Have a Little Faith
Have a Little Faithguitarist Bill Frisell italicized his stature as a composer and arranger within a combo setting that achieves a perfect balance of form and free-wheeling interpretive intensity.  Frisell's core working section of the time (drummer Joey Barron and bassist Kermit Driscoll) are augmented by clarinet innovator Don Byron and a very fine accordionist, Guy Klucevsek , which gives this music chamber-like tonal colors, while allowing Frisell to elicit expansive big band gestures through a repertoire of material that is never hectic, just blithely eclectic-staking a claim for Frisell in the pantheon of great American composers and songwriters with whom he allies himself here.  Thus there's a blissfully funky reading of blues giant McKinley "Muddy Waters" Morganfield's "I Can't Be Satisfied" and--from the other side of the universe--a loveably raucous take on John Phillip Sousa's "Washington Post March." Elsewhere, Frisell navigates the waters of such enigmatic modernists as Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Sonny Rollins, Bob Dylan, and John Hiatt with equal affection and grace.--Chip Stern