporary improvisational greats, Bill seems to love the melody. The only other living jazz great I can think of who is so involved with melody is Sonny Rollins. I once saw Rollins play Dolly Parton’s “There You Go Again” for 20 minutes, burning it down, building it up, playing it sideways, halftime, doubletime, no time. Frisell may not have Rollin’s ability to own a melody, but he seems equally fascinated by its possibilities.
This night, he and his viola companion started most tunes as if the melody hadn’t actually been written yet. They traded fragments of it for a minute or two, often in Bach-like counter phrases, and then magically, converged on the melody as if they had discovered the Hope Diamond.
At this point, Frisell was usually beaming, playing the head with intense concentration, fluidity and great beauty. Then, he began to deconstruct it, looping some of it through his electronic gizmos, bending it, stretching it, and just plain leaving it.
Kang played the role of counterpuncher throughout. Interestingly, Royston took sides in this gentle battle. If he picked up on Frisell’s phrasing for awhile, at some point, he began to echo Kang’s. That often had the effect of making Kang the melody, and Frisell, playing the actual melody, then became a counter melody.
Frisell has a way of making you wonder — What are melodies? What is harmony? What is the rhythm? It’s all just music, just a kind of extended singing, just feelings given form.
Kang, who played violin in one of Frisell’s mid-90s ensembles, is apparently a student of Indian classical music, and you could almost hear him as a tabla player, the way he created riffs around Frisell’s playing. On one tune, I believe they were playing polyrhythmically, Frisell playing 12 beats to Kang’s 8, all of it fitting together intricately.
According to the tour schedule on Frisell’s website, Kang is a one-time addition, apparently standing in for bassist Tony Scherr. Viola, of the four string quartet instruments, most approximates the human voice. I imagine it also most approximates the guitar in range, yet they never got in each other’s way. Kang is a skilled listener. While not in Frisell’s class in the lyricism category, he was a worthy and interesting companion. Ditto with Royston, who does play with Scherr in Frisell’s current standard trio.
As for the set list, they started with Monk’s Misterioso. While not breaking any obvious new ground, Kang and Frisell actually made it even more rhythmically herky-jerky then Monk, often breaking up the phrases and trading halfway through them. They then proceeded on an unbroken hour plus set of tunes unknown to me, each one melting into the next. Finally they finished, if memory serves, with Shenandoah with a piece of Boubacar in the middle. Just another day at the office for Bill!
Frisell and Jim Hall have just isued a double album of them playing together. I can’t wait to hear that duo! Meanwhile, if you want to hear great musicianship and be surprised, go hear Bll Frisell. He may play bluegrass, jazz standards, rock n roll or whatever else tickles his fancy. And just listening to him, you also will experience that ecstasy.
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