Bill Frisell's latest Nonesuch album, Disfarmer, is out now. Billboard sees it as evidence of Frisell's being "best suited for exploring vast territory and responding with imaginative integrity." Q says, "As ever, Frisell’s playing, all texture and touch, raises matters way beyond the merely atmospheric," and selects the album's "shimmering instrumental version" of a Hank Williams tune as an Essential Track of the month. The Philadelphia Inquirer gives the album three-and-a-half stars, praising its "wonderfully rootsy and evocative music" and the "superb ensemble" that plays it.

Bill Frisell's latest Nonesuch release, Disfarmer, features music inspired by the haunting black-and-white images of the late American photographer Michael Disfarmer. The Houston Chronicle gives it a perfect four stars, calling it "a particularly beautiful suite of music. Frisell's pacing is magnificent, and the album sweeps along with purpose like a gorgeous, spacious epic. It is full of sounds that suggest settings and characters, including the mysterious eccentric who inspired the recording." All About Jazz praises "the effortless interaction and instrumental acumen of its participants ... Frisell's quartet proves capable of empathic exploration throughout."

Bill Frisell's new album, Disfarmer, which sets to music the haunting, mid-century photo portraits of the late Arkansas photographer Michael Disfarmer, is "extraordinary" and "an absolutely beguiling listen," says the Lexington Herald-Leader. "The effect is like sifting through old photographs with black-and-white imagery that convey all manner of figurative color upon each viewing." 100 Greatest Jazz Albums calls the album "evocative in terms that are all its own ... an outstanding further chapter in Bill Frisell's growth as a major American artist in his own right."

Disfarmer, Bill Frisell's latest Nonesuch release, is out now. The Times (UK) gives it four stars. "Frisell’s filmic themes summon up the ghosts of a lost America. The results are gently beautiful." The BBC calls it "quietly impressive ... a patchwork quilt sewn with empathy, warmth and a sense of weary pathos. The result is a subtle, but moving experience. Jazz Times describes the album as "26 majestic, melodic vignettes evoking bygone honkytonks and tumbleweed towns ... Like a great film score, Disfarmer's success rests on a great motif."

Bill Frisell's latest album, Disfarmer, is out now. The Observer gives it four stars, finding it done "brilliantly" by "guitar maestro" Frisell. The Independent gives it four stars as well, calling Frisell "not just the outstanding jazz guitarist of his era but also the most diversely prolific," following, as the album does, his recent "sublime compilation" of Folk Songs. Four more stars from the Evening Standard, describing Frisell's soundscape as "a peaceful world where the twin streams of jazz and country-and-western meet in gentle confluence." The Boston Phoenix sees Frisell as "one of jazz's great impressionists" and Disfarmer "the perfect subject for one of his audio mini-movies."

Disfarmer, Bill Frisell's latest Nonesuch release, is due out a week from today you can now listen to the complete album online for NPR's Exclusive First Listen. NPR describes Frisell as "a guitar tactician with warmth and a composer of unclassifiable songs," and, on this album (inspired by the work of the late photographer Michael Disfarmer), "the quiet tactician of the electric guitar, who engineers loops and subtle distortions with phrasing you never knew you were expecting." NPR concludes: "It's a record alternately spare and full, languid and rollicking, pastoral and urbanely produced."

Bill Frisell is the subject of an extensive interview with All About Jazz titled "The Quiet Genius." "If there is a given within the music of guitarist Bill Frisell," says the site, "it's the honest approach in every note he composes and plays. There are no compromises." The article examines the "magical world of creativity" Frisell creates, calling him "one of today's most original and innovative composers" and recognizing "his compositional genius as a painter of sound."

Bill Frisell begins a five-night residency at New York's Village Vanguard with his trio, featuring bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen tonight. It was at the Vanguard that the trio recorded the "East" half of Frisell's 2005 double disc, East/West. Frisell was a central figure in the recent Melbourne International Jazz Festival, playing an "unforgettable" festival closer with the Trio, says The Age. "[I]t was a thrill to see such an influential, genre-defying artist on stage. Frisell has one of the most distinctive guitar sounds: a sound that radiates warmth and optimism, no matter how woozily dissonant or distorted it may become."

Bill Frisell has teamed up with bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Rudy Royston for a series of Trio performances taking them outside DC tonight and to Chicago tomorrow. "Few jazz musicians have acquired the stature and respect of guitarist Bill Frisell," says DCist, crediting "his intensely personal sound" and "the range of timbres and colors in [his] palette." The Chicago Tribune says that, for The Best of Bill Frisell, Vol. 1: Folk Songs, the most recent Nonesuch release from this "guitarist extraordinaire ... some of his finest recordings have been assembled." The album "plays like the missing link between avant-folk guitarist John Fahey and jazz legend Miles Davis." Time Out Chicago calls him "the quintessential proponent of true roots music—embodying the ever-diverging genealogy of American music from blues and country through the outer reaches of improv heroics."

Bill Frisell is gearing up for a tour of the South with Greg Leisz, starting March 15 in Austin. Leisz 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 asserts that for listeners new to Frisell's work, Folk Songs "is a perfect entry point," and even for Frisell aficionados, its "sequencing makes it stand on its own." What surfaces is that Frisell has maintained "an appreciation for the beauty of a simple melody"; his many influences are "re-contextualized into a nexus point of beauty and ethereality."

The Best of Bill Frisell, Volume 1: Folk Songs, the first collection of tunes culled from Frisell's extensive Nonesuch catalog, is out this week. You can listen to every track from the album streaming on the Nonesuch Radio channel First Listen now. "Two words will sum up anything the exemplary guitarist has turned his hand to: 'very good,'" says the BBC. "But when it comes to his explorations in Americana as on this collection, it's very very good. If you don't already own most of these tracks, beware. Because when you do hear them you'll have to go out and buy all the parent albums that they're culled from."

Bill Frisell has crafted a Nonesuch catalog of more than 20 albums that DownBeat included among "the best recorded output" of the last decade. Now comes the first anthology of songs assembled from that rich catalog in The Best of Bill Frisell, Volume 1: Folk Songs, out this Tuesday. The Independent gives a perfect five stars to this album of "beautiful, ringing musicality: 15 pieces of fathomless depth played with the freshness and simplicity that only genius brings. Make your world anew and treat yourself." The Guardian gives the album four stars, calling it "a delectable collection." All About Jazz calls it "a thing of rare joy and beauty."