Bill Frisell - Unspeakable
List Price:
Our Price: $5.53
You Save: $15.43 (74%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.00 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more CD details
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
CD Details
Artist: Bill FrisellEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2004-08-24
Music Label: Nonesuch
Product features:
- FRISELL BILL UNSPEAKABLE
- 1968
- White Fang
- Sundust
- Del Close
- Gregory C.
- Stringbean
- Hymn Fro Ginsberg
- Alias
- Who Was That Girl?
- D. Sharpe
- Fields of Alfalfa
- Tony
- Old Sugar Bear
- Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye
Music reviews of Unspeakable
Music Review: Frisell's triumphant return to form...but where is his band?
Rating: 4 Stars
"Unspeakable" features jazz guitarist Bill Frisell's boldest playing since his early 1990's records for Elektra. Once a member of John Zorn's infamous jazz punk band Naked City, Frisell was at one time capable of coaxing delicate Jim Hall-esque melodies out of his axe as easily as flooding your speakers with a wall of distortion and looped feedback.
His recent output, as many fans know has devolved into NPR friendly "Americana", devoid of the sort of musical risk taking that characterized his earlier output. It is important to note that these records were all produced by Lee Townsend and this particular album is his first in years with a different producer. Hal Willner and Bill Frisell have a long history of collaboration behind them, including all those fantastic tribute albums from the early 1990's, i.e: "Stay Awake," "Meditations on Mingus," "Amarcord Nina Rota." So it is no great surprise they are working together again. What is surprising however are the results of this union.
Although Frisell has once again delved into the grittier and more expressive side of his playing on this disc, he also seems somewhat held back by a constrained rhythm section, and that is where my conflict with this record lies. Bassist Tony Scherr (Sex Mob) and Drummer Kenny Wollesen (Sex Mob, Masada, numerous downtown ensembles) are fantastic players, why they have been relegated to lock step grooves and machine like 1-2-3-4 rhythms is beyond me. They are capable of so much more than this. The amazing telepathic rhythm section interplay once found on Frisell's records with Joey Baron and Kermit Driscoll is nowhere in evidence on this disc. I'm assuming Willner and Frisell were going for a sort of early Stax / Soul sound here, but sometimes it just comes off as slightly overproduced lounge jazz.
My first impression of this album was one of shock. Here was the guitarist I love playing in a style I've waited for years to hear him play in again, only to have that sound simply dropped down on top of machine like grooves accompanied by tepid arrangements and anonymous string and horn charts. The mind blowing confusion is further exacerbated the fact that all of the backing musicians on this disc are astonishingly gifted players, many of them solo artists in their own right, but what they've been relegated to are in effect generic session parts. Some of it sounds like middle of the road overproduced John Scofield. But further listens reveal the gems hidden in the rough.
There are moments on tracks like "White Fang," "Stringbean," and "Old Sugar Bear" which are as enthrallingly nasty as anything the man has played in years. You'll forgive the vamping rhythm section if only for the chance to hear him play this well again. On the flip side there are subtle atmospheric pieces, like "Gregory C" and "Fields of Alfalfa" complete with rubato rhythm section accompaniment that hearken back to his days at ECM. And that is certainly nice to hear after years of country tinged balladry.
A mixed blessing, "Unspeakable" is Frisell's finest album in many years and those yearning to hear him pull his distortion pedal out again will be pleased, but those expecting fantastic contributions from the incredible musicians that accompany him on this disc will be dismayed and potentially disappointed.
