Frisell, De Johnette, Harris
Got out and saw Bill Frisell with Jack De Johnette and bassists Jerome Harris last night at San Francisco's famous "Bimbos 365 Club"
Sorry - no pics from the actual show.
The show was a mix of material from "The Elephant Sleeps But Still Remembers..." - mostly sample heavy avant garde free-form improv and then more jam-bandy, modal, loop n groove type stuff.
Over all I prefered the avant material - it was different and really had you guessing as to what was going on and what would come next. It was free-jazz with sample pads!
The more straight ahead groove, loopy pieces got a little repetitive for me particularly since there was no riviting solo voice.
I kept hoping a dangerously creative trumpet player would come out and blow heavily processed solos over the grooves. But no.
They also had a range of backing tracks that would fly in out of nowehere. It wasn't until the end of the night the band gave props to an un-seen 4th member who was responsible for all of that. For the amount of sound the guy added to the night they should have put him up on stage.
Highlight of the night - Jack De Johnette's drum feature. I won't call it a "solo" cuz it was so far removed from the "hey look at me" drum solos you see at most shows (even jazz . . . actually - especially jazz)
Jack's drum piece was a song. I literally heard the tones of the drums as notes - and his playing as melody - it was beautifully musical.
Jerome Harris was solid on bass - played a Steinberger into Ampeg rig - neck pick-up tone - kept it pretty straight forward. He wore a porta mic he used to speak into and then process his vocal sounds.
All of them had controllers of varying types to fire samples and sound modules. Half the show was them each playing their sample pads with occasional guitar noises tossed in by Frisell.
I'm glad I saw it - pretty challenging stuff. I do like how they broke up the night by alternating the traditional sounding jam stuff and the avant electronic stuff. Made me want to go out and buy a sampler!
I still might.
,-)