Blues Dream

Submitted by nonesuch on
genre
Release Date
DescriptionExcerpt

Frisell organizes a new septet of old friends, including Kenny Wollesen (drums) and Greg Leisz (pedal steel). “Sometimes the ensemble achieves a kind of orchestral grandeur,” declares The Guardian (UK). “Other times they settle down to play the blues.”

Description

Bill Frisell’s Blues Dream is a colorful reinvention of the musical ideas expressed in his preceding Nonesuch releases Good Dog, Happy Man (1999) and Gone, Just Like a Train (1998). The new album marks the recorded debut of Frisell’s septet, featuring the members of his New Quartet: multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz (Joni Mitchell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Emmylou Harris, Beck) on pedal steel, lap steel, National steel guitar, Scheerhorn resonator guitar, and mandolin; David Piltch on bass; and Kenny Wollesen on drums. The quartet is augmented by a horn section comprised of longtime Frisell sidemen, saxophonist Billy Drewes, trumpeter Ron Miles, and trombonist Curtis Fowlkes.

The follow-up to the intimate solo guitar album Ghost Town (2000), Blues Dream presents Frisell’s music painted across a much larger canvas, tying together strands that have been running throughout several of his most recent offerings. In the preceding years, he had been working on a number of different projects, "playing with different people that I didn’t know and instruments I’d never played with,” he says. “On Good Dog, Happy Man I met Greg Leisz; that was the first time I’d ever played with him. I started feeling like I was getting into having a more regular group, like a language and communication was beginning to gel with these people.” Leisz brought his frequent collaborator Piltch (Holly Cole, Blood Sweat & Tears) to Frisell’s attention, while Wollesen is one of New York’s most respected drummers and a member of Frisell’s working Trio.

The music on Blues Dream combines the homespun lyricism of Frisell’s recent records with the expanded tonal palette and harmonic sophistication afforded by a larger group, something he had explored as far back as his first Nonesuch recording, Before We Were Born (1989). “Every few years or so, I have a little working group, and then I get the urge to expand it a little. The center of this record, for me, is the regular quartet I’ve been working with, and the horns are people that have been involved in all sorts of things I’ve done.” Far from serving as mere window dressing, the horn section is fully integrated into the band’s arrangements. “The arranging is a way for me to illustrate and expand what’s going on, like things that I do all the time with just my guitar. It’s a way of clarifying what I’m doing.”

The 18 tunes on Blues Dream, all new compositions commissioned by the Walker Arts Center, include evocative miniatures and musical portraits of friends and further cement Frisell’s reputation as a composer who has created a genre unto himself. He combines elements of jazz, folk, bluegrass, country, blues, and more into a unique sound that the Los Angeles Weekly has dubbed “as unmistakably American as that of Charles Ives or Duke Ellington.” Blues Dream is Bill Frisell’s 14th recording for Nonesuch.

ProductionCredits

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Lee Townsend
Recorded at O'Henry Sound Studios, Burbank
Recording and Mixing Engineer: Judy Clapp
Assistant Engineers: Tim Lauber and Jeff Shannon
Mixed at Different Fur Recording, San Francisco
Assistant and Editing Engineer: Adam Muñoz
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York City

All compositions by Bill Frisell

Design by Barbara deWilde
Cover photograph: Petit’s Mobil Station, Cherry Hill, NJ (1974) by George Tice, from the collection of the Montclair Art Museum

Nonesuch Selection Number

79615

Number of Discs in Set
1disc
ns_album_artistid
38
ns_album_id
406
ns_album_releasedate
ns_genre_1
0
ns_genre_2
0
Album Status
Artist Name
Bill Frisell
MusicianDetails

MUSICIANS
Bill Frisell, electric and acoustic guitars, loops
Greg Leisz, pedal steel, lap steel, National steel guitar, Scheerhorn resonator guitar, mandolin
Ron Miles, trumpet
Billy Drewes, alto saxophone
Curtis Fowlkes, trombone
David Piltch, bass
Kenny Wollesen, drums, percussion

Cover Art
UPC/Price
Label
CD+MP3
UPC
075597961522BUN
Label
MP3
Price
9.00
UPC
075597961560
  • 79615

News & Reviews

  • Ambrose Akinmusire's Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley, has received critical acclaim since its release in December, including being named among the year's best by the New York Times, Jazzwise, and the Irish Times, which says: "Akinmusire is a generational talent ... From the first notes of the opening title track you know you are in a place of great beauty." DownBeat says: "A quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023 ... This is one of the most interesting recordings to come along in a very long time by one of the most interesting artists of our time." The Wall Street Journal says: "It sounds like a tiny, joyous celebration ... Gorgeous details abound." The Financial Times calls him "the standout trumpeter of his generation" and says: "The one-off ensemble becomes a heavenly match." Record Collector says: "Akinmusire opens a fresh chapter in his career with the quietly magnificent Owl Song, arguably his most accomplished recording yet."