Description of Unspeakable
On Unspeakable, guitarist Bill Frisell and producer Hal Willner (Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed) take a freewheelings, idiosyncratic approach to the modern art of music sampling, in a groove-and-soul based project. Frisell and Willner employ often obscure songs and sounds culled from vintage vinyl as the jumping off-point for their own sonic explorations, with choice fragments borrowed and integrated into original compositions. Unspeakable can have a fierce and infectious groove at times, and at others will adopt a more relaxed and reflective feel.Stylistic shifts are nothing new in the career of Bill Frisell, who changes musical directions more often than Madonna. In fact, he even covered a Madonna song once. Unspeakable continues that tendency as Frisell teams up with Hal Willner, a willful musical eclectic. The two have worked together on collaborative projects including tributes to Nino Rota, Walt Disney, and Charles Mingus. Willner, who is also the turntabulist here, orchestrates a landscape of turntable spins and space jams using generic library production discs for much of his source material. '60s Dragnet jazz horns and orchestral Twilight Zone stylings lend the modern sound of Unspeakable a strangely nostalgic hue. Frisell finds himself in a landscape of Ligeti-like strings, bongo percolations, and Ghanian tribal calls, most of it super-charged by the rhythm team of bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Their funky beats lay the terrain for Frisell's angular crossfire solos, but he can also wax sweetly nostalgic on "Hymn for Ginsberg" for guitar and string trio. Bill Frisell is filed in jazz, but he continues to be a genre unto himself. --John Diliberto
International CDs
Music Genres
Bestsellers in International CDs
Hopscotch - Wishful WayRelease date: 2003-11-03; Music CD
Price in other shops:
![Coral Sea Dreaming [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
David Hannan - Coral Sea Dreaming [VHS]Compass Records; Release date: 1998-11-17; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $6.25
Price in other shops:
![20th Anniversary Celebration [VHS] Image](/images/20th-Anniversary-Celebration-VHS-6302274060-X.jpg){kind=small}
Steeleye Span - 20th Anniversary Celebration [VHS]Shanachie; Release date: 1995-04-16; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $5.94
Price in other shops:
Chris Rea - Return of the Fabulous Hofner BluenotesRelease date: 2008-03-11; Music CD
Best price: $38.91
Price in other shops:
A Concert Of Angels mini: Music From J.S. Bach To Gustav Mahlerby edel Classics GmbH
Edel Classica Gmbh; Published: 2006-11-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.13
Price in other shops:
Tanzkurs Vol. 4 - Rumba & Cha Cha ChaRelease date: 2007-06-08; DVD
Best price: $10.91
Price in other shops:
Sascha Hehn & The New Symphonic Orchestra - Peter Und Der Wolf/ Karneval Der TiereRelease date: 2010-04-27; Music CD
Best price: $4.33
Price in other shops:
Jurgen Fritsche, Sven Gortz - Edgar Allan Poe: Das Grauen IIRelease date: 2009-12-08; Music CD
Best price: $6.30
Price in other shops:
Sorene. CD. Kinderlieder aus Äthiopien - Children's Songs from Ethiopiaby Peter Pannke
Sunnymoon Distribution; Published: 2000-03-01; Audio CD; Book
Tibetan Meditation Music: For Quiet Mind and Peaceful Heartby Nawang Khechog
Soundstrue; Sounds True 2007-04-01; Published: 2007; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $0.98
Similar CDs
Bill Frisell - Sign Of Life, Music For 858 QuartetRelease date: 2011-04-26; Music CD
Best price: $10.85
Price in other shops:
Bill Frisell - All We Are Saying...Release date: 2011-09-27; Music CD
Best price: $10.25
Price in other shops:
Bill Frisell - Blues DreamRelease date: 2011-09-20; Music CD
Best price: $8.23
Price in other shops:
Floratone - FloratoneFLORATONE; Release date: 2007-08-14; Music CD
Best price: $9.54
Price in other shops:
Bill Frisell, Vinicius Cantuaria - Bill Frisell & Vinicius CantuariaRelease date: 2011-01-25; Music CD
Best price: $10.06
Price in other shops:
Bill Frisell - Have a Little FaithRelease date: 1993-02-23; Music CD
Best price: $12.98
Price in other shops:
Bill Frisell - Good Dog Happy ManRelease date: 1999-05-18; Music CD
Best price: $11.78
Price in other shops:
Bill Frisell - Gone Just Like a TrainRelease date: 1998-01-06; Music CD
Best price: $10.49
Price in other shops:
Bill Frisell - IntercontinentalsRelease date: 2003-04-15; Music CD
Best price: $5.39
Price in other shops:
Bill Frisell - East-WestRelease date: 2005-08-09; Music CD
Best price: $9.49
Price in other shops: