Bill Frisell Interview (14.5.

02)

Transcribed by Phoenix Fenton

How did you first get interested in music, and who influenced you?
I’m 51 years old now, and when I was younger there was a lot of surf music around, but when the
Beatles came out, well. It was all over! Everybody got a guitar and followed along. When ~I think back
even further when I was really small, when my family first got a television I was about five or six years
old, watching the Mickey Mouse club, and on this show everyday there was a guy with a guitar with
Mickey Mouse painted on it, and was fascinated by it. I made a guitar out of cardboard and rubber
bands. So I guess something was going on.
But it was the early sixties that I really started to get in to it, and it kept growing from there.

Any specific guitarists? Didn’t you play Clarinet?

Yes, I played clarinet from the age of ten right through college. It was like a parallel universe! My
parents made me practice everyday, and it was a formal kind of study, where as with the guitar I just did
it on my own for fun. It wasn’t until much later that I tried to apply some of the technical things that I
had learnt on to the guitar.

How did you become interested in jazz?

It was a gradual change from the Beatles, Rolling Stones and blues stuff, and British blues I didn’t even
know was blues at the time like Manfred Mann. They were playing tunes by Muddy Waters or
whatever, and gradually ~I figured that out, then when I was in high school I heard Wes Montgomery
which I think of as one of the turning points where I could still relate to the blues-like quality in his
playing that opened the door to wanting to find out about jazz. That was towards the end of high school
when I became interested in that.

You have studied at Berkley, how long were you there for?
I went for one semester in 1971, but I didn’t like it, but I went back in 1975 for two years. I went
though the whole process, but I did it in two years.

Who did you study with when you were there?

I had already studied with Jim Hall (spelling) in New York previously, at Berkley I was taught by a great
guitarist called Jon Damian (spelling) but I wasn’t looking for a guitar teacher as such, I was more
interested in the arranging classes by Roy and Mike Gibbs. I was still interested about guitar, but I
thought I could learn more about arranging and applying that stuff to the guitar. That’s what I was about
when I was there.

Although you are put in the jazz bracket you seem to include country, blues, avant-garde elements
and none seem to take precedence, they all have equal weight
After high school when I really started studying jazz I really shut off, I thought I’d just be a jazz guy and
that’s all I’d listen to but I woke up and it didn’t feel honest to shut out all the influences that made me
want to play in the first place. From that place on, I’ve tried to be open to anything. I don’t know if I’m
a jazz player, I don’t know what to call it. Also spend time being afraid of who I was trying to be
something… I’d hear something in my head and then edit it thinking that’s not cool or… when it was
really a part of me and over the years I try to just let it come out and not close that off.

Do you think you have suffered at all in that people find it hard to categorize what you do?
No, I feel lucky being able to just play music. Maybe people get confused or whatever but still I
playing what I want to play, I wouldn’t say I’ve suffered that much. I’m just thankful that I get to play
music for a living, I don’t have to drive a cab or something like that.

You are remarkably prolific, but your music is of a consistently high standard, what is your
compositional process, and how do you go about writing?
It’s pretty haphazard really; It’s more a thing of accumulating. I don’t really write specifically for one
thing. When I’m home I just get into a state where I can just write whatever comes into my head and
then put it aside and if I’m lucky it starts to pile up into a stack of things I don’t really think about, I just
write and write etc. And when I start a new project and need new music for something it tends to get
into a panic situation then I start looking through these piles of music. It always seems to come from
these piles of music and then I’ll work with that. I rediscover things I’ve forgotten. Nothing gets
thrown away, it just gets put into the pile, and when I get back to it it seems like there’s more there, or I
can generate a little bit extra. A little idea can be enough to cause me to think of something else.

How specifically to do write the parts for the other performers in your ensemble? (example; This
Land)
Some of that is what I learned arranging things, but a lot of it is really on the guitar. It goes both ways.
Sometimes I write just on paper. I’ll try and hear a melody in my mind and write it down without the
guitar, then I’ll play it on guitar which may generate some chords. Where I’ve written for horns a lot of
it is orchestrated from three or four note chords, I just have the horns play those notes! It’s the sesame
principle for arranging on the piano, but I use guitar. It’s the same sort of thing.

