Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 11
 Circus music July 1, 2008
Big House (Houston, TX United States)
4 out of 16 found this review helpful
That's what my daughter called it, and she's right. I know Frisell makes these sort of discs occasionally, with bizarre horn arrangements, but I don't care for them. Heck, I can't even tell if there's a guitar anywhere in some of these tracks! I shouldn't have bought it before listening closely. My mistake. If you like Nashville, Good Dog Happy Man, Gone Like a Train, Blues Dream, The Willies, East/West, Unspeakable -- this is nothing like any of them.
 Miniatures writ large July 22, 2008
Anthony Cooper (Louisville, KY United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Bill Frisell leads an octet over the 30 mostly short songs that make up "History, Mystery". He has a very good group -- Ron Miles on trumpet, Greg Hardy on sax, Jenny Schienman, Eyvind Kang & Hank Roberts on strings, Tony Scherr on bass, and Kenny Wollesen drumming. The songs generally have a creative dreaminess about them. The closest touchstone to this CD is Frisell's "Have A Little Faith". One thing contributing to dreaminess is that many of the songs show up more than once, so there's 40 seconds of "Answer #1" then later 110 seconds of "Answer #2". For all of the interesting miniatures, the longer songs with longer solos stand out -- "Baba Drame", "A Change Is Gonna Come", "Struggle", and "Waltz For Baltimore". Greg Hardy's solo in "A Change Is Gonna Come" is a highlight of the CD. Given that this CD has more players, Frisell's guitar is downplayed and he also doesn't step on his distortion pedal. It's more about Frisell the bandleader and composer and not the guitar hero. At 90 minutes, it's a long CD, but it doesn't seem long, which is a compliment. Bill Frisell fans should absolutely pick this one up. Anyone curious about Frisell would find this a good starting place as well.
reptetive, sad, pleasant July 15, 2008
Ehud Tagari (Tel Aviv, Israel)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The pieces of music on this album were done by a professional bunch of folk who for some time have been going on in a certain direction. It's the first Frisell album I ever bought, so I can't say much about the guy's past. Anyawy, most pieces on this album are sad. Some of them are repetitive and boring. Few have interesting compositions. All in all it's a pleasant affair. It's the kind of music some people would want to listen to sitting in an old rocking chair and looking at the post-sunsent with a glass of fine Cognac on the side, thinking about nothing in particular.
Not much to say August 2, 2008
J. Hoots (Seattle, WA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been listening to Bill for years now and he has always had an impact on my artistic vision. Being a musician myself, I have enjoyed a rich appreciation for Frisell's music, both inspiring and listenable. It isn't very often that an artist is able to revamp a style, yet here he has done it once again. Combining orchestral instruments in a jazz context is nearly impossible without sounding forced. As you know if you enjoy Bill's music, he rarely if ever forces anything and this record is perfect! Every time I hear a new recording I think it's my favorite, but "History" is special in that the song order creates a unique flow lost in the digital world. Remember, "Gone, Just Like a Train", it's that good... Enjoy!
just a listener July 14, 2008
Case Quarter (CT USA)
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
this is only the second recording released by frisell that i've heard that I like. musicians, most of them guitar players, sing praises to frisell's mastery as a jazz guitarist. i'm not a musician, just someone listening to music I like, mostly jazz, and i am attentive to the suggestions of my betters, the musicians. so i've been listening to frisell, hoping that some day the light bulb will go on and i'll understand what makes him a great jazz guitarist on his trio recordings, where his sound, to my untrained ears, drones on and on, and when it isn't droning it disturbs me with a hokeyness unexpected to jazz.
well, history, mystery isn't a trio outing, it's an octet of a string trio (the other recording by frisell I like is richter 858) and a jazz quartet and frisell on guitars, covering a range of americana, which is say some of it sounds hokey to me and some of it drones on, but with thirty selections there's breathing, exhaling and inhaling, and frisell's musical ideas and vision become democratic and not the stuff solely for the music specialist.
frisell is committed to american music of the united states. jazz is american music, arguably, america's only music, in which case any american music frisell plays is jazz. personally, not a form of reasoning i'm prepared to follow, nor am I saying this is frisell's question: is jazz americana music or is americana music jazz?
however, it is evident in history, mystery, more than in other frisell recordings i've heard, that he's working on something important musically, in the manner of charles ives.
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