Re: Saw BILL FRISELL Tonight (July 5) in Iowa City @ IC Jazz Fest

[tEd ® KiLLiAn <tedkillian@charter.net>]

Nice review Scott with astute observations.

Thanks for sharing.

Best,

Ted

On Jul 5, 2009, at 7:39 PM, scott hansen wrote:

> sorry-1st one got sent accidentally...
>  
> Saw Bill Frisell Tonight (July 5) in Iowa City @ IC Jazz Fest
>  
> 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 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 Capitol Building) was that he mostly played facing his band, 
> and for the most part  his guitar was facing to the back, so that I & 
> everyone else behind stage 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!). The other thing i noticed was he played a barre chord twice 
> that I saw! I should say that all the songs he played i recognized the 
> melody, etc, but since i rarely remember titles of stuff, I  couldn't 
> connect a song to a title. He seemed to be really enjoying himself & 
> his band, and they had some good interaction-especially during his 
> little loop things. The last thing was when he was done, he put his 
> Tele in a soft case and turned off his amp, & started to collect his 
> pedals-no roadies for him!!
>  
> sorry for the choppy/disorganized review...just some quick notes i 
> remember...
> s---
> www.myspace.com/scotthansen
>