Rogers and Hart, The Gershwin Brothers, Burke and Van Heusen. So, why NOT add Lennon and McCarthy to the list of great composers? Guitarist and sonic experimenter Bill Frisell, in the true heart of a jazz musician, came up with the idea of doing an album of The John Lennon Songbook as an act of improvisation.
“It wasn’t even my idea,” he humbly admits in our recent interview. “ It seems like as soon as I entered into music all of these different things appear before me. Different opportunities come up and I just have a chance to enter into them.”
In fact, Frisell points out that this project had its germination back in the past. “For this one, a number of years ago it was some anniversary of John Lennon’s either birth or death a few years back ( editors note: he was born in 1940,and died in 1980)and Ihad a tour set up in Europe. They asked me to do a concert of just his music for a night. So, I thought “I can do that.” This was with Jenny Scheinman and Greg Leisz in the band. We had this tour with just the three of us. We had planned to just go over and play my own music, like we usually do, and then this one gig came up to do just Lennon music. So, we went in a day early and sort of ran over a few things. Then we did the concert and thought, “This is far out.” We’ve got the rest of the tour in front of us, and we didn’t announce anything to the audience. They just knew that we were coming for a concert as a band, but we just decided to keep playing this music for the rest of the tour without telling anybody. That was REALLY far out. I think we went from Paris to Berlin. We’d play the first song, and we could see them react, “Oh, yeah, that must be this or that.” Then, we’d play the next and another and another, and they realized that we weren’t going to let up for the whole night.”
“Then, the tour ended in London, and there was an amazing reaction. Then, I didn’t think about it for a long time. A number of years went by and we didn’t play it anymore. It was like this cool thing that just happened. We were then asked to do another gig at Yoshi’s, where we were asked to do a whole bunch of projects. They wanted me to do different music each night, so I thought that maybe I’ll do the Lennon music again. So, we did it again, and we just started recording for Savoy Records, and they wanted us to record it. “
At this point, it’s important to pause and consider the challenge that was given to Frisell at Yoshi’s famed jazz club: play different music every night. Can any of you out there think of any jazz artist who wouldn’t be insulted and rebel against such a demand from a nightclub? Can anyone picture how someone like Keith Jarrett would respond to such a request?!? Frisell, the sonic pilgrim of the guitar, took the request as a challenge instead of an insult. “Yeah, we were there 3-4 nights. For me, I’ve got a lot of things that I want to play. It was a good opportunity for me. They knew I had a lot of projects, so they gave me the chance to play them. “
And how did the band respond to the idea of being told to play something different each night? Frisell, in true ad lib form, took the format to its logical conclusion: “They were different bands, too! One night we were with Buddy Miller and Marc Ribot, and then another night with (bassist) Tony Schier and (drummer) Kenny Wollesen and we played music from Buster Keaton films. Then, Floratone is mainly an extremely studio thing that I don’t think we’ll ever do it live. But I have been talking with (drummer) Matt Chamberlain about doing something, the two of us, but not with the intent of recreating anything from our record. There’s so much about it, beginning with Matt and I improvising together and then (producers) Lee Townsend and Tucker Martine taking that stuff and editing it with so many layers and permutations; it’s really not a “live” thing at all.”
This thought lends itself to the next obvious question as to what actually does the phrase “improvisation” consist of? Frisell, who experiments with sounds, styles, group dynamics and note by note solos, is hard pin down. “Just like I’m struggling to talk about it right now, it’s that hard to define. It’s like when I play, that’s where my real voice is. To me, it’s not really improvising, but just my natural way of speaking through playing music.”
While The Beatles only put out 8 actual albums during their 7 year recording career, Frisell didn’t feel like there was a dearth of material that could relate to his jazz sensibilities. “it’s incredible how many songs there are. We could easily do another album tomorrow of Lennon songs. There were a lot that go way back when I heard them on the Ed Sullivan show like “Please, Please Me.” Songs that were in my blood, but I wanted to have stuff that showed his whole life a little bit. But there’s still more. I’m praying that no one sees this as a dis to Paul McCartney, because there’s always that thing when I grew up, “Who’s your favorite Beatle?” . I hope it doesn’t come across like that.”
