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FYI… PHOTOS of the SHOW at the BOTTOM

I saw Bill Frisell about a year and a half ago with Eyvind Kang & Rudy Royston… fantastic show, but more on the experimental, avant-garde edge (my review of that June 2008 show).  Last night’s show was a trio of guitarist Bill Frisell with bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen (Sex Mob, Electric Masada, etc):

They hit the Shedd stage around 7:30pm.  Differing from the retro live photo above, Tony Scherr was on electric bass.  Kenny Wollesen played a standard kit, and Bill Frisell had a few guitars, pedals, gear to loop his sounds… and a big screen above them to show the congruous films as they played.

At the beginning of the show, Bill explained the accompanying film pieces: four by Seattle animator Jim Woodring, one by Bill Morrison, and two Buster Keaton classics.  The band started out with a Jim Woodring computer animation – all black and white, but with many interesting, morphing shapes.  The music started off slow, had some interesting wandering scales with a nice build and finish.  The animation was quite enveloping, and the 10 minute piece seemed to fly by…

I was only allowed to take photos for the initial fifteen minutes, but the rest of the Woodring cartoons were somewhat related to the initial computer animations – many of the same morphing shapes show up, whether in a character, a beer tap, or a lamp.  The primary character in the animations was “Frank.”  We follow him around in his travels that either end in a big mess, a violent picnic, or death.

The second Woodring piece introduced us to the aforementioned “Frank.”  He tooled around his house and then went up into the hills to some odd looking palace, and when he returned, his house had been ransacked by some fat, troll-like human character.  The animation appeared to be paper-based stop-motion animation.  The music had a Floratone or possibly Disfarmer feel… I actually recognized the melody that Bill played midway through, but can’t place it now.

The third piece was another Woodring “Frank” animation, but this time with either colored paper or possibly fabric animation.  The setting was a picnic and got fairly violent near the end.  The piece was shorter (maybe 5 minutes), which led into the fourth and final Woodring piece… a claymation “Frank” with a devil-type character.  The music had a nice groove, and the animation ended with the beer tap looking piece of furniture tipping over to expose the phrase “And You Call Yourself a Gentleman.”

Up next were three silent films… and quite frankly, I lost the music in the viewing.  I think the music worked really well and enhanced the pieces, but it definitely fell to the background of what I was paying attention to …

The first was a short film called The Mesmerist by Bill Morrison featuring a re-worked 1926’s film The Bells which featured Boris Karloff.  It had been altered from the original, and I’m not sure what was part of the original and what was part of the re-imagining.  It started with a very old, sepia & scratchy feel and grew into more animated splotches.  The storyline is of an innkeeper who murders a rich visitor and is haunted by the murder he committed.

Up next were two Buster Keaton films… The High Sign (1921) and One Week (1920)…

Each film was in the 15-20 minute range.  I was quite amazed at Buster’s utterly ingenious physical comedy.  I was familiar with his work a little bit (trumpeter Dave Douglas and his Keystone band has used Buster Keaton in the past).  The first one was a gangster caper with a really basic (but stupendous) cross-section of a house with tons of trap doors and moving walls.  The second one was of a cheap home that was hurriedly built after a wedding with hilarity ensuing.  For the video (with non-Frisell music) check out YouTube of The High Sign and of One Week.

Seven songs, 90 minutes… the Trio took a bow and left the stage.  They hit the stage one last time for a short animation of Woodring’s Frank called Whim Grinder:

I enjoyed the film and animation accompanying Frisell’s music; though, I’ll say again that the music really dropped to the background on some of the wild imagery of the Frank cartoons and storylines & physical comedy going on in the films.  Upcoming tour dates of Frisell’s include Eyvind Kang/Rudy Royston dates, some Ron Carter/Paul Motion dates, some 858 Quartet dates, and these Scherr/Wollesen dates (which would presumably feature the films/animations as well)…

• 1/24/2010 – Seattle, WA – Triple Door
• 4/2/2010 – Savannah, GA – Savannah Music Festival at Charles Morris Center
• 4/3/2010 – Savannah, GA – Savannah Music Festival at Charles Morris Center

The Appropriate Linkage:

• Bill Frisell’s Site
• Bill Frisell on MySpace
• Tony Scherr’s Site
• Tony Scherr on MySpace
• Jim Woodring – Animator
  
• The Shedd Institute

~Dan – np: Flyleaf – Flyleaf

BILL FRISELL TRIO PHOTOS
all pictures (cc) 2010 Daniel Temmesfeld,
you may use freely under a creative commons attribution

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