You have a talent for conveying a lot of harmony in a small amount of notes, have a little faith –
Billy the Kid I thought was remarkable. Such a small ensemble but you get the full orchestral
textures
I had the orchestra and piano score, and then I had the luxury of Guy Klucevsek the accordion player.
The clarinet would play one note, I’d play a couple of notes and he is such an incredible musician that…
well. It wasn’t THAT simple but I tried to reduce it from looking at the score and noticing that really
there’s only a bass note, and a melody, and sometimes there’s not that much. It’s not that hard to reduce
it down to the essential parts.

Comparing the two versions sometimes I forget which one I’m listening to because in your version
everything seems to be in tact. All the harmonies, parts and textures appear to be there, it’s a
phenomenal piece or arranging and playing.
Thanks.

Do you see yourself more a composer or guitarist now?

I’m a guitar player, and the composing is a way to set myself up as a guitar player it’s like putting
myself in an atmosphere I want to be in. The composing is when I’m feeling good and it’s spontaneous,
I don’t really think about it the music just comes out easily, but when I’m writing it’s a struggle
everything is slowed down. That’s good, you have more time to ponder over things more, but I’m
trying to get the writing to the same point where it comes out more spontaneously. My playing is more
developed than my writing. I don’t know what I am. The main reason I write is to find a world to put
the playing in. My favorite musicians are ones where you’re not really thinking what instrument they’re
playing like Thelonius Monk. He’s a piano player but I don’t really think of piano, I think of the sound
that he has, or Miles Davis plays trumpet, but it s this whole atmosphere. This sound that\t happens and
it changes all the people that play with them. They sound different to when they play on their own. I
guess that’s what I’m trying to get to when I write.

Your distinctive sound permeates all the ensembles you play with and everyone seems to take this
onboard and it becomes something your own, I was wondering if it was a conscious thing…
It’s something I try to get to but you never know if you’re really there or not, it’s something you’re
reaching for all the time. You never really are where you wish you could be, I’ve been playing all these
years and it still seems like I can’t quite get there, and that seems like part of the deal, you can never
finish. Beethoven and Mozart, they never really got it all finished.

There’s a time feel in your music, laid back and lazy sound, a bit like Jon Scofield who has that
kind of vibe. The bands that you play with have that loose back, behind the beat sound and I
wondered if that’s something you try to bring out of the players you’re playing with.
That’s just part of the way I am as a person, I don’t think it’s conscious. I can’t help but play that way.

Certainly in the trio album with Elvin Jones and Dave Holland who are giant musicians fall into
this wonderful laid back time feel…
I can’t say I don’t think about it, because I think about time and rhythm and all that stuff, but it’s in my
nature. I am a slow-moving person! I lean towards a slower feel; I’m not a speedy hyper on-top-of-the-
beat person.
And musicians take that from you when you play?
I’m drawn to people with a similar feel; I look for people on the same wavelength.

You work with very diverse and eclectic musicians; I was wondering what draws you to certain
musicians, and certain combinations of musicians?
I like trying odd combinations of instruments you don’t often hear together, but it’s more about the
people themselves. What attracts me to a musician initially is who they are as a person and what they
think about music, I don’t think about the instrument they play. It’s their imagination. It doesn’t really
matter what you play if you’re connecting on this level, especially on an imagination level.

Your views about time. Can you advise readers about their own time feel?
Oh man, that’s what I need to do! I played with a metronome a lot, and that’s a good thing for getting
tempos right, practicing super-slow with a metronome is really good. I used to be obsessed with getting
faster and faster every day, but it’s cool to go to the other extreme and really lock in with something
that’s really slow. But keeping it together without a metronome, tapping your foot is really hard; see
how long you can do that before you screw up! I’m telling you stuff here I should be practicing! You
can never finish this stuff, you can only get better at it.

Do you have a preference between acoustic and electric?

No, I almost think of them as totally different instruments, but they do really compliment each other.
My acoustic guitars have heavier strings which helps physically making me stronger, but certain things
are more fluid on the electric, that won’t flow so well on acoustic so they feed each other in a way. I
wouldn’t say I prefer one to the other, but when I’m home I’m drawn to the acoustic. Electric always
seems to happen on a gig. There’s something about playing an acoustic guitar when you’re at home
alone, but that’s hard to translate into something live. A lot of the detail gets lost.

