Epistrophy
1. All in Fun
2. Wildwood Flower / Save the Last Dance for Me
3. Mumbo Jumbo
4. You Only Live Twice
5. Lush Life
6. Epistrophy
7. Pannonica
8. Red River Valley
9. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
Released on April 12th, 2019 on ECM Records
Bill Frisell: electric guitar
Thomas Morgan: double-bass
Recorded live at the Village Vanguard, New York, NY March 2016
Mixed at Avatar Studios, NY by James Farber, Manfred Eicher, Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Quotes
"Throughout the set, Morgan's empathic connection with Frisell is palpable. While there are passages where Morgan and Frisell take delineated solos, far more are spent in a kind of collective and egalitarian space where the music is more a conversation than anything else, and one that often moves in the most unpredictable directions.
John Kelman, All About Jazz
“The guitarist Bill Frisell and the bassist Thomas Morgan released their first duets album two years ago, a collection of performances that smoldered like warm coals and bespoke an easygoing, simpatico new partnership. Now they’re back with “Epistrophy,” an entire album of covers. It closes with this rendition of “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” honoring the old Sinatra ballad’s melancholy theme but still animated by Frisell’s ebullient warmth. And all the while there is Morgan’s virtuoso flexibility; he’s as responsive as he is grounded and firm.“
Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times
Reviews
By Ian Lomax - August 9, 2019
This is the second recording by guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan. Their first outing, Small Town (2017, ECM), was described variously as “wistful and mesmerising … totally ingenious and haunting”.
Whilst keeping the obvious empathy both players have for each other, this live recording moves in a different direction, featuring an eclectic mix of songs from the American songbook (All In Fun, Save The Last Dance For Me, You Only Live Twice, Lush Life and in the Wee Small Hours Of The Morning) as well as Monk classics (Epistrophy and Pannonica). Mumbo Jumbo is the least familiar to me but provides an opportunity for both players to stray from the harmonies a little and improvise creatively.
Throughout the album, the playing is intricate and spellbinding and the duo’s ability to interweave solo lines seamless. Many of the tracks have well-known lyrics and whilst the music alone stands up to any scrutiny, it still feels that the words are reverberating around your head. You Only Live twice is my favourite and sounds utterly convincing even without the usual big orchestral arrangement.
This was a special concert and worthy of an album release – albeit three years late. Recorded at New York City’s Village Vanguard, it has spot-on sound quality, with both instruments in total harmony and balance. This album will appeal to Frisell fans, jazz-guitar aficionados and those just looking for a relaxed, laidback jazz set. Highly recommended.
By Clive Bell - July 2019
I recall audience members walking out during Bill Frisell’s 2002 set at London’s Barbican. His group of that year, The Willies, were tackling Nasville country tunes with subtlety and wit, but the evening couldn’t settle down til the disappointed jazz buffs had departed (or something – who knows why folk walk out?). Anyhow, I doubt many fled during this live set at New York’s Village Vanguard. Frisell still plays whatever the hell he pleases, and Epistrophy is a 70 minute ramble across genres, a sharing of affection for certain tunes. It’s a follow-up to 2017’s Small Town, also in the company of bassist Thomas Morgan.
Frisell is famously introverted. At the Barbican he told a joke, which the band found hilarious – not the joke, but the fact that he was addressing the crowd. Epistrophy is consistently restrained, and its pleasures lie in gestures of gentle skill and delicacy. If the repertoire is wide ranging, the performances are not. The Great American Songbook is represented by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein’s “All the Fun”, Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” and David Mann/Bob Hilliard’s “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”, popularised by Frank Sinatra. Both players’ association with drummer Paul Motian is celebrated in Motian’s “Mumbo Jumbo” – here Frisell switches on a scuzzy FX pedal and smears some pastel noise around for variety. Then there’s John Barry’s “You Only Live Twice” – which Frisell convincingly sells as a great melody – and of course two Monk tunes: “Pannonica” which Frisell drifts into as if humming, and the title track, echoed by the cover painting, a dash of absract expressionism (also titled “Epistrophy”) by the late Charles Cajori, a friend of Frisell’s parents.
