And it's back to the metaphorical boondocks for Bill Frisell, where, with a glass of lemonade (or Hooch) in one hand and a guitar in the other, he kicks back on the porch with his pals and records another album of jazz-informed folk and country. This is something he's explored for the past few years, ever since his 1997 album Nashville (recorded with session players like Jerry Douglas, Viktor Krauss, and members of Alison Krauss' Union Station) deservedly won 'album of the year' from Downbeat. He proved how well his own style-- the slight twang in his sustained electric tones, and the echoes of steel pedal guitar-- could work with this kind of music.
Frisell put together a touring band called The Willies, featuring maniac avant-fiddler Eyvind Kang, banjo fiend Danny Barnes of progressive bluegrass band Bad Livers, and bassist Keith Lowe. This 'new bluegrass' (xFC-grass?) project toured America and Europe playing a set of new Frisell tunes and classics like "Cluck Old Hen" and "Sugar Baby." His new record documents the band, but it comes up short: Kang mysteriously wasn't included, leaving the other three Willies to pick and haw through an album that's faithful and accurate, yet not that adventurous.
In spite of Nashville's success, Frisell's Americana phase has received mixed reactions: at its best it's finger-pickin' good, with Frisell setting up great jam sessions with top country and bluegrass musicians. At its worst, Frisell plays picturesque music that's thick with nostalgia, an ongoing homage to "Home On the Range" that masks the edgier facets of his playing. Some fans have complained that Frisell won't turn up the volume and return to his Noisy Bill period of the late eighties, when he was shredding across New York City. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with Quiet Bill, whose gorgeous tone and impeccable sense of collaboration make him the foremost balladeers of today's jazz axemen. His collaboration on Ror Miles' Heaven, a duet album released last month, is utterly beautiful: without hyperbole I can say that if my last moments or earth are like the music on that record, I'll know I did something right.
The problem here is with Cautious Bill, who spends hours in the studio recording and overdubbing his tracks. The Ron Miles album, and albums like Nashville (supervised by hard-nosed producer Wayne Horvitz), capture performances live in the studio with minimal editing and overdubbing: they have the improvised feel of a conversation, the sense that someone caught a moment that we're lucky to have. Under Lee Townsend, who produced The Willies and most of Frisell's other recent albums, the pieces sound overplanned. Frisell treats the pieces carefully and often reverently, forgetting to let them breathe. The overdubs add color to the album (for example, Danny Barnes' addition of pump organ to several tracks), but the spontaneity is lost.
With the bluegrass standards that make up half of this album, the successes make the merely competent songs sound even worse. For every hot track like "Cluck Old Hen," with Barnes' manic runs and Frisell's gritty solo, there's a cover like "Blackberry Blossom" that's merely pretty (the extra loops from Frisell's delay pedal are colorful but unnecessary). "Goodnight, Irene" begins with a delicate improvised section but settles into a plucky but conservative reading. The slowed-down performance of "John Hardy" is a highlight; it explores a melody that modern players speed to a blur, and Barnes' extremely delicate solo is like drops of rain at an autumn funeral. But Frisell plays Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart" with the eager faithfulness of a grade schooler reciting "Casey at the Bat."
Frisell introduces some good originals-- particularly "Everybody Loves Everybody" and "If I Could I Surely Would"-- but even here, the methodical studio versions are outshone by live recordings that have surfaced from some of the Willies performances. Their concert ir early 2000 at the Barbican in London has it all over this album: the BBC captured Eyvind Kang playing with the band, and his solo on "My Buffalo Girl" (from Good Man, Happy Dog) leaps out of the song, buys everyone dinner, has a few beers and gets laid before slinking back to restate the melody. And when Ghost Town's "Big Bob" segues into "If I Could I Surely Would," the latter tune (buoyed by noisy flourishes and a breezy pace) sounds much more like it's riding into the sunset than the immaculately constructed studio version.
Nonesuch takes a coffeetable-book approach to their releases, favoring immaculately produced studio products: they may never release the Barbican show, or any other live recording from Frisell. In its absence, The Willies is servicable, but it isn't the shit-kicking great time that it should be. It makes Frisell seem like the guy at the party who's scared to get drunk and break the host's furniture; and we know he has more bluegrass in him thar that.
