Bill Frisell has been sharing some big-sounding music of late.
Many know the influential, Denver-raised jazz guitarist and staple of the ECM, Nonesuch and Blue Note catalogs to be soft spoken, both in conversation and in the way his singular grasp of harmony and group dynamics leaves room for other players to have their say, even when his name is getting top billing.
Yet there’s a uniquely massive feel to “Breaking the Shell,” the 2024 album bringing together an ad hoc trio of Frisell, Andrew Cyrille on drums and Kit Downes on pipe organ — specifically the instrument played weekly in St. Luke in the Fields Church in Manhattan’s West Village. Initiated by Cyrille and fueled in part by fragmentary Frisell compositions that had been stacking up in recent years, “Breaking the Shell” extracts magic from musical space. Melodic clusters rise up and hang aloft like searching questions, and Downes’ organ bursts invite you to imagine the physics of air turning into notes that can bounce off walls, pews and microphones.
“It’s not like a huge cathedral or anything,” Frisell says of St. Luke in the Fields, “but still big enough that the sound is flying all over the place.”
Even larger is the sound of “Orchestras,” which landed earlier in 2024, and which earned Frisell a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. The double LP — triple if you snagged the vinyl variant with bonus material before it sold out — pays off its title in bifurcated fashion, with one full disc backed by the 50-plus-piece Brussels Philharmonic and another supported by the 11-piece Umbria Jazz Orchestra.
Throughout, Frisell and his longer-term trio counterparts, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston, move with characteristic fluidity inside and around arrangements penned by the Rhodesian-born English composer Michael Gibbs. Frisell calls the collaboration “a dream come true,” and he calls Gibbs “one of my all-time biggest heroes.”
“I have this long, long relationship with Michael Gibbs,” Frisell says. “I first heard his music when I was in high school, and eventually, when I went to Boston in the mid-1970s for school [at Berklee College of Music], he happened to be teaching there, and I was already a big fan of his music. So that’s where our relationship started… to have that document of that relationship is really something for me.”
As luck would have it, near the end of this year of outsized sounds and accomplishments — Frisell also earned a Grammy nomination for his work on Ambrose Akinmusire’s “Owl Song” album — Richmonders have an opportunity to catch the great guitarist in an enviably intimate setting. On Wednesday, Nov. 20, the Frisell-Morgan-Royston trio will perform in the listening room environs of the Tin Pan, a context that suits Frisell’s preternatural gift for listening. “It’s great to play in a big concert hall, but there’s something about when everyone’s close together,” he says. “You’re not having to reach out to hear.”
Style Weekly spoke with Frisell about what cozier shows bring out in his music, the trust his trio has built over time, and what it was like to record without headphones alongside an instrument so large it’s built into the room that surrounds it.
Style Weekly: The pipe organ is such a unique instrument to hear and play alongside. Do you have memories of first encountering that sound growing up?
Bill Frisell: I’m not really a churchgoer now, but when I was a kid, I would go with my parents. We were at this Presbyterian church in Denver, and I do have memories of that — that massive sound. Sometimes you wish you could travel back in time. Whoever the organist was at Montview Presbyterian Church in Park Hill, Denver, [he] would play whatever was required for the service, but then he would play his own compositions. I just remember this wild sound, and I remember my father saying, “It’s so modern,” or something. He would make these comments about what that guy was [playing]. I have no idea who it was. I’m talking about 60 years ago now.
I didn’t even know whose album [“Breaking the Shell”] was. I assumed it was an Andrew Cyrille album. Andrew called me and asked me, “Would you like to do this project with Kit Downes?” At that time, I wasn’t even familiar with Kit’s music, [but] it was Andrew Cyrille asking me. I was like, “Yeah, I’ll do anything with you,” you know. Then I started checking out a little bit of what Kit did, but really that meeting in that chapel place [was] the first time we met and played.
How did St. Luke in the Fields Church end up as the setting for recording the album?
Sun Chung, the producer, had gone around all around the city trying to find the right space, and somehow he came across this place where where they would allow us to [record]. I think he had to jump through a lot of hoops to figure out where and when. But it was beautiful — there’s a school and a courtyard and gardens, way in the West Village, this old, beautiful spot… Sonically, in that room, you just touch the drums, and it’s like, “Bam.” Also I should mention Joe Branciforte, who recorded it. He did an amazing job where we didn’t use headphones or anything — where somehow he was able to get the sounds all sorted out and still be able to use the space but it wasn’t just a big wash of echoes.
What are you looking forward to about your current run of shows?
In Richmond, it’ll be with my trio — our trio, I should say. I always feel funny about that thing about me being a leader of a band, because it’s with Thomas Morgan and Rudy Royston, who I’ve been playing with for a long, long time as a trio. There’s an album called “Orchestras” that’s on Blue Note that came out this past year with us, [and] with Michael Gibbs, who wrote arrangements… I can’t say at this point what we’re going to play [at the Tin Pan], because there’s a huge amount of music that we can draw from, and it changes every night.
I love how the “Orchestras” album feels both connected to the trio’s previous output and also so distinct. Have you sensed any change in your collective approach since making that album?
It’s always changing, and that’s what’s so amazing with these guys. That’s always my hope with whoever I’m [playing with]. I just want to be surprised all the time. For me, the best music happens when we’re in that space; you prepare and you practice and you do all this stuff, but when you get on the gig, it’s time to go somewhere else. It’s this constant trying to stay off the edge of what we know. So with those guys, there’s a huge amount of trust. Like I can make a terrible mistake, and they’re going to make it sound like some kind of genius thing that I came up with. I’m so lucky to be with these guys.
What do you enjoy most about playing a smaller listening room like the Tin Pan?
There’s something amazing about it being right in your face like that, and close together, and with the audience close in, too. Some concerts I’ve done there’d be some big space — there could be a lot of people and they’re totally into it — but it’s all dark and they’re far out there. “Is anybody out there?” Because the audience becomes part of the the energy in the music, too. For sure.
It’s so many things. The sound, just the sound of the room. Every room is like playing a different instrument.
Bill Frisell Trio featuring Thomas Morgan and Rudy Royston will perform on Wednesday, Nov. 20 at the Tin Pan. Doors open at 6 p.m. and music starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $57.50 and can be purchased at tinpanrva.com. To hear and purchase “Orchestras,” visit billfrisell.com. To hear and purchase “Breaking the Shell,” visit redhookrecords.com.
