Bill Frisell - ...and on guitar (1985)

Bill Frisell was born on 19 March 1951 in Baltimore, growing up in Denver, Colorado, and although he began playing the clarinet in the fourth grade, he took up guitar a few years later for his own personal amusement. He continued with the clarinet, playing in school concerts and marching bands, and briefly considered playing classical clarinet professionally, but at the same time he was also playing guitar in rock and R&B bands, alongside high school classmates Philip Bailey, Andrew Woolfolk, and Larry Dunn, who were all future members of the group Earth, Wind & Fire. He discovered jazz in the music of Wes Montgomery and began to study it, making the guitar his primary instrument, and after briefly attending the University of Northern Colorado, he moved to Boston in 1971 to attend the Berklee School of Music. There he studied with Michael Gibbs and John Damian, and while at Berklee he connected with other like-minded players, including classmate Pat Metheny. He also studied with Jim Hall, who became an important influence, especially in terms of harmony, and in the mid-70's he began moving away from pure bebop and started fusing jazz with his other musical interests, where he started to develop his atmospheric, quasi-microtonal style. He discovered that by using a guitar with a flexible neck, he could manipulate the instrument's intonation, and his combination of experimental techniques and signal processors like delay and reverb gave him a sound unlike any other guitarist. 

In the late 70's he travelled to Belgium where he met Manfred Eicher, the founder of ECM Records, and beginning in the early 80's he recorded prolifically for the label as leader and sideman, with such musicians as Paul Motian and Jan Garbarek. He soon earned a reputation as ECM's "house guitarist", becoming much acclaimed by critics for his sophisticated yet accessible work. In the 80's he moved to New York, where he worked with many of the most creative musicians active on the city's "downtown" jazz scene. Frisell's major break came when guitarist Pat Metheny was unable to make a recording session and recommended Frisell to Paul Motian, who was recording his 1982 album 'Psalm' for ECM Records. Following this he became ECM's in-house guitar player, and worked on several albums, most notably Jan Garbarek's 'Paths, Prints' from 1982. Frisell's first solo release was 'In Line', which featured a solo guitar as well as duets with bassist Arild Andersen, and although much of his time after that debut was then taken up releasing his own music, he still managed to make the odd guest appearance throughout the rest of his career. In the 80's and 90's he recorded and performed with a huge variety of artists, not all of them jazz musicians, and collaborators included rock and pop musicians Ginger Baker, Marianne Faithfull and Elvis Costello, experimental jazz musicians John Zorn and Tim Berne, and at least one classical composer, in Gavin Bryars. This collection tracks the progression from his earliest appearances on record, up to and slightly beyond the first of his 85 albums as leader or co-leader.   

Track listing

Disc One
01 Introduction (from 'Winter 78 Chapati' by Triode 1979)
02 Acapulco Bells (from 'Good Buddies' by Good Buddies 1979)
03 Carol (from 'Oh Boy' by Steve Houben, Mauve Traffic 1979) 
04 Siesta (from 'Okno' by Emil Viklicky, Bill Frisell, Kermit Driscoll & Vinton Johnson 1979)
05 Cwand Simon Mousse Foû D'ine Tchapèle (from 'Li Tins, Les-otes Et On Po D'mi' by 

                                                                                                                      Guy Cabay 1979)
06 Fluid Rustle (from 'Fluid Rustle' by Eberhard Weber 1979)
07 Beatrice (from 'Chet Baker - Steve Houben' by Chet Baker - Steve Houben 1980)
08 Ron (The Cat) (from 'Atmosphere' by Chris Massey Group 1981)

Disc Two
01 Ivy (from 'Blue Jay Sessions' by Mike Metheny 1981)
02 Mandeville (from 'Psalm' by Paul Motian Band 1982)
03 The Move (from 'Paths, Prints' by Jan Garbarek 1982)
04 A Song I Used To Play (from 'A Molde Concert' by Arild Andersen 1982)
05 Lakota Song (from 'Comin' And Goin'' by Jim Pepper 1983)
06 Waiting Inside (from 'Oshumare' by Billy Hart 1985)
07 Enigmatic Suite: Synergy/Overcast (from 'Transparency' by Herb Robertson Quintet 1985)

Larry Coryell - ...and on guitar (1976)

Larry Coryell was born Lorenz Albert Van DeLinder III in April 1943 in Galveston, Texas, and was encouraged by his mother to learn piano when he was four years old. In his teens he switched to guitar, and after his family moved to Richland, Washington, he took lessons from a teacher who lent him albums by Les Paul, Johnny Smith, Barney Kessel, and Tal Farlow. He graduated from Richland High School, where he played in local bands the Jailers, the Rumblers, the Royals, and the Flames, and after that he moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. In September 1965, he moved to New York City, and his first major excursion into professional music was when he replaced guitarist Gábor Szabó in Chico Hamilton's quintet. In 1967–68, he recorded with Gary Burton, and during the mid-1960's he played with the Free Spirits, his first recorded band. In the eary 70's he led the group Foreplay with Mike Mandel, although the albums from this period, 'Barefoot Boy', 'Offering', and 'The Real Great Escape', were credited only to Larry Coryell, but he also lent his guitar skills to albums by Herbie Mann, Jim Pepper, and Leon Thomas, as well as showing that he didn't just play jazz by appearing with Jimmy Webb on his 1971 'And So: On' record. He formed his best-known band The Eleventh House in 1973, and recorded a number of well-received albums with them, and at the same time also managed to fit in guest appearances on records from Michael Urbaniak, Lenny White, and Larry Young. In 1979 he formed The Guitar Trio with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia, and the group toured Europe briefly, but in early 1980, his drug addiction led to his being replaced by Al Di Meola. Coryell died of heart failure on February 19, 2017, in a New York City hotel room at the age of 73. He had performed at the Iridium jazz club in Manhattan on the preceding two days. There were too many great tracks from him to cut them down to a single album, so this is a double disc post, with seven shorter pieces on Disc One, and Disc Two including a couple of extended workouts. 

Track listing

Disc One

01 Green Moss (from 'Nine Flags' by Chico O'Farrill  1967)

02 Rain (from 'Tomorrow Never Knows' by Steve Marcus 1968)           

03 Highpockets (from 'And So: On' by Jimmy Webb 1971)

04 Memphis Underground (from 'Memphis Underground' by Herbie Mann 1969)  

05 Straight No Chaser (from 'You Can't Make Love Alone' by Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson 1971)

06 Yon A Ho (from 'Pepper's Pow Wow' by Jim Pepper 1971)

07 C. C. Rider (from 'Blues And The Soulful Truth' by Leon Thomas 1972)

Disc Two

01 Turning Spread (from 'Knirsch' by Et Cetera 1972)

02 The Vamp (from 'Score' by Randy Brecker 1969) 

03 Bloody Kishka (from 'Fusion III' by Michal Urbaniak 1975)

04 Prince Of The Sea (from 'Venusian Summer' by Lenny White 1975)

05 Sticky Wicket (from 'Spaceball' by Larry Young's Fuel 1976)