By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Guitarist Bill Frisell doesn’t much like the term “master class.”
When he comes to visit Bowling Green State University Saturday, Sept. 28 at his 6 p.m. session in the Donnell Theatre he’ll play a little, talk a bit, and answer questions. Then at 8 p.m. he’ll perform a solo set. His visit will be part of the two-day Orchard Guitar Festival. (See further details below.)
“I alway feel uncomfortable during those. It’s a master class. Whenever I do those things, the first thing I’ll say to students is I still feel like I’m just at beginning of figuring things out,” Frisell said in a recent telephone interview. “That’s part of the deal that never goes away. I’ve been doing longer, so I tell about that but I really feel like I’m never in a position of knowing more than what somebody else knows.
“The main thing I tell people that’s stayed consistently true to me is the only thing you need to know is if you love the music it will always tell you what to do. Everybody has that deep inside. Know what you love and know what’s true for you. If you just stick with that … you don’t need much more than that. It’ll always take you in the right direction.”
That’s not much different then the advice he heard from jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton back when Frisell was a student at Northern Colorado University.
It was during a master class, and Burton told the students: “If you want to do something right, you have to just kick this one thing. You can’t spread yourself too thin.”
At the time Frisell was a music major concentrating on clarinet, an instrument he started in elementary school band. But, he said, “I knew my heart was in the guitar, not the clarinet.”
He started playing the guitar a couple years after the clarinet, but his fascination with the instrument dates to a much earlier time.
When he was 3 he cut out cardboard in the shape of a guitar and strung it with rubber bands.
Then he remembered when he was 11 driving down Colfax Avenue in Denver with his mother. He was off to get his first set of glasses, but he could see well enough to spy a guy in a suit walking down the street carrying a guitar case. “Wow, that’s what his job is,” Frisell remembers thinking. “He has a job and it’s with that guitar. That kind of stuck in the back of my brain somewhere. I just thought that was the coolest.”
He hadn’t even started playing a guitar yet. In time though, guitar became Frisell’s job, one he does extraordinarily well.
After his master class epiphany, he sold his clarinet and headed to Boston where he studied for a semester at Berklee College of Music.
He also studied with jazz guitar legend Jim Hall. He returned to Colorado for a time to teach, before returning to Boston where he earned a performance diploma from Berklee.
Though his music is classified as jazz, Frisell’s musical interests are wide ranging, and that’s reflected in is expansive discography both as a leader and a collaborator.
That was evident on his breakthrough album, “Rambler,” for the ECM label.
The title track evokes the atmosphere of the open prairie, while “Music I Heard” evokes a marching band in full stride.
Those strains of American music run throughout his work. Asked if he considers himself a pioneer of what’s now called Americana, he demurs.
The people he grew up admiring were already doing that. He recalls getting an early Keith Jarrett Trio album where the pianist played Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages” and a ragtime number.
Burton recorded “Tennessee Firebird” in Nashville with country session players. It was still considered a novelty when Frisell did a Nashville project decades later.
“Music is amazing,” Frisell said. He just likes a lot of different music. “There’s no reason it has to be compartmentalized into these categories. There’s no reason it can’t be all together.”
His most recent recording features his distillation of 35 years of music. The solo album features only his compositions, including “Rambler.” That’s a break from recent albums that were tributes to other artists and genres.
Frisell finds that as he ages and revisits music, he discovers new angles. “I guess it’s a benefit.” That’s true whether it’s a Beatles tune or something by Thelonious Monk.
“You see all this stuff in it, you didn’t see in it the first time. I’ve had that happen more. My mind is blown,” he said.
Now it’s happening with his own music. Sometimes Frisell doesn’t remember what he was thinking when he composed a tune. “You see it just for what it is. … It’s great looking at it again and finding things in there.”
That’s part of aging. “Time… I don’t know what it’s doing. It’s like some kind of rubber band. It just snaps and you’re in another world.” And wherever he lands Frisell is ready to provide a soundtrack.
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Orchard Guitar Festival
BGSU College of Musical Arts welcomes four guests to campus for the annual Orchard Guitar Festival.
This year’s guest artists are:
- Composer and guitarist Brad Myers
- Classical guitarist James Marron
- Jazz guitarist Gilad Hekselman
- Modern guitarist Bill Frisell
On Friday, Sept. 27 in the Bryan Recital Hall free events will be presented by Myers on “How to Release and Promote Your Own Recording Without a Record Label,” at 3 p.m.; Marron, a master class at 3:45 p.m., and a concert by Hekselman with the BGSU jazz faculty at 8 p.m.
On Sept. 28, Frisell will perform a solo set at 8 p.m. in the Thomas B. and Kathleen M. Donnell Theatre at the Wolfe Center for the Arts. Tickets for Frisell’s performance are $8 each and available at bgsu.edu/arts. Before the show he will present a free performance, lecture and Q&A session at 6 p.m.
