Bill Frisell - How He Plays Surprising & Beautiful Things

Bill Frisell can be described as the gentle genius of jazz guitar. He has a strong command of the style but really goes for his own voice which is a beautiful mix of elements from essential parts of American music culture: Jazz, Country, Bluegrass and Rock.

Bill Frisell Guitar solos can start a line with a bebop lick or a reharmonization and end in a triadic bluegrass idea or go the other way and throw a open-string cluster voicing in there. The examples in this video cover both of these.

Another thing that Bill Frisell also has pioneered is trying to really play polyphonic ideas in your solos. You will hear this from time to time with others like John Scofield, but Frisell is using it very often and is a true master. Possibly also where Julian Lage got the idea?

This solo on How Deep Is The Ocean is from one of the Paul Motian On Broadway albums. A great series of albums with some Jazz Giants playing some really great renditions of jazz standards.

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[JensLarsen]

So by now I have pretty much all of them. Who did I miss? 🙂

[mannoplanet]

I've seen him probably 8 times live. I love his playing and I love that every time he hits a note his expression is delight like a kid having made something good and beautiful.

[thenickguitar]

More Frisell stuff please! Awesome video!!

[charlietaylor]

These bitesize lessons really are superb. So enjoyable to watch and try stuff out. :)

[DaveElke]

always a great lesson, presented so well. I am a huge Bill fan, and this is really helpful. thanks

[marike]

Had the great pleasure of studying saxophone with Joe Lovano and he used to play with and talk about Bill Frisell all the time. Motion and Frisell, those were his dudes. If you get a chance to see the Bill Frisell movie, it's excellent. Cool guy, great innovator.

[DESIENASHOES]

Great lesson, I do like much Bill Frisel -- so mix of different styles_

[lindsayblack]

Awesome lesson Jens! Thank you for this. Looking forward to joining the Jazz Guitar Roadmap!

[ThatTeleGuy]

A coworker turned me onto Bill years ago telling me to check out the Blues Dream album, I was blown away, fan ever since. Also he plays jazz on a Tele 😊

[jameshaff]

More Frisell Would be much appreciated, love your lessons!

[Trombonology]

Jens, this was worth the wait since you mentioned it. Fantastic analysis of the elements of Bill's genius and virtuosity, with a great example. You can hear such a diversity of genre influences as well as music history in his playing, but it comes out in such a singular, highly identifiable way. I've always loved that thoughtful, unhurried quality in his work, too.

[trukapipa]

In the 80s I often heard John Abercrombie included in the list of influential modern jazz guitarists as the one that started the era of "the big four." Would love to see a video on Abercrombie from that perspective.

More than that I want to say what a treasure you are, Jens, to the online guitar community. Thank you and keep up the great work on your channel!

[wizardofoz]

What a great explanation. Awesome analyses and observations, very didactic and extremely insightful stuff.

[michaelschaefer]

Great lesson! To my ear, some of Frisell's chord voicings as you break them down, especially around 4:00-5:00, sound like they're influenced by Jim Hall's work, which is no surprise.

[plopzoppers]

I was just ending my day and wondering about what to watch and I see Jens drops this. Meant to be!

[TheCompleteGuitarist]

Awesome, probably my favourite jazz guitarist. Great work.

[DaveElke]

Great lesson. As a teacher, I must say you focus on the right things and break it down very clearly. Thanks for this! Bill is my fave

[mosstet]

Would really love suggested exercises to understand how to come up with or get faster at this method of improvising.

[germanmartinez]

Jim Campilongo! Awesome video by the way thank you very much

[dkwvt]

Aim glad you made the point about his use of open strings and drones. To me that is one of his trademarks especially in the sense of inverted extensions if that makes any sense... 😁. And OMG I was not aware of the band series of albums, incredible! Thank You!