Most striking are The Drifters’ 1960 hit “Save the Last Dance For Me” and the traditional song “Red River Valley”. Here Frisell credits Sonny Rollins for inspiration: “One of the first jazz LPs I ever bought was his Way Out West, and it was like a light turning on for me.” For the 1957 album – which included “I’m An Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)” – Rollins donned a Stetson and posed next to a desert cactus, holding his saxophone like a pistol. More extroverted than Frisell maybe, but a similar lightness of heart.
By S. Victor Aaron - April 14, 2019
In 2017, Bill Frisell returns to ECM as a leader after a thirty year layoff and with Thomas Morgan releases the cozy, eclectic Small Town, a live setting that captured up close the empathy between guitarist and acoustic bassist. In 2019, Epistrophy is a straight continuation of their chemistry, which was actually captured live at the fabled Village Vanguard during the same string of March, 2016 shows from which Small Town was rendered.
Just about all they are playing here are jazz standards or entries from the Great American Songbook but these songs don’t necessarily bop or swing in their hands; they are treated with a down home, folk mindset. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the duo play with the intent to extract every honeyed drop from these rich melodies, a hallmark of both artists.
That doesn’t mean there’s no abstraction going on: Frisell teases out the theme of “Epistrophy” by intentionally dropping notes here and there, slowly densifying his attack until the full harmony comes into clear focus. Morgan meantime keeps a firm steady pulse, providing a ladder for Frisell to climb up and down. The guitarist plays hide-and-seek for other Thelonious Monk cover “Pannonica” as well, before settling in cozily with its strain.
“All In Fun” is drawn out with such relaxed ease, it could have well been performed on a patio in Tennessee on a breezy spring day. Morgan’s spotlight reveals him to be just as much of a lyrical musician as his older partner. Frisell’s own lyricism mesmerizes on songs such as “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” and “Red River Valley,” his sensitivity on guitar matching the emotion that can be levied by well-sung human voice.
Frisell carries out “Lush Life” as if he’s all alone with little regard for pacing it evenly, which boosts its intimacy. Yet, Morgan manages to stick close, anticipating the spots where Frisell places his notes. “Wildwood Flower” and “Save The Last Dance For Me’ is combined into a medley marked by the rich, woody tone of Morgan’s double bass.
“Mumbo Jumbo” might be a song less familiar to the audience but not at all for the two performers: their common mentor drumming legend Paul Motian composed this. It’s actually a tune of a lot of beauty but also complexity and both share a depth of understanding of this song that without it wouldn’t have been able to cover properly. But if anything the two venture further ‘outside’ than Motian did with it, as Frisell uses this one occasion to brandish a few of his pedal-driven tricks.
All About Jazz
By John Kelman - April 5, 2019
When ECM Records released Small Town in 2017, beyond capturing the profound intimacy and musical ability to "finish each other's sentences" shared by the first recorded document of guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan in a duo setting, one of the biggest walk-aways was the hope that this would not be a one-off. Two years later, Epistrophy captures another 68 minutes (running literally 34 seconds longer than Small Town) of intimate interaction, culled from the same March, 2016 run at New York City's legendary Village Vanguard club. But if certain key markers remain the same between the two releases, Epistrophy not only expands upon the shared musical understanding and ability to get deep inside whatever music Frisell and Morgan choose to play; it also possesses its own distinct narrative, largely due to a selected set of nine tunes that possess some commonalities with Small Town, but some important differences as well.
Continuing, as a brief note articulates in Epistrophy's liners, "the story begun on Small Town," where this second set of music differs is in its sources. Yes, Frisell once again selects a song played when he was a member of Paul Motian's thirty-year trio with the guitarist and saxophonist Joe Lovano. Still, in contrast to the atmospheric title track from It Should've Happened a Long Time Ago (ECM, 1985) that opened Small Town, "Mumbo Jumbo," first heard on a later trio date with the drummer, Motian in Tokyo (JMT, 1992), is a far more oblique examination of this improv-driven sketch, also composed by Motian.
