★★★★★
At this point in the career of guitarist Bill Frisell, there's not much point in continuing to talk about his music as "jazz"--or as "Americana" . . . or really as anything for that matter. Frisell has cornered the market on something wholly his own: an instrumental form that uses elements of different genres to create cinematic soundscapes that lope or slither, walk or skitter like a great character making his way across a movie screen...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-09-13
★★★★★
Only once before in a discography that runs to 35-odd albums has leader Bill Frisell released a solo guitar album?the brooding Ghost Town (Nonesuch Records, 2000). Thirteen years on, Frisell returns to the solo format, though the difference between the two offerings is like night and day. Whereas Ghost Town was a series of mostly acoustic compositions embellished with overdubs, Silent Comedy's real-time, loop-heavy electric improvisations employ no post-production...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2013-08-22
★★★★★
Being both prolific and consistently compelling in jazz is a tough trick; it generally requires employing the same personnel and a trademark sound but convincingly reinventing the surrounding context. Guitarist Bill Frisell has managed this feat for about a decade now, and his 19-track Big Sur album, his first for Sony's re-launched OKeh imprint, expertly balances newness with his dependable delights...
- jazztimes.com
2013-08-21
★★★★★
Heralded guitar maestro Bill Frisell combines his 858 Quartet and Beautiful Dreamers units to impart another watermark on his Americana legacy, featuring an organic acoustic-electronic sketch of this picturesque area of California coastline. The album comprises nineteen-tracks, spanning Civil War-era country-chamber, undulating ostinatos, layered strings, parts, and even snippets of surf music on "The Big One...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2013-08-21
★★★★★
In 2012, the Monterey jazz festival put composer/guitarist Bill Frisell in a cabin at a remote ranch on the Big Sur coastline, and left him there to come up with his reactions to the landscape. The project - combining the guitarist's chamber-musical 858 Quartet and more country-tinged Beautiful Dreamers trio - produced a festival performance and this abundantly varied 18-track studio album...
- www.theguardian.com
2013-07-30
★★★★★
Is there an artist as well-suited to record an album inspired by Big Sur as Bill Frisell? Having spent much of his long career working a fertile seam in the jazz world that shares ground with Americana and folk, Frisell and his often twang-dusted tone seems tailor-made for sweeping vistas and pastoral wonders...
- www.latimes.com
2013-07-12
★★★★★
In 2012, the Monterey jazz festival put composer/guitarist Bill Frisell in a cabin at a remote ranch on the Big Sur coastline, and left him there to come up with his reactions to the landscape. The project - combining the guitarist's chamber-musical 858 Quartet and more country-tinged Beautiful Dreamers trio - produced a festival performance and this abundantly varied 18-track studio album...
- www.guardian.co.uk
2013-07-12
★★★★★
Along with household names like Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny
b.1954 guitar
and John Scofield
John Scofield
b.1951 guitar
, Bill Frisell is one of the most distinctive American guitarists of his generation...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2013-07-05
★★★★★
Big Sur, the mountainous coastal region of California lends itself to various geographical definitions?it isn't easy to pin down definitively. So, it was an inspired idea by the Monterey Jazz Festival to put guitarist Bill Frisell in a cabin in the area and commission music, because with Frisell, musical borders are delightfully amorphous...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2013-07-02
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