  • "This is my reaction to being assaulted by information," composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire says of his Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, due December 15, featuring a trio with two musicians he has long admired, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley. "This record is me wanting to create a safe space. Part of the challenge was: Can I create something that's oriented around open space, the way some of the records I love the most do?" You can hear "Owl Song 1" here now. The New York Times says: "Akinmusire has been making some of the most intimate, spellbinding music of his career." Pitchfork has called his work "music that seeks peace not just despite a world of unrest, but within it."

Buy Now

  • About This Album

    Bill Frisell’s Blues Dream is a colorful reinvention of the musical ideas expressed in his preceding Nonesuch releases Good Dog, Happy Man (1999) and Gone, Just Like a Train (1998). The new album marks the recorded debut of Frisell’s septet, featuring the members of his New Quartet: multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz (Joni Mitchell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Emmylou Harris, Beck) on pedal steel, lap steel, National steel guitar, Scheerhorn resonator guitar, and mandolin; David Piltch on bass; and Kenny Wollesen on drums. The quartet is augmented by a horn section comprised of longtime Frisell sidemen, saxophonist Billy Drewes, trumpeter Ron Miles, and trombonist Curtis Fowlkes.

    The follow-up to the intimate solo guitar album Ghost Town (2000), Blues Dream presents Frisell’s music painted across a much larger canvas, tying together strands that have been running throughout several of his most recent offerings. In the preceding years, he had been working on a number of different projects, "playing with different people that I didn’t know and instruments I’d never played with,” he says. “On Good Dog, Happy Man I met Greg Leisz; that was the first time I’d ever played with him. I started feeling like I was getting into having a more regular group, like a language and communication was beginning to gel with these people.” Leisz brought his frequent collaborator Piltch (Holly Cole, Blood Sweat & Tears) to Frisell’s attention, while Wollesen is one of New York’s most respected drummers and a member of Frisell’s working Trio.

    The music on Blues Dream combines the homespun lyricism of Frisell’s recent records with the expanded tonal palette and harmonic sophistication afforded by a larger group, something he had explored as far back as his first Nonesuch recording, Before We Were Born (1989). “Every few years or so, I have a little working group, and then I get the urge to expand it a little. The center of this record, for me, is the regular quartet I’ve been working with, and the horns are people that have been involved in all sorts of things I’ve done.” Far from serving as mere window dressing, the horn section is fully integrated into the band’s arrangements. “The arranging is a way for me to illustrate and expand what’s going on, like things that I do all the time with just my guitar. It’s a way of clarifying what I’m doing.”

    The 18 tunes on Blues Dream, all new compositions commissioned by the Walker Arts Center, include evocative miniatures and musical portraits of friends and further cement Frisell’s reputation as a composer who has created a genre unto himself. He combines elements of jazz, folk, bluegrass, country, blues, and more into a unique sound that the Los Angeles Weekly has dubbed “as unmistakably American as that of Charles Ives or Duke Ellington.” Blues Dream is Bill Frisell’s 14th recording for Nonesuch.

    Credits

    MUSICIANS
    Bill Frisell, electric and acoustic guitars, loops
    Greg Leisz, pedal steel, lap steel, National steel guitar, Scheerhorn resonator guitar, mandolin
    Ron Miles, trumpet
    Billy Drewes, alto saxophone
    Curtis Fowlkes, trombone
    David Piltch, bass
    Kenny Wollesen, drums, percussion

    PRODUCTION CREDITS
    Produced by Lee Townsend
    Recorded at O'Henry Sound Studios, Burbank
    Recording and Mixing Engineer: Judy Clapp
    Assistant Engineers: Tim Lauber and Jeff Shannon
    Mixed at Different Fur Recording, San Francisco
    Assistant and Editing Engineer: Adam Muñoz
    Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York City

    All compositions by Bill Frisell

    Design by Barbara deWilde
    Cover photograph: Petit’s Mobil Station, Cherry Hill, NJ (1974) by George Tice, from the collection of the Montclair Art Museum

More From Bill Frisell