Unspeakable
Stylistic shifts are nothing new in the career of Bill Frisell, who changes musical directions more often thanMadonna. In fact, he even covered a Madonna song once.Unspeakablecontinues that tendency as Frisell teams up with Hal Willner, a willful musical eclectic. The two have worked together on collaborative projects including tributes toNino Rota, Walt Disney, andCharles Mingus. Willner, who is also the turntabulist here, orchestrates a landscape of turntable spins and space jams using generic library production discs for much of his source material. '60sDragnetjazz horns and orchestralTwilight Zonestylings lend the modern sound ofUnspeakablea strangely nostalgic hue. Frisell finds himself in a landscape of Ligeti-like strings, bongo percolations, and Ghanian tribal calls, most of it super-charged by the rhythm team of bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Their funky beats lay the terrain for Frisell's angular crossfire solos, but he can also wax sweetly nostalgic on "Hymn for Ginsberg" for guitar and string trio. Bill Frisell is filed in jazz, but he continues to be a genre unto himself. --John Diliberto