Bill Frisell is gearing up for a string of tour dates in the American South with frequent collaborator Greg Leisz, starting March 15 in Austin, Texas. Leisz, a master of the pedal steel guitar, is featured on a number of tracks from Frisell's recently released Nonesuch retrospective The Best of Bill Frisell, Volume 1: Folk Songs.

All About Jazz critic John Kelman asserts that for listeners new to Frisell's work, Folk Songs "is a perfect entry point," and even for Frisell aficionados who own the catalog from which the collection is culled, its "sequencing makes it stand on its own."

What surfaces through the album's 15 tracks, says Kelman, is that for all of his experimental endeavors, Frisell has maintained "an appreciation for the beauty of a simple melody. No matter where the music goes, Frisell remains unmistakably—and curiously—appealing."

The collection finds "influences ranging from elder blues statesmen like Robert Johnson to the overlooked and under-appreciated Johnny Smith, re-contextualized into a nexus point of beauty and ethereality."

Read the full review at allaboutjazz.com.

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The Times of London gives four stars to the collection, which reviewer John Bungey says "should be a small revelation" for newcomers. "Time and again Frisell shows that playing a few, perfectly judged notes counts for more than axe-strangling heroics." The review can be found at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.

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For upcoming tour dates, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.