From The New York Times:

Bill Frisell and his Tacoma BM6C Baritone guitar. Photo by Monica Frisell

Over the past 30 years, Bill Frisell has continued to waltz between musical styles—all the while being classified as a “jazz” guitarist (for lack of a better definition). Some of his unforgettable musical milestones—aside from his solo recordings—include sessions with Norah Jones, Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello, Ginger Baker, Elvin Jones, John Zorn, Paul Motian, David Sylvian and Danny Barnes to name but a few. Fortunately for us, the unmistakable and unclassifiable guitarist took time to speak with Fender News in late July about his technique, musical upbringing and latest instruments.


How is the Tacoma® BM6C Baritone guitar working out for you?
BF: It’s fantastic. I don’t carry it with me on the road or anything like that. So far, it’s more like a recording thing. I haven’t had it that long, but I’ve already used it on a couple things. There’s a soundtrack for a German film called Lively Up Yourself that no one will probably ever see over here (laughs). I’ve also been working on a project with drummer Matt Chamberlain. I don’t know when it'll be done. But, we’re sort of just doing this on our own. It started out just the two of us, making weird noises and stuff. Anyway, we’re working on this thing together. And then, we’ve gradually started to add other people a little bit—(bassist) Viktor Krauss played a little on it. The baritone is on that a lot. I don’t know when it’ll see the light of day, but it’s an incredible instrument for me.

Is there a name for the project?
BF: No, it’s not even that far along. We’ve been doing it for nine months or so. Every once in a while we get together. We’re both traveling all over the place, all the time. So it’s hard to hook up sometimes.

What else have you been using Tacoma instruments on?
BF: I also have that Papoose® thing. They both (the baritone and Papoose) stimulate me. Not the same way. It’s that thing where you play something that you’ve played a million times on a regular guitar, and it inspires me to get other things going. Like writing. Coincidentally, right before this interview, I was sitting there with the Papoose thing by the phone. I was playing it and was starting to write down some little melodies and stuff that seemed interesting to me. I don’t know if it’s because they were on that instrument. It was stuff that I’ve probably played a thousand times on a regular guitar, but, I don’t know, it starts generating different stuff in my brain, somehow. For me, that’s one of the coolest things about it. When I sit around trying to get ideas, both of those instruments have helped me a lot with that. They help me take the patterns I already have and put them in a new light.

You have an extremely diverse discography, having recorded vaults full of original works, Madonna covers and performances with everyone from Elvin Jones to David Sylvian. How has the baritone helped you stretch your music even further?
BF: That’s almost what the definition of music is for me. It’s just a lifelong trip you’re on. You’re in this thing, moving through it all the time. It helps me take another little step forward into this unknown territory. It’s not like I’m picking up an oboe or something. I think of the baritone and Papoose as guitars. But they really are unique individual instruments. It’s cool that I can use all my instincts that I’ve developed over 40 years of playing and all this other stuff comes out.

Fellow Tacoma endorsee Danny Barnes has played with you over the years. How is it working with Danny? How do you complement each other?
BF: I’ve been playing with Danny for the past month or so. We’ve been doing a lot of folk festivals in Canada, which I’ve never played before. We played Winnipeg, Vancouver Island and Calgary. We’re going to Edmonton next week.

He’s been a real inspiration for me. He’s someone who’s coming from a really different place. He grew up in Texas. His whole background with music is coming from this whole other zone that I don’t know a whole lot about. When I first met him, he didn’t know who I was. Right after he moved to Seattle, I heard him play and kind of freaked out.

I heard him at this club and went around asking people if they knew him. I went to this music store and searched out how to find his phone number and called him to ask for lessons. I don’t usually do that. I’m not that aggressive. He didn’t know who I was. I was just some guy calling for lessons.

