Guitarist
Bill Frisell marries intimate parlor jazz lyricism with wide-screen orchestrations on his lushly realized 2024 double-album
Orchestras. Produced by
Lee Townsend, the LP is culled from a handful of concerts
Frisell gave from 2021 to 2022; the first with the 60-piece
Brussels Philharmonic conducted by
Alexander Hanson, and the second with the 11-piece
Umbria Jazz Orchestra under the musical direction of
Manuele Morbidini. All of these feature arrangements by the esteemed British composer/arranger
Michael Gibbs and find
Frisell joined by his trio with bassist
Thomas Morgan and drummer
Rudy Royston.
Frisell's playing has always been a dichotomy; intimate and folky one minute and wide-swinging with spectral harmonics the next. He can play dissonant with an open-ended free jazz intensity, yet he often sticks to melody, lovingly eking out the sparest lullaby. He brings both of these sides together throughout
Orchestras, often expanding upon songs he'd previously recorded in small group or solo settings on past albums. The first disc with the
Brussels Philharmonic is more traditional-sounding and features warm renditions of
Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" and
Gibbs' "Sweet Rain," both of which recall the classic '60s orchestral jazz collaborations of
Miles Davis and
Gil Evans. There's also an exuberantly rootsy take on
Frisell's "Rag" that nicely expands the whirling tune into a grand, cinematic cowboy waltz that sounds like
Ennio Morricone taking on a song by
Johann Strauss II. The second disc with
Umbria Jazz Orchestra is more angular in tone as
Frisell digs into the stormy modalism of "Lookout for Hope" and offers a spooky chamber take on his classic "Strange Meeting." Interestingly, there are two versions of
Ron Carter's "Doom" presented, one with each ensemble and which illuminate subtle differences; the
Brussels Philharmonic version sounding like a lost film noir theme and the
Umbria Jazz version like a spare deconstruction of said theme. As a soloist,
Frisell himself often leans toward deconstruction, as on "Beautiful Dreamer," where he solos first, scribbling out hints of
Stephen Foster's folky tune before joining in with
Brussels Philharmonic at the end for a deeply felt sing-along-style rendition of the melody. Rife with moments of artfully sustained anticipation,
Orchestras is one of
Frisell's most accessible and virtuosic recordings. ~ Matt Collar
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