Saw Bill Frisell tonight (July 6) in Iowa City for IC Jazz Fest

[scott hansen <evanpeewee@yahoo.com>]

Well, I missed him when he played here back in 2000, b/c i was in the middle of a move, but got to see him tonight.The funny thing is he looked older than pictures i remember of him, but then i thought that my memory is probably pictures from early 90s, a long time ago!

My main thoughts when i saw him was he sounded kind of "jazzy" and he was very melodic playing w/ drums, bass, & i think a trumpet player; The funny thing I thought as i watched was thinking of all the on-line boards i'm on (too many!) is people asking, "oh i want a jazz sound, which semi-hollow guitar & amp should i get, bla bla bla..." & I thought well, Bill Frisell sounded pretty jazzy to me & he was playing a blonde Telecaster & a small Fender amp. He played for about an hour & 15 min, The 1st 3 songs he played took about 50 min-in that time he did about 3 little loop things, sort of noise-based (some scratching-extended playing stuff), at times it was clean tele sounds, another time it sounded like a piano for a second. When he was playing these, i think the audience was wondering what was up? Not sure if they got it or not, but his loops do make nice transitions in his compositions.

The other thing I noticed from watching behind the stage (i was able to be in shade & i didn't bring a lawn chair so i could sit on steps of Old Captiol Building) was that he mostly played facing his band, and also for the most part is his guitar was facing to the back, so that I & everyone else could see his guitar (& hands from 40 some ft back)-the main audience would mostly see his left side and the back of his guitar neck. I could see that he was using a Line 6 Delay Pedal (green one) for his loops. I think he also had a distortion box of some kind (couldn't see it)-but the main thing i thought was his sound was pretty clean and sparse (I kept thinking I PLAY W/ MORE EFFECTS!).