What kind of guitars are you playing?

I have with me now a Gibson 446, it’s a thin hollow-bodied guitar, kinda like a hollowed out Les Paul.
It’s a fairly new model; they only started making these a couple of years ago. I’ve changed a lot on this
guitar; the only thing left original is the wood. I have a Telecaster I like to play, but when traveling I
play the Gibson. I also have a Kline, but it’s had a lot of problems and I’ve only just got it back from
the shop and I’m used to the Gibson now, so I just use that. I’ve learnt that changing too much
compromises the sound of the guitar, so I took away some of the electronics and now it’s sounding good
again. Seymour Duncan Antiquity pick-ups on the Gibson (humbuckers) and the Klein, I really like
those pick-ups. I have one telecaster with an antiquity pick-up in it also. I’ve really been into those
pick-ups for the last couple of years. They are hand-made by Seymour Duncan himself, and they cost
twice as much! They have a fake old look about them. They sound like ‘wow, what have I been missing
all this time’. When I first heard one I really freaked out.

Acoustic guitars?
There’s a guy in Seattle called Steve Anderson and I have three of his guitars, and I also have a Collins,
kinda like a Dreadnought guitar called a D1 I think, they’re not cheap. But it’s their bottom of the line
one, It’s like an old Martin D18. I also have a Kline acoustic guitar. It has a huge body, and it has
strange bracing inside, it only touches a small part of the top, it’s mainly glued to the side, so
theoretically the top vibrates more, and there’s something inside that projects the sound out of the sound
hole. I’ve used it on a couple of albums, and there’s certain overtones I get with that guitar I don’t get
with any others. I can compare it to a grand piano. Most guitars are like upright pianos; this is like a
grand piano. It’s really big too. I’ve started to accumulate a few guitars now.

{Pete gets Bill to play his Strat, and talks about the Fat Finger}

Chord voicing
Jim Hall showed me. Harmonizing scales, major scale in triads in C,
He got me to break away from triadic things. By surrounding a C major scale on the second string with
different intervals, putting a second below and a third on the top for example.
Now it sounds more like piano-type stuff. Now try fourths and fourths and seconds.
The trick is to keep everything from within the scale.
He had me try these out. It turns out I like fourths and seconds a lot.
Sevenths too. There’s a lot of dissonance in seconds but not so much in sevenths.
The C scale remains the same throughout.
Now on the third string with a seventh above. I use that stuff all the time.
Trying to play a melody but harmonizing them with those intervals,
Or using those intervals as guideposts, like two lines moving at the same time.
Just to break out of the guitar inversion / full chord thing. I’m trying to get the same sort of thing you’d
get on a piano, like one hand going up, the other going down, for the guitar that’s like… whoa!
(plays contrary motion)
Those things help you break away from the stock things I guess.

How would you apply that approach over a chord sequence?

It gets a little more touchy, if you learn what scale goes with what chord melodically, i.e. C major, I’ll
choose little groups of notes from within the scale that don’t necessarily define the chord but come from
the scale that fits the chord, and if there’s a bass player playing C, and everyone is playing Cmaj7, you
can pick different intervals and see what they sound like. Some sound vague etc, just try randomly
different combination of notes thinking all C major of course. So if there’s a chord sequence like ‘All
The Things You Are’ (plays example then tries in fourths)
Trying to think in smaller voicings not six string voicings. (plays example)
A tune like that, you don’t even need a chord with the melody and the bass line. (plays example)
And then…(plays example)…that thing about trying to get two…think about, almost like you’re making
a conversation with yourself if you use the melody and the bass as a different voice or something (plays
example). Whatever – I don’t know.

(Ending) It’s nice to be able to do a column about chords for once rather than playing really really
fast!
Well, I can’t do that! (laughs)

One of the signature sounds that you play with is like a tremolo sound, where you play a note
and…
Well some of it is just shaking the guitar around (demonstrates leaning forward and bending the neck). I
do that a lot, or some of it’s just moving my hands. It’s like a totally unconscious thing; I’ll play a chord
and I hear one note is sort of out of tune so I bend the neck and then the other notes go out of tune so
then I move…and it’s just like that, you know, instinctual reaction trying to get it in tune and it never
gets in tune…