Live Show-Bill Frisell Portland, OR 2/19/06

Bill Frisell's Unspeakable Orchestra 2/19/06 Portland, OR Marriott Hotel
Bill Frisell-guitar
Eyvind Kang-viola
Hank Roberts-cello
Jenny Scheinmann-violin
Tony Scherr-bass
Kenny Wolleson-drums

I first heard Bill Frisell on Zorn's Naked City albums back in the eighties. I remember being amazed at the rapid stylistic and tempo changes and, well, the sheer chutzpah of the recordings. During the nineties, he made a series of albums, all interesting, but too guitarish for my tastes. From the mid to late '90's, Kenny Wolleson and Trevor Dunn were a ubiquitous presence in the S.F. Bay Area music scene, and it was fairly common to see and hear them at a club called Bruno's where, incidentally, I first heard Jenny Scheinmann playing with Scott Amendola's band.

As personalized as a club can be, Bruno's at the time was the center of an improvized music scene running a gamut of styles, from Ben Goldberg's project Off Minor, to Amendola's afro/jazz/romo/fusion, to Kenny Brooks' bebop tenor stylings to Sonny Simmons' occasional appearances to Dred Scott and more. Top it off with the occasional appearance by an Australian swing guitarist, indefinable bass clarinetist Beth Custer and Nels Cline's hyper-powered christma-fuzz wailings, Trevor Dunn's Trio Convulsant opening with Adam Levy and a reasonable cocktail and you had the makings of a diverse and unpredictable scene.

Well, Frisell's show Sunday the 19th was certainly diverse and unpredictable. I'd always meant to see him, despite my narrow-minded aversion to his albums. Having been a fan of all of the other members of the band over the years, I couldn't pass it up. I'd always enjoyed Scheinmann
s playing and compositional style, enjoyed Wolleson's playing in Junk Genius and Sex Mob, loved Scherr's sound in both Sex Mob and on his fairly eccentric debut album and ate up Kang's invention of NADEs on his debut album, on which he played all of the instruments. Besides, I'd seen Kang play with Secret Chiefs 3 (who I'd never heard) and was fairly blown away by the blend of middle eastern, garage and surf music. To top it off, I thought my wife would like the show.

The show started with a slowly building free orchestration leading into what seemed like a Roy Rogers-type tune I thought I might start singing along with. After a time, the group led into a fairly funky Devo type groove. My first surprise was Hank Roberts. I thought I was back in the land of The Ex and Tom Cora as he bowed an astounding and impassioned Cello solo. Scherr maintained a stripped down funky backbeat and a look of perpetual amusement as Kang and Scheinman did double duty on the strings.

The show continued in ebbs and flows with Frisell staying remarkably subdued for a guitar player, concentrating more on directing the proceedings and changing roles from rhythmic underpinning to weaving mellifluous lines between the soloists. At one point he began to play a Chet Atkins/Les Paul line leading into brief soloing from Scheinmann. He treated the audience to a fairly dry snail joke and we were delighted to a couple of encores, particularly, a tune resembling Miles Davis' early version of "Milestones" with a minor-sounding bebop feel fairly peculiar for an Unspeakable Orchestra.

I was most of all struck by the way the band seemed to breath together and the incredible range of Frisell's music. Perhaps I'd been avoiding his live shows because I would find myself a fan. I am. My only complaint is that the show might have had slightly better ambience in a room like the Alladin Theatre, of similar size to the basement of the Marriott.