Besides the Lennon and McCartney songbook, Frisell mined the vaults of Lennon’s solo career. Some of the songs, such as “Imagine,” are sine qua non in the lexicon of cover tunes. Frisell, however, pulled out a couple of obscure ringers, as he explains, “I just went back and started listening to all of his stuff. It was amazing when we did that too, as it seemed like each song took on its own spirit. Most of them needed very few takes, we just played them and they took care of themselves. But when we first did “Beautiful Boy” on the first take, it just didn’t feel right. We weren’t sure what it was meaning. But I brought along with me a whole bunch of magazines with Lennon’s pictures in them. There was one that had that amazing photo of John in the studio standing over the control board in the recording studio. His arms are raised up, like he’s listening to a take of something. And down below is his son Sean as a little boy, looking up at him. It’s a beautiful picture. We looked at that picture for awhile and started crying! Then we went back and played it again and we got something of the spirit of that song with it.”
When a jazz artist attempts to cover a songbook, it’s difficult enough to “compete” with other versions of that song by other musicians. Even more daunting is the task when the composers themselves have recorded the most famous, in fact, sometimes the ONLY versions of these songs that are part of the musical dna of ever Baby Boomer on down to Generation XY or Z. The intimidating question about recording a popular song is whether to completely re-arrange it, as Brad Mehldau or John Pizzarelli have done with their Fab Four covers, or play it close to the original, and risk being compared to a tribute band like Yesterday.
For Frisell, who has the advantage of having created a completely identifiable and unique sound, the decision came fairly easily. “ I didn’t try to change any of the music. I didn’t try to re-harmonize it. We came into the situation really trying to stay as true to what the original versions of the songs were. It’s like that music coming through us after all of those years being filtered through our experience. It’s really kind of heavy when you think how much that music has affected each us in the band. We each had a personal relationship with those songs. So, we really just played them. I really didn’t prepare them, because it was like we’ve been preparing for it our whole lives. I had charts for what was as close to I could to what they originally did, but I wasn’t trying to copy them. It was just like we were singing the songs together.”
This is one of the benefits of the old musical adage, which is rule number 1 for musicians: Develop your own sound. Instead of imitating someone else, work on perfecting your own special voice, and let that be enough to make any song you perform sound personal and unique. Whatever the instrument, once a musician has his own sound, anything he plays will be a part of his or her personality, which is the actual essence of jazz.
As for Frisell, who used to be a regular performer at the old Jazz Bakery (“I miss the Bakery!” he bemoans), he’ll be taking his band to a larger stage the next time he comes to Los Angeles. “I’m playing at Disney Hall, and that’s with another group, Beautiful Dreamer with Eyvind Kang playing viola and Rudy Royston on drums. We’ve been playing some of Lennon’s songs with that trio. With this trio, we’re more like we’re fewer people, but in a way more representative what’s going on in my brain at all times. The freedom in this band is really great, so we can play a Monk tune, or a standard or a Beatles song or my own music. And there’s also music I’ve written specifically for this group, so with them it’s one of the more open and less specific albums I’ve done. There’s an album we did, where there’s a pretty wide range of music. We played last night in Boston, and we did some Paul Motian songs, some Carter family songs , Coltrane and gospel.”
Frisell, while attracted to gospel music but without a church background (“Not in an organized way, but I’m always thinking about stuff”) still is thankful to God for the ability to live his improvisational music life. His only request of God is fairly simple, “I just hope I can keep on playing. The music keeps me going. I’m so lucky that I get to do this. I just hope I can keep on doing it. People always ask me what I want to do next, and there’s never any question about that, as there’s always something right in front of me to do. I just hope that I can feel strong enough to do it. I’ve been lucky with all of this stuff. I feel blessed. “
Always putting substance over style, Frisell continues to go on musical paths where others fear to tread. Follow him on his sonic journey, and enjoy the musical Pilgrim’s Progress.