Piece image

JazzStories: Bill Frisell

From: Murray Street Productions
Series: JazzStories
Length: 13:41

Embed_button
"I had moved to New York and spent a couple of years here scuffling around. I was getting a little discouraged, playing a lot of weddings. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind. In my apartment I had a stack of records and Paul [Motian]'s Conception Vessel record was sitting there. And the phone rings and the voice on the other line says, 'This is Paul." He just called me up and asked me over to play. I thought I was dreaming or something... For me, it's never about the instruments so much, but the people." Read the full description.

Bill_frisell_web_small

For over thirty years ,the guitarist and composer Bill Frisell has mined jazz, country, bluegrass, and rock and forged these sounds into a unified whole. In a Jazz at Lincoln Center Listening Party, he remembers his collaborator and friend, the late drummer Paul Motian, and discusses how he forms his original ensemble sound.  

Also in the JazzStories series

Piece image

JazzStories: Reid Anderson (16:32)
From: Murray Street Productions

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," in particular sounds like a modal jazz tune. That's one of the funniest things to me. It says so much about people's attitudes in jazz towards rock ...
Piece image

JazzStories: Mary Halvorson (18:32)
From: Murray Street Productions

"I want to have clarity of ideas and I want to be able to execute ideas. So if I'm going to play something really sloppy, I want it to be sloppy on purpose, not sloppy ...
Piece image

JazzStories: Stefon Harris (07:39)
From: Murray Street Productions

"When I started to play jazz... I started in the middle. I wanted to play Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and all of that stuff first... When I started checking out Louis ...
Piece image

JazzStories: Christian McBride (16:39)
From: Murray Street Productions

"I always thought of the acoustic bass as the quintessential jazz instrument... I knew that jazz meant cool, and hip, and on the cutting edge, and to me that was my great ...
Piece image

JazzStories: Freddie Hubbard (11:41)
From: Murray Street Productions

"When people get two trumpet players it becomes very competitive...It was [Booker Little], Lee Morgan and myself at the time. We we're the young guys here. So it was very ...
Piece image

JazzStories: The Three Cohens (14:45)
From: Murray Street Productions

"We have a mixture of many elements from the world. The classical music from Europe- the sense of melody and deep harmonic sense- and on the other side we have people coming ...
Caption: Dr. Lonnie Smith

JazzStories: Dr. Lonnie Smith (10:19)
From: Murray Street Productions

"They name it -- they just come up with all kinds of names..."'Funk'... 'jazz' or... 'acid jazz.' Or they named it 'boogaloo.' We don't know anything about that. We just ...
Caption: Toshiko Akiyoshi, Credit: Amanda Brown

JazzStories: Toshiko Akiyoshi (12:08)
From: Murray Street Productions

"The fact is my parents lost all of their assets. If I didn't have something (I was) really into, in my case was piano and jazz, I think it would have been really difficult ...
Caption: Catherine Russell

JazzStories: Catherine Russell (14:27)
From: Murray Street Productions

"Singing lead is all about you. The focus is on you. Your name is on the ticket. The people have paid to see you...So you are responsible for your audience. Kinda like, ...
Piece image

JazzStories: Jonathan Batiste (17:44)
From: Murray Street Productions

"I felt like I had to do more in order for people to think of what they would think of another musician—about the level of intellect or artistry of what I was doing…A big ...

Piece Description

For over thirty years ,the guitarist and composer Bill Frisell has mined jazz, country, bluegrass, and rock and forged these sounds into a unified whole. In a Jazz at Lincoln Center Listening Party, he remembers his collaborator and friend, the late drummer Paul Motian, and discusses how he forms his original ensemble sound.