It was right at this time that I was listening to more old time and bluegrass music and stuff. I was trying to figure out what was going on with that music. When I heard him, it was like I was hearing the real deal. I could tell that the music was way deep in his blood, after meeting him and finding out more about him. He used to sing all those songs in church when he was a kid with his grandmother.  He’s just been playing that stuff his whole life. The songs he writes are coming from his own experience—it’s all real. He’s not making up any of that stuff. It was at a time when I wanted to learn more about that music. He came along at this perfect time. Coming from Texas all the way up to the Northwest. He kind of just landed here. So I went over to his house and he showed me some songs. Then he figured out that I’ve been playing for a while and stuff. It still feels like a lesson every time I play with him. Now, it’s more of a back-and-forth thing. He asks me all these jazz questions and I ask him all the bluegrass questions. We’re both really feeding off of each other.

The other thing about him is that he’s so open to everything. He’s listening to all kinds of music and trying to figure it out. He’s not just stuck in this one style. He’s got this music so deep in his blood. But, at the same time, he’s not like some purist who thinks that’s all there is. He’s really open to everything and wants to learn about everything. We get along really good that way, where we’re both sort of learning so much from each other, I think.

You’re also playing Fender® Telecaster® guitars. Tell us about them.
BF: Actually, my main Tele® is a Mexican one. It was like $500 and it’s great! That’s what I’ve been playing for the last few months. One time I tried to figure out how many Fender guitars I’ve had in my life, and it was kind of horrifying! For the past seven or eight years, mostly I’ve been playing Telecaster guitars. My first electric guitar was a Mustang®, in 1965. Then I traded that for a Jaguar®. Then I got an Esquire®. I’m talking about 40 years ago.

In the early ’80s I was playing a Telecaster and a ’57 reissue Stratocaster®. I got that when they first started reissuing them. I played that on a lot of records. Then I got a Telecaster somewhere in there, too. A lot of recordings that I made with John Zorn were with the Strat and Tele guitars. I also have a Custom Shop Relic® Telecaster that I’ve been playing for the last year or so. I shaved the neck down. I have a ’74 Tele and a ’66 Tele as well.

What is it about Telecasters that works for you?
BF: They’re so simple and everything just works! They’re so versatile and I can get just about everything I want out of it. When they invented that guitar, they got it right. With a Telecaster, I can get from where it can almost sound like an acoustic guitar. Or it can sound like a big, fat hollow-body guitar. Or it can have a “stereotypical” Tele sound. People associate them with that “twangy” thing, but they have this amazing clear, low end. Just the range of what can happen with them is so extreme, without having 800 pickups on it. It’s just super simple. If something breaks on it, you can almost fix it with a pocketknife (laughs)! It’s turned into my main guitar.

Are you using any Fender amps?
BF: At home, I have a Princeton®. I just bought another Princeton and a Pro Junior that I have in New York. It’s a great little tiny thing. My daughter just moved to New York. Now that she’s there, I got that Pro Junior and another Princeton. It’s an old Princeton that I’m just going to leave there. In the fall, I’ll be there for three weeks, playing. When I go out, I’ll rent or borrow the reissue ’65 Deluxe Reverb® amps. That’s what I always ask for. They’re great! For an amp to do what I need it to, I can always count on those.

Regardless of the instrument and the music, you always end up sounding like yourself. Why do you think that is?
BF: Everybody has his own sound (laughs). Yesterday, a friend of mine came over; he has this old Telecaster and we had about eight Telecaster guitars in the room. They’re all similar guitars. But we were going from one to the other, freaking out about “This one’s a little bit louder.” We were kind of obsessing about all the little nuances. In the end, regardless of how many guitars I’m playing, it ends up sounding the same.

You have a very defined voice. The breadth of your discography is all over the board. With all the people you’ve played with and the genres that you’ve skipped across, you still sound like you.
BF: That’s something I’ve thought about. For me, my favorite musicians are the ones who are unique individuals, who you know who they are right away. You know—Miles Davis or Thelonious Monk, Wes Montgomery, Jimi Hendrix or whoever it is. You can tell in half a second. I think everybody has their own sound. I’m trying to be honest with who I am and where I come from and just playing the music that I know, that I grew up with. It’s been a long, ongoing thing to not be afraid to show who I am. That’s part of the music. You can’t help but sound like yourself if you let it come out that way.

You’ve played a lot of instruments over the years. How have you become fluent on so many instruments?
BF: I really just play guitar. If I would play banjo, I’m just sort of playing what I know on guitar. When I was in fourth grade I played clarinet. And I played that into college. I majored in clarinet. And I played saxophone. I know that has influenced my guitar playing a lot. That was something I did because I was supposed to. I must have liked it enough. But it was sort of like, my parents would say, “Billy, you got to go practice now.” With the guitar, I would go off on my own and do it because I loved it so much.

I was really lucky because my parents were totally supportive of me playing music the whole time I was doing it. I grew up in Denver, and I always had bands in our basement playing all the time. And my parents were okay with that. When I think back to high school, some of my other friends were sneaking around behind their parents’ backs just to play. I probably never would have been able to make a career out of it if they weren’t so supportive. I think of all those moments in my life when I was trying to get it together playing music, and it was discouraging and hard. And it seemed like at all those crucial moments I had somebody that encouraged me rather than discouraged me. I was pretty lucky.

Have you had any of those moments over the last 10 years?
BF: Now, it’s sort of like I’m just in it. There’s no turning back now (laughs)! It’s hard. It’s weird. Every day, in a way, it feels like I’m starting all over again. Every day I wake up and say, “What am I gonna do with this thing (guitar)?”

Do you still practice?
BF: I try. It’s different than it was. I should be doing it the way I used to. I’m not just sitting there for hours playing scales with a metronome, which I probably should do. When I was talking about the (Tacoma) baritone or the Papoose, it’s more like sitting around trying to write a song, or trying to think of some new idea or something. It’s more like writing, although I’m not saying that I don’t need to practice.

You often “imply” your chord progressions without playing full chords. Was this something that you practiced, or did it develop over time?
BF: A lot of that is just because I couldn’t play everything. Limitations are part of what defines someone’s unique sound. I play something that’s not the whole thing because I can’t play the whole thing. Like when Danny plays some bluegrass tune in some super-fast tempo or something—there’s no way I can do it. But I have to do something, so I’ll just sort of play half of what’s there and imply the melody or the chords or something. I’m not able to do the whole thing sometimes, so I’ll try to imply it. And, then in the process, that sort of causes this other unique thing to happen. It’s not really a conscious thing. I can’t help it, I guess.

Are there any new guitarists that you really like?
BF: Oh boy—I’m always hearing something new. I heard Martin Carthy play recently at a folk festival. I think he lives in Ireland. He’s in his 60s and he’s a master of all these old Irish and Celtic songs. He knows thousands of these old songs and plays them on a guitar in an amazing way. I’ve never heard anyone play like that.

What’s in your CD player right now?
BF: Well, there’s a Miles Davis box set from 1963 and 1964 that I’ve been listening to a lot lately. It’s sort of a transitional period right before Wayne Shorter came into the band. That’s one of my favorite times for his music. It’s horrifying good!

If you had to pick one of your recordings to be your “Desert Island Disc,” which one would it be?
BF: Once my recordings are done, I don’t like to listen to them. I’m trying to keep going. I don’t want to dwell on whatever that was.

What are you up to now?
BF: I still have another Canadian festival to play this month. During most of September I’ll be in New York at the Village Vanguard with Paul Motian. And then I have a few gigs with my own band. Then I’m going to Europe in October and November. Also, there’s a live record coming out this month (East/West). It’s two trios, with one featuring Tony Scherr on bass and the other with Viktor Krauss playing bass. Kenny Wollesen plays drums on both of them. One was recorded at Yoshi’s in California, and that’s all Telecaster. The other was recorded at the Village Vanguard in New York.


Listen to Bill Frisell play the Tacoma Thunderhawk in these three excerpts from the soundtrack to the 2005 film Almost Heaven.

• “Chord with Tremolo”
• “Sittin’ On Top Of The World” (with Danny Barnes, banjo)
• “Theme” (with Steve Moore, keyboards)