Music Book Review: Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed the Sound of American Music by Philip Watson

Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed the Sound of American Music

by Philip Watson (Music 791.65 Frisell)

 

Bill Frisell is a guitarist who has changed the landscape of jazz music since the 1980s. A true maverick of the instrument, he has contributed to the technique of playing guitar, revolutionized how to use samplers and loop pedals to extend his playing, and created an ethereal, Americana-influenced sound that has inspired generations of musicians. In addition to dozens of his own albums as a solo artist and bandleader, he has played with many other musicians throughout his career, and has played everything from the gentlest music imaginable to the most madcap and brutal. His influence arguably goes far beyond the guitar, as noted by the subtitle of the first biography written about him, which is called Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed the Sound of American Music. The book, which was written by distinguished journalist Philip Watson, is available at the Polley Music Library.

 

Beautiful Dreamer is a large book as music biographies go — the main body of the text makes crosses over 450 pages. But it feels like things move very quickly, as Frisell’s music and career connect with so many other musicians and entire musical scenes over time. His friendly, welcoming and inquisitive approach to both his own music and collaborations keep things exciting throughout the book. There are fun diversions the author calls “counterpoints” mixed throughout the text as well, in which various musicians and other celebrities who are fans of Frisell’s music listen to a recording of his as a starting point for conversations about their passion for his work. And there is a kind of outer shell to the book, referenced in its title, inspired by a dream that Frisell had many years ago in which he remembers being exposed to a kind of cosmic, universal music. As Frisell is admired for his ethereal sound and approach to music, author Watson returns regularly to the image of him as a “beautiful dreamer” himself, immersed in all kinds of music and bringing back dream-like interpretations of his journeys to our collective ears. The cover photo of Frisell, looking off into the distance from the side while we can barely make him out through a dense fog cover, further helps to establish this mood, too.

 

Other than the “counterpoints,” the book progresses like a typical chronological music biography. Watson doesn’t spend a lot of time on Frisell’s childhood, other than capturing highlights of his early impressions about the guitar and some memories from Bill himself as the two of them drove around Denver in 2017 looking at some of the places he lived as a child. It is worth noting, though, that a lot of Frisell’s early musical development came from playing the clarinet, which he continued alongside guitar into college. He’d also played some saxophone in college. But one of his first early influences, Gary Burton (whose 60s music is a bit of a blueprint for the genre-bending Americana that Frisell has become known for), once noted at a University of Northern Colorado talk that he recommended really focusing on only one instrument. Bill took that advice and chose the guitar exclusively from that point forward. He flailed a bit early on: he went to Berklee College of Music but dropped out, then took lessons in NYC for a few months from his guitar idol Jim Hall, returned to Denver and his guitar teacher there, and tried to make a go as a professional guitarist in Colorado.

 

Then he returned to Boston to give Berklee another shot. This time, things seemed to work out differently, and early glimpses of the artist we know today began to shine through (especially after he bought a solidbody electric guitar, and another student gave him a volume pedal, which went on to become a trademark of his sound for many years). Upon graduation, he spent some time in Belgium, where he felt that his playing finally came together, and where he ultimately met his wife Carole as well. Soon he found himself working with musicians from the European ECM Records scene, an important label for contemporary jazz even today.

 

I’ll spare you the rest of the play by play of Frisell’s career — at the point I just referenced, we’re only about a fifth of the way into the book, and his work as a mature artist is just getting started. But suffice it to say that one of the big takeaways for me from this book is how Frisell has been an important part of a couple of significant “scenes” in his career, yet he always maintains his own unique vibe and a little bit of separation. His time around the ECM scene was the first of these. In the early to mid-1980s, he appeared on lots of ECM releases, and they also put out his first records as a solo artist. While his ethereal sound and approach are generally a great fit with the ECM aesthetic—in fact they have released lots of new titles featuring him in the more recent decade as well — there is just something ineffable about his work that has kept his long-term career a little more distinct than many of his ECM peers. Then from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, Frisell was one of the most significant musicians involved with the NYC Downtown Scene, and in particular he played in many different lineups for well-regarded composer John Zorn. In those circumstances, he sometimes found himself playing styles of music that seem out of character for him: fast music, pieces influenced by punk and metal genres, downright chaotic and dissonant music. Yet even then his voice on the instrument somehow shines through. And during that time, he even maintained a bit of a physical distance, living most of the time in New Jersey and then Seattle while his many bandmates resided in Manhattan. This kind of “otherness” even in the midst of fruitful collaborations is uniquely powerful throughout Frisell’s career.

 

To the present day, his strikingly original voice continues to captivate and inspire generations of listeners and musicians. As attested to in the many “Counterpoint” interludes throughout the book, his body of music has left deep impressions on many listeners, including many of his collaborators and peers. To some extent, one could argue that there are two major periods in Frisell’s work: his approach leaned relatively darker in the first half of his career, and feels a little brighter in the 2nd half. “Beautiful Dreamer” seems to support this general idea, too, as he has become less reliant on effects like volume swells and bits of looped ambient sound in later years, while perfecting his uncanny knack for writing melodies that seem as though they could be folk tunes or hymns from time immemorial. But it’s a blurry line, too, as there are certainly times when present-day Frisell recordings utilize lots of effects, and when early records astonished with their timeless melodic sensibility. All told, “Beautiful Dreamer” is a wonderful literary companion to a gently visionary musician, and from its pages it seems Bill is just as exemplary a person as he a musician and guitarist.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Bill Frisell: An Anthology by Bill Frisell, A Perfectly Good Guitar: Musicians on their Favorite Instrument by Chuck Holley, or the Arcana: Musicians on Music series edited by John Zorn.)

 

( official Bill Frisell web site ) | ( official Philip Watson web site )

 

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

 

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