Frisell—who, with this duo, continues to largely eschew the greater arsenal of effects he so often employs—brings both ring modulation and reverse attack into the mix at various points during an eight minute exploration that fluidly moves in and out of time, as Morgan effortlessly shifts from brief periods of implicit and explicit swing to timeless, open-ended passages. Throughout, the pair feeds off of one another with the same mitochondrial connection heard, not just on Small Town, but on the guitarist's celebration of film music in the context of a larger ensemble, When You Wish Upon a Star (Okeh, 2016), Morgan's first recording with the guitarist.
Small Town closes with Frisell and Morgan's remarkable look at the theme song to the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. Remarkable, because locating, excising and incorporating so many key elements from composer John Barry's original big band chart into the duo's more intimate look might seem impossible to believe, were there not clear evidence coming from the speakers. Frisell and Morgan bring the same rare, keenly astute ability to mine the core of any song to Epistrophy's "You Only Live Twice," which the duo first recorded in the context of a quartet on When You Wish Upon a Star (and sung by the late Charlie Haden's daughter, Petra).
Another Barry composition, but this time from the 1967 James Bond film of the same name, "You Only Live Twice" is less specifically melodramatic than "Goldfinger," but Frisell and Morgan are about as far away from melodrama as can be. Instead, their collaboration is evidence that an artist's work is, amongst other things (and far more often than not), a reflection of who they are. In this case, both Frisell and Morgan are largely introspective players, though not without idiosyncrasies and a distinctive sense of humor, two qualities that invariably emerge when called for. That said, any who've had the pleasure of seeing this duo perform live already know, as was clear during its stellar performance at the 2017 TD Ottawa Jazz Festival, that these two musicians rarely seem to need to say anything beyond the music.
Their gentle version of "You Only Live Twice" opens with the song's familiar two-chord repetition (beautifully re-harmonized, at times, by Frisell) played rubato, as the pair gradually comes together in time when the more defined introduction leads to the song's memorable theme. Imbued with a hint of melancholy, a similar bevy of arrangement lifts from the original render the duo's take as more than merely improvisational grist; instead, it's an equally reverent reading that is nevertheless defined by the pair's ability to be simultaneously expansive interpretively and most decidedly faithful.
Frisell demonstrates all kinds of techniques honed over the years, from self-accompaniment throughout, as he moves seamlessly between single notes and ever-shifting voicings, to delicately muted lines achieved, in the first verse, by resting his right hand ever so slightly on the strings of his Telecaster—one of two guitars heard on the date, with Frisell also employing a (for him) rarely used, large hollow body Gibson. Again, beyond the heavy reverb and stereo amplification that creates a rich soundscape whether he's building complex chordal passages or delicate harmonics, Frisell tastefully injects some (on this date, rarely used) tremolo during the bridge.
Frisell demonstrates, on both Epistrophy and Small Town, that he's as much a master of tastefully spare effects use as he is broad-reaching voicings (often relying on open strings to create shifting, sustaining passages) and linear phrases that run the gamut from spare melodisms to knottier angularities. For those who feel that Frisell has often deserted his jazzier proclivities and sensibilities on a multitude of other projects, ranging from a tribute to '60s music on Guitar in the Space Age! (Okeh, 2014) and his homage to John Lennon with All We Are Saying... (Savoy Jazz, 2011), to his sample-driven Hal Willner collaboration on Unspeakable (Nonesuch, 2004), his bluegrass-weighted The Willies (Nonesuch, 2002), and the horn-driven Americana of Blues Dream (Nonesuch, 2001), Epistrophy makes clear that Frisell is as strong, as influential and as ever-searching a jazz guitarist as he's ever been.
Because, as Frisell makes crystal clear with his 2018 solo guitar release for Okeh, Music IS. Like so many of his peers, Frisell is not bound to any one style of music, and while it's true that some albums may lean a little more heavily in one direction or another, at the end of the day Frisell remains an improvising guitarist, albeit one for whom the essence of any song is paramount. His overall approach to style is more inclusive than exclusive, meaning that over the years he has increasingly evolved into a stylistic melting pot capable of fitting into contexts as seemingly disparate as drummer Andrew Cyrille, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, British singer David Sylvian and American pop/rock singer/songwriters Bonnie Raitt and Rickie Lee Jones.
