Floratone

Floratone is a studio-intensive collaborative project with drummer Matt Chamberlain, Bill Frisellproducers Lee Townsend and Tucker Martine featuring deep grooves, glistening melodies, ambient atmospheres and rich sonic textures. String and horn colors are provided courtesy of special guests Viktor Krauss, Ron Miles and Eyvind Kang. It is released on Blue Note Records. Check out Floratone.com for more information.

REVIEWS

The Decade In Review: Jazz And The Mash-Up

It's difficult to frame the last 10 years in jazz around its "most important" recordings: What strikes me as most important about this decade is that musically, anything went. In the age of the mash-up and the iPod shuffle -- where musically different artists can sit comfortably against each other -- jazz's continual flexibility to incorporate any number of sounds and distill them within a jazz framework is what's made this decade so refreshing.

So what defines "importance?" The musician in me wants to say that the most important albums were the ones that we believe to be the most musically skillful or adventurous, or those which introduce us to a new exciting voice in jazz -- Jason Moran, The Bad Plus and Brian Blade Fellowship come to mind. But what about albums with mass crossover appeal like Norah Jones' Come Away With Me; or recordings pegged to an event, such as Terence Blanchard's A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina); or Ornette Coleman's Pulitzer Prize-winning recording Sound Grammar? What about albums that explore a high-concept multimedia project like Bill Frisell's Disfarmer and Dave Douglas' Keystone? I think those are all good choices. They all brought attention to the music in creative new ways, and all capture their own snapshots of the 2000s.

One record that really exemplifies that for me is the Bill Frisell/Matt Chamberlain/Lee Townsend/Tucker Martine project Floratone. Taking the Teo Macero approach to production, Townsend and Martine crafted a stunning album from the free studio improvisations of Frisell and Chamberlain. Floratone's lush production brings in hints of New Orleans jazz, swampy R&B, surf rock and electronic music. But it also feels like an inventive and foward-thinking tapestry of sounds that could have only happened in this decade. -- Michael Katzif,  NPR.org

Most Innovative recording of 2007: "They shaped this record that's really not a jazz record at all. It's really this swamp language that I found incredibly interesting and beautiful and very different." -- Tom Moon, 2007: The Year in Review from All Songs Considered

“Taking a page from the Miles Davis/Teo Macero playbook, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Matt Chamberlain teamed up with longtime production pals  Martine and Townsend to create this studio-collaged musical masterpiece  - but Floratone doesn't sound anything like Bitches Brew or In a Silent Way....  The 11 compositions flow one into another like segments of a steady-moving river - in turns brooding, swampy, choppy, effervescent, and translucent. Chamberlain's tasteful grooves and accents provide the deepwater impetus, while Frisell's soulful vamps, plucky palm-mutes, shimmering harmonics, textural twang, and spacey atmospherics weave together into so many currents and undercurrents, as the horn and string lines glide majestically over the surface.  As intriguing as it is enjoyable, Floratone is easily one of the best records of 2007.”  Guitar Player

“Call it Ambient Americana Sound Sculpting ... The music on Floratone is largely based around Chamberlain’s behind-the-beat grooves and Frisell’s left-of-center blues-drenched chords and phrases...  it’s  not about soloing per se; rather it’s about collective interpretation, exploring all possible nuances.

Floratone shares much, in fact, with Teo Macero’s collage-like approach to sculpting In a Silent Way, though with modern digital editing the integration is so seamless that it’s often impossible to differentiate between live performance and studio construction. Not that it matters. The greatest success of Floratone is how organic, how natural the music sounds, the considerable  technology behind it notwithstanding. Despite all the electronic textures used from conception to final realization, it’s a distinctive, extremely appealing and visual collection of sonic landscapes.

There are those who believe that democratic/leaderless projects  are inherently doomed to failure. Floratone is a modern  masterpiece—a completely equitable collaboration between Frisell, Chamberlain, Townsend and Martine—that lays such claims to  waste.”    John Kelman,  All About Jazz


“This is some of the most vital and exciting guitar work Bill Frisell has ever committed to tape.... Listening to these unlikely swirls of sound is almost like the beginnings of some exotic new language, rising like steam from a swamp.  They're like nothing  else..... it's some of the most riveting instrumental  music to emerge this year.”  Tom Moon, NPR’s All Things Considered

"The fine-tuned soundscapes maintain a satisfyingly hypnotic menace."  UK Financial Times

“A soundscape bonanza infused with a melange of jazz, country, dub reggae, funk, rock and ambient music.”  Dan Ouellette, Billboard

Bill Frisell "History, Mystery" (Grammy Nominated for Best Instrumental Jazz Album)

Bill Frisell explores a fuller palette of orchestral colors and timbres than any he has previously written for. "History, Mystery" features an Octet of strings, horns and rhythm section with some of his closest collaborators - Jenny Scheinman (violin), Eyvind Kang, (viola), Hank Roberts (cello), Ron Miles (cornet), Greg Tardy (clarinet and tenor saxophone), Tony Scherr (bass) and Kenny Wollesen (drums).  Employing a symphonic sensibility of recurring thematic elements, "History, Mystery" premieres many new Frisell compositions as well as a few of his arrangements of favorite pieces by other songwriters.  Producer Lee Townsend and engineer Shawn Pierce recorded the group in various combinations and contexts, live and in the studio, to construct and shape the album.

"Some artists, as they grow older, have a tendency to retreat into a safety zone that displays their skill but doesn't expand their repertoire or provide impetus for keeping up. Not so guitarist Bill Frisell ... [H]e's been refining and expanding his palette with every release.... The whole album stands as yet another testament to the man's place at the very epicenter of modern American music. Yes, he's done it again." - Chris Jones, BBC.

The Guardian, in a four-star review of History, Mystery, says the album is "studded with gems," featuring a line-up of musicians that reviewer John L. Waters calls "a kind of roots-jazz-classical chamber hybrid, though with none of the hang-ups that might imply." Waters sees "a genuine thoughtfulness" from Bill, who, he writes, "has the surest touch as a musician." It is an attribute "that is true for his playing, where he can invest a single note with meaning, and it's true in the way he organizes his music and musicians."

The Independent calls History, Mystery the Jazz Album of the Week, with the paper's Tim Cumming calling it "extraordinarily eclectic" delivered in "an all but seamless suite that's full of musical contrasts, rich textures, lengthening shadows, and unexpected turns." Cumming says "it's consistently engaging" with a closing guitar solo that's "just wonderful." His colleague Nick Coleman adds that on this collection, listeners will find the "Frisell who makes great soundtrack music; the one who rejoices in sieving the Hot Club de Paris out of Thelonious Monk."

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock) “I've always admired (Frisell’s) spirit of adventure, his willingness to experiment and the depth of his talent and ambition... There's something about History, Mystery that just sucked me in right away..... It's artful, but warm and accessible. There are smatterings of jazz, blues, a little country, some tango and reverb rock ... but the seamless, natural-sounding integration of these diverse influences is engaging and often majestic.  The music has a spacious, cinematic scope that is enriched by a superb group of musicians... The sound is vintage and modern, warm and inviting.” - Ellis Widner

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