Orchestras

Bill Frisell is a prolific American jazz guitarist who does not restrict himself to jazz. Orchestras finds Frisell in the company of his long-standing trio with bass player Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston, plus, as the title alludes, orchestras plural. 

Orchestras is a recording of two concert hall performances with arrangements by long time Frisell collaborator Michael Gibbs, the 87 year old composer who has worked with a number of ECM artists including Kenny Wheeler and Eberhard Weber. The first of these live recordings is with the Brussels Philharmonic, a near 60 piece ensemble conducted by Alexander Hanson, the second is with the much smaller Umbria Jazz Orchestra under the musical direction of Manuele Morbidini.

I have to admit that while I have no problem with orchestral arrangements of music that was composed for such ensembles the combination of orchestra and jazz or rock band has never seemed to work that well. It just seems to be asking too much to bring a string section together with electric guitar in particular, there must have been some successful collaborations along such lines in the past but none come to mind. All of which meant that when I put on the first set with the Brussels Philharmonic the effect was not very appealing and I decided not to listen further. However sometime later I tried the second disc, with the Umbria Jazz Orchestra and had a quite a surprise, this smaller band which is notably devoid of a string section, seemed to gel with Frisell’s trio extremely well and encouraged investigation of the whole three part production.

Both sets include some common titles including Frisell’s jauntily titled ‘Doom’, with the Philharmonic this makes for a slightly jarring contrast between strings and guitar, bass and drums albeit the rhythm section are not high in the mix. With Umbria Jazz the same piece has a film noire feel, the relatively big band creating a cinematic backing to the trio. Frisell’s artful noodling works superbly thanks to the the arrangement, and the vibe does little to reflect the title. Another original number, ‘Electricity’, works a bit better with the strings behind some freeform playing from Frisell, the latter gets atonal in places however and this makes the electric/acoustic string contrast less successful. With the Italian orchestra there is a much greater sense of a band playing as one, the smaller scale (11 musicians) must help here as must the fact that this is a jazz band not a symphonic orchestra. Here Frisell gets to improvise while the backing lays down a richly textured, flowing groove and the effect is very engaging.

The highlights of this release are largely with the Umbrian Jazz Orchestra, with whom Frisell delivers some classic playing on ‘Levees’ and ‘Lookout for Hope’ where the guitar is in total harmony with the Orchestra, the use of mute trumpet being particularly effective in this latter piece. All seven of the Umbria ensemble’s pieces are good but it turns out that there is more if you get to hear the third disc (available when purchased on vinyl from Blue Note direct), here the performances are defined as Live or Live/Brussells Philharmonic, the Live only ones being the trio alone. Here we find the most interesting piece that Frisell played with the Belgians in ‘Monroe’ which has a cello intro that remains small scale with a second bowed cello and Frisell’s electric guitar playing beautifully together until the full Orchestra joins the fray and expands the soundstage to deliver scale and dynamics. 

The most charming piece on Orchestras is the trio’s rendition of ‘Moon River’, this is a standard that Frisell and co know inside out and it sounds as if the guitarist has a real affection for the Henry Mancini tune. It’s one of those simple sounding compositions that can easily sound cloying or affected but Frisell brings out its beauty superbly. The album ends with another classic in Burt Bacharach’s ‘What the World Needs Now is Love’ which works nearly as well and shows that for all his virtuosity Frisell is a softy at heart.

Bill Frisell: Orchestras

Back to Music