Review Summary: The Intercontinentals justifies its name as a version of music globality only the craftiest artsmen can provide...
When the term "Fusion" is thrown on a table surrounded by contemporary music auditors, some may call by placing in front of them clusters of jazz ramifications such as jazz-rock, jazz-funk, jazz under a straight beat, brass section and electric guitars, Miles after the 60s, I'm not into this but I like Steely Dan, does Dream Theater count? No! Some will answer… And some will simply fold abiding by the book titled "inaccessible".
However - although calling or folding by the book depends on your placement around this table - when a masterful composer, restrictively clustered as a “Jazz-fusion-guitar player’’, is the dealer, you should keep in mind that after the hand has been dealt in a real situation, you cannot turn back the clock, gaze at the winner and offer him the excuse, "Sir! you bluffed me out… I could have figured this one out easily! Can I have my 20$ back?"
You also have no excuse in a musical situation, for not getting back to this album. Especially when you've been warned that this certain guy’s career only ‘bluffs’ restrictive clusters, labels or more importantly "inaccessible".
Bill Frisell along past and future collaborators Greg Leisz and Jenny Scheinman are the most accessible hosts and this 2003 release, The Intercontinentals, justifies its name as a version of music globality (think of music as a figurative prefix),only the craftiest artsmen can provide. The hosts are backed up by a plethora of guest artists such as Vinicius Cantuaria, Christos Govetas, and Sidiki Camara. Notice I'm using the term “guest” and not “session”, not only because Frisell gratefully covers tunes that these excellent musicians bore as presents, but he also creates the most welcoming of his own, to comfortably make them feel at home.
It's a fusion of American, Malian, Greek, Brazilian... World music to be exact. These interplays and improvisations bear the single most important constant any musical fusion must bear in order to be sincere and of use: The end product must have qualities superseding the sum of its parts, while the parts themselves remain lucid and sincere to their origin. That is also the main difference between the end product of music globality and globality period. After all, few could argue that music - as a prefix or not - changes everything.
When the word "fusion" is thrown on a table surrounded by a contemporary music auditors, some may call by placing in front of them clusters of Jazz ramifications such as Jazz-Rock, Jazz-Funk, Jazz under a straight rock beat, horns and electric guitars, Miles after the 60s…
Just keep in mind than when Bill Frisell dealt this particular hand (add music on figurative speech) he probably concealed the globe in his.
Would you fold that?
