Bill Frisell: from Big Sur to Brosella

(© Monica Frisell)

A recent writing retreat on a ranch in the rugged setting of Big Sur in California reminded jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, the absolute highlight of this year’s Brosella, of the very early days of his career. That was back in 1978 in a jazz bar in Spa. “It was high time to clear some space again in my head.”

These days, as one of the guitarists most in demand of his generation, Bill Frisell is once again rushing from one engagement to the next. When we rang him in New York he had just finished a studio recording with the Italian pianist Stefano Bollani. The next day he was flying to Toronto for a Joni Mitchell tribute organised by Brian Blade. And that was due to be followed by gigs with Marianne Faithfull in London and with the saxophonist Charles Lloyd in Montreal. And only after that would he hit the road with the musicians who played on his recently released album Big Sur. “That record came about after the Monterey Jazz Festival offered me a solitary residency in a spectacularly situated ranch on top of a cliff, surrounded by woods and wilderness. There I had the time and the space to be entirely alone for once… That’s a feeling we have lost in our hyper-connected society. While I was there I didn’t even know what time it was, never mind having a telephone or a TV. At times, in fact, I was really afraid. The caretaker had given me a walking stick so I could fend off bears and other wild animals if necessary. That raised the tension a 
bit more.” [Laughs]

Was that the stick you wrote the track “Walking Stick (For Jim Cox)” about?
Bill Frisell: Yeah, that’s the one. Luckily I didn’t have to use it much. [Laughs] So the whole experience must have left a certain impression, musically too. I have never tried to consciously create a picture of where I was. But the surroundings did allow me to release the music I felt at that moment.

Your panoramic approach to music, in which there is room for lots of roots genres, is very much in keeping with that rugged landscape. Were you conscious of the fact that other artists had drawn inspiration from the same place?
Frisell: Where I was staying wasn’t far from the Henry Miller Memorial Library and the little house where he once lived. And I read the book that Jack Kerouac wrote about the place…for nature in the raw, of course, is not just extraordinarily beautiful; it also arouses fear and gloom. During one storm at night, the lights literally went out. And Kerouac went there when he was trying to give up drinking. That dark, melancholy aspect found its way into the music too.

Your Big Sur band is really your trusty 858 Quartet, that is to say, your guitar and three strings, along with the drummer Rudy Royston. Were his rolls needed to cover the whole natural spectrum?
Frisell: Yes, you said it. The drums reminded me of the rocks that at times roll relentlessly into the ocean from the cliffs. It is just one extra musician, but it really changed the whole atmosphere. The drums are so powerful. Even if you don’t hear them, their menace is still there underneath.

If my information is right, 35 years ago you lived in Belgium for a while.
Frisell: That’s true, yes. I even met my wife, Carole, there. After studying at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, a fellow student, the Belgian saxophonist Steve Houben, invited me and some other musician friends to his home base in Spa. We lived upstairs from a little jazz bar there and in return for our bed and board we performed now and then. It was a great time for me. Lots of jazz musicians who were travelling in Europe used to drop in and I started to write my own music there… My trip to Big Sur actually reminded me a bit of my stay in Belgium, as there too we had oceans of time and space to develop in. I always like going back to Belgium, to perform or to visit my brother-in-law, who still lives in Liège.

After that year in Belgium the lure of New York became too great. In 1982 you recorded your first album and ever since then you have been doing the rounds of the great jazz venues and pop studios almost without a break, both as a respected guest musician and as band leader of your own groups. What is your secret?
Frisell: Oh boy, I don’t know how I do it. I actually feel like a beginner again every day. You never know what’s going to happen, how a day is going to go, so you just keep at it. One note leads automatically to another… And I always hope that my musicians will surprise me, that the music will keep changing. That’s why I’m so excited about this new tour. We have only done one gig together so far, and I feel we are at the beginning of a longer trip with, once more, endless 
possibilities.

Bill Frisell’s Big Sur Sextet, 14/7, 20.00, Theatre Stage

Brosella Folk & Jazz • 13 & 14/7, 15.00, gratis/gratuit/free, Groentheater/Théâtre de Verdure, Ossegempark/Parc d’Osseghem, Laken/Laeken, www.brosella.be