[Online] Review: Frissel produces original, but unexciting, concert

For his unique blend of world music, bluegrass and jazz, the
contemporary music scene reveres guitarist Bill Frisell. Last
Sunday, Frisell graced the stage of Royce Hall to perform with his
eclectic world music band, The Intercontinentals.

The night’s performance began with an appearance by
special guest Petra Haden, vocalist, violinist and daughter of jazz
bassist Charlie Haden.

Her set included some recognizable covers ranging from a
no-frills rendition of “When You Wish Upon a Star” to a
ballad-like interpretation of alternative rock band Foo
Fighter’s “Floaty.” The latter was remarkable for
its gestural quality, with Frisell’s arpeggios playfully
dancing around the melody and Haden’s vocals floating between
the loose but accurate phrases of Jenny Scheinman’s violin
accompaniment.

Meanwhile, Frisell’s stage presence and playing style gave
the impression he wished to remain invisible. Throughout the
performance, he stood over to one side of the stage, dressed in
black, staring at the frets of his guitar and saying virtually
nothing to the audience. His playing style consisted of
unequivocal, harmonically complex chords and the occasional brief
melody line, but never a flashy solo.

A key element of Frisell’s style was his electronic echo
box. This effect enhanced his minimalist style, making each note
like a smooth pebble thrown across the surface of a lake, creating
smaller and smaller ripples until disappearing in the distance.

The Intercontinentals took the stage for the second half of the
performance. Percussionist Sidiki Camara, who stood behind a podium
mounted with cymbals and a large, round gourd emerging from the
center, assumed a commanding position. By tapping and pounding the
gourd with a stick and his fist, Camara created a surprisingly wide
tonal range of sharp ticks and low thumps.

The musicians established an East-meets-West jam, with Frisell
superimposing jazz chords and bluegrass country licks on top of
Greek-Macedonian Christos Govetas’ rapid-fire melodies. The
two musicians weaved in and out, sometimes matching each other in
style, and sometimes diverging from each other, creating a kind of
cross-cultural communication.

The music was jam-based, without many changes. Scheinman’s
sweeping, confident improvisation added interest to the songs, but
due to the jam’s repetitive nature, it got boring with time.
Few numbers had a dramatic arch or a climax, and the endings often
seemed undetermined, with the musicians simply becoming
intermittent and fading out.

In this half of the performance, Frisell displayed a seemingly
incongruous element of his style. Using his effects pedals, he
created bizarre noises that punctuated the blended music with alien
syncopations.

Every time he did this, he managed to make a few interesting
sounds, but the final result was disappointing. It seemed as though
when he turned on his spaceship effect, he suddenly became a
15-year-old kid with a guitar, strumming randomly and creating
annoying dissonance. The audience was left wondering if he had some
sort of technical problem because he kept reaching over to adjust
his dials and then hitting the same chord over and over again.

The show ended with another anti-climactic fade-out number, the
musicians left the stage, the lights came up, and the audience
shuffled out of the auditorium. The night’s performance had
brought together six skilled musicians, and they had created some
interesting cross-cultural synthesis.

But the generally unexciting second half left one with the
impression that The Intercontinentals could have benefited from a
stronger stage presence and more dynamic songs.

-Andrew Wenzlaff