Which makes Frisell as unpredictable as ever. A look at Epistrophy's track listing (which, unlike Small Town, features no Frisell or Morgan originals) reveals the traditional song, "Red River Valley," as the set's penultimate composition. History might suggest a more Americana-tilting performance from Frisell but, instead, following a more abstract rubato intro—as Frisell's initial harmonics initiate a question and answer exchange with Morgan's spare, ever-perfect choices—"Red River Valley" ultimately swings, and swings hard...hard, that is, for a duo as inward-looking, as subtle and as nuanced as this.
The inclusion of not just the idiosyncratic title track—performed, by the duo with a suitably skewed sense of dry humor—but a constantly morphing, occasionally swinging, free-bop look at the gentler "Pannonica" creates a late-in-the-set, back-to-back tribute to one of Frisell's seminal influences, pianist Thelonious Monk that's taken even further with the cover art. Also titled Epistrophy, it's a painting by the late Charles Cajori, a friend of Frisell's parents when he was growing up, and who would visit the Frisell household regularly, regaling the aspiring young guitarist with stories of seeing Monk and Miles Davis live. A grown-up Frisell reconnected with Cajori when he was studying in New York City, at which time he learned of Cajoli's painting, recounting just how important it was that ECM was able to grace the cover of this second Frisell/Morgan duo album with Cajoli's artwork.
Throughout the set, Morgan's empathic connection with Frisell is palpable. While there are passages where Morgan and Frisell take delineated solos, far more are spent in a kind of collective and egalitarian space where the music is more a conversation than anything else, and one that often moves in the most unpredictable directions. The duo's look at Joseph Philbrick Webster and Maud Irving's classic "Wildwood Flower," which Frisell first recorded on his 2000 solo guitar outing Ghost Town (Nonesuch), is more roots-driven and countrified on Small Town. The version on Epistrophy, on the other hand, is more open-ended and free-wheeling (albeit subtly so), its completely rubato interpretation here suddenly shifting, at around two-and-a-half minutes, into a soft but propulsive version of The Drifters' 1962 hit, "Save the Last Dance for Me."
Jerome Kern's "All in Fun," first performed live in 1939, and David Mann's 1955 hit for Frank Sinatra, "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," bookend Epistrophy. Both are lovely ballads that nevertheless demonstrate different aspects of Frisell and Morgan's approach to interpretation. "All in Fun" is, indeed, a more fun album opener, with the increasingly in-demand Morgan demonstrating the special relationship he's forged, in such a relatively short period of time, with Frisell. His Haden-informed tone and attention to the detail of every note helps define the pulse while, at the same time, acting as a melodic foil that pushes and pulls Frisell as much as the guitarist does here, and throughout the set.
"In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" is more tender, more poignant, more hauntingly beautiful, and a lovely way to end the set. Over the course of nearly seven minutes, Frisell's ability to blend gentle lines—lyrical, but in a distinctly Frisell-ian fashion—and warm voicings is matched by Morgan, the pair demonstrating that overt virtuosity is far from a determiner of great music.
Instead, throughout Epistrophy (including a brief but delicately charming, by turns in-time and no-time look at Billy Strayhorn's evergreen "Lush Life"), Frisell and Morgan make clear that they view music through a different prism. First and foremost, the song: what makes it tick; what signature(s) defines it; what, at its deepest core, it is. Second: communication that's as open as possible, allowing the music to go wherever it may, rendering each and every performance as completely different from the last. Finally: the need to well and truly listen as much as play, leading to that kind of indefinable telepathy to which most aspire but so relatively few achieve.
Whether the music is original, or the interpretation of something traditional or sourced from the Great American Songbook, pop hits or jazz standards, with two musicians as clearly connected as Frisell and Morgan, the only thing that's predictable is their sheer unpredictability. Epistrophy may swing a little more, and lean a little heavier on the jazz tradition (even when interpreting traditional folk music like "Red River Valley") than Small Town, but taken together, these two extraordinary recordings more fully and completely reveal this unique duo's broad musical purview.
Now, with the hope stemming from Small Town fulfilled—another recording from the duo with its equally compelling Epistrophy—there's now yet another wish: the chance for a document of this duo after a couple of additional years' occasional touring. If their connection was this strong in the spring of 2016, imagine how it is now, three years later?