Four - 2022 Euroepan Blue Note Label 13-track 2LP Set

During the lockdown, like so many prolific artists, Frisell turned inward. “It was traumatic not to be with people,” he says, “so I picked up my guitar, and my guitar saved me.” For those months, he wrote stacks of melodies and compositional ideas. By the time he scheduled Four’s recording sessions, he’d amassed piles of notebooks filled with fragmented music. Laying little more than a sketch of information before his fellow artists, Frisell encouraged a kind of spontaneous, cooperative orchestration. “Everyone had the information, but it was super open as far as who plays what when,” he says. “Without a bass, it was a little scary, but I wasn’t thinking so much about the instruments. It’s always more about the chemical reaction that’s going to happen.”

Across the recording, each artist’s expression emerges as equal parts melodic and textural. Strong, subtle choices establish the music’s depth of character from the first phrase. Their collective counterpoint shapeshifts, but they remain true to each song’s initial idea. Rarely does anyone grab the mic. “Everyone is just jumping into it all together, and then you find this way of talking with each other,” says Frisell. “You listen to Miles Davis’ quintet and maybe Miles is taking a solo, but it’s the cooperative thing that blows your mind.”

Aspects of Four reflect Frisell’s affection for Americana, and skilled saturation of blues. But what’s poised to give the record its staying is less tangible. “The album is capturing this first moment in time when we were, all four, together, playing these songs,” he says. “Music is incredible that way because we’ll never play these songs this way again.”

Tracklisting.

1. Dear Old Friend (for Alan Woodard)
2. Claude Utley
3. The Pioneers
4. Holiday
5. Waltz for Hal Willner
6. Lookout for Hope
7. Monroe
8. Wise Woman
9. Blues from Before
10.Always
11.Good Dog, Happy Man
12.Invisible
13.Dog on a Roof