Bill Frisell
2013-09-13
Miner Auditorium
SFJAZZ Center, 205 Franklin St, San Francisco, CA
7:30 PM, Friday, September 13, 2013

[7:34 PM lights down, Introduction by Tom Porter; Bill and Thomas take the stage for a duo set]

1. [7:38 PM] ?
2. [7:45 PM] ?
3. [7:54 PM] ? Hard Times »
4. [8:01 PM] ?
5. [8:09 PM] ? Tea for Two
6. [8:16 PM: +PH] Throughout
   [set ends 8:31 PM]

[8:50 PM lights down, all three musicians enter]

1. [8:50 PM] Shenandoah
2. [8:56 PM] Moon River
3. [9:01 PM] Wildwood Flower
4. [9:05 PM] Alfie
5. [9:08 PM] ? (inst)
6. [9:13 PM] I Loves You Porgy
7. [9:18 PM] Lush Life
8. [9:24 PM] Windmills of Your Mind
   [set ends 9:30 PM]
    
   Encore
9. [9:31 PM] Surfer Girl
   [show ends 9:36 PM]

• Bill Frisell: guitar;
• Petra Haden: vox;
• Thomas Morgan: contrabass.

My first surprise for the night was finding out that set one was to be a duo without Petra. As with last night, I found it quite challenging to identify any of the instrumentals, as Bill's tendency to avoid clear statements of the melodic head make that a particularly confounding task. Hopefully someone smarter than I (thanks Mark!) will help fill in some of the remaining blanks at some future date.

Thomas and Bill made a nice duo, and I particularly enjoyed the wooden thunk of the bass. I thought it rather ineresting that Thomas didn't seem to have brought a bow – was this a stylistic choice or an unintentional handicap? – in any case, I enjoyed his ability to mesh with Bill.

For the last tune of the first set, Bill called out Petra, repeating his pre-show apology regarding her violinless status. And as a further surprise, this last piece, Throughout, featured Petra keening, swooping and moaning a wordless vocal line in response to Bill's strumming and chordal washes (tastefully augmented with just a little extra from his effects boxes) and Thomas' impeccably rhythmic accompaniment on the contrabass.

After stretching our legs during the short setbreak, we headed downstairs to a row of unoccupied seats Ting had spotted on House left – all the better to watch Bill and Thomas!

This set consisted of a rather diverse selection of tunes, from century-old traditional tunes (Shenandoah, Wild Flower), to 60's jazz-pop (Moon River, Alfie) and beyond. Like the final tune of the first set, the second set closer, title track to Paul Motian's final release (featuring all three of tonight's performers) was double-plus good, with Petra delivering a haunting vocal take while Bill provided appropriately spacey, effects-ful accompaniment.

At less than an hour, the set was over much too fast – most likely a consequence of playing each tune except the last in relatively straightforward fashion.

And while it was no surprise to get an encore (after all, Bill had more-or-less pre-announced it in his banter to introduce Windmills), I was certainly surprised to hear their choice. Makes me wonder who made the call!

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