Where in the World
These recordings from 1990-91 add cellist Hank Roberts to Bill Frisell's then-usual trio with bassist Kermit Driscoll and drummerJoey Baron, and there's a remarkable affinity between Roberts and Frisell's instrumental approaches. So much of Frisell's distinctive guitar style has come from his attention to sustain and pitch bending, qualities immediately available in Roberts's cello. Several of the guitarist's compositions here are concentrated on that relationship and on the spatial distinction that exists between those effects when they're accomplished by acoustic or electronic means. It's one of the things separating Frisell from the more commonplace forms of jazz fusion. He actually explores the differences and crossovers between acoustic and electronic space to create a musical analogue for the ways we experience technology. That's also evident in his contrasting uses of acoustic and electric guitars on individual tracks. There are tracks here, like "Rob Roy" and "Smilin' Jones," when Frisell's music suggests a parallel evolution of American music, as if country & western and not jazz had become its "art" music. With its rhythmic and tonal conflicts and odd, oscillating blendings of acoustic guitar harmonics, bowed cello, and Roberts's electronic "jazz-a-phone fiddle," the title track seems to pose "Where in the World?" as a utopian question.--Stuart Broomer