JJ 07/83: Bill Frisell – Inline

    Forty years ago Barry McRae began to think he must be the odd man out in finding ECM's popular mood music so boring. First published in Jazz Journal July 1983

    1264

    Considering the recording venue, it is perhaps appropriate that Start should call to mind the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood. After that we settle down to a programme of gentle Frisell originals that perhaps deserve more detailed examination than their author offers here.

    The well-designed Throughout and moody Three, in particular, cry out for further development but all they get is decoration by means of sighing swell sounds and pedal-con­trolled tonal fades. It again seems that house policy on such records overrides all other consideration.

    It is a cliché to talk of ECM’s preoccupa­tion with atmospheric music, but it does sell well, and this reviewer is beginning to think he must be the odd man out in finding it all so boring.

    Discography
    Start; Throughout; Two Arms; Shorts; Smile On You (23.30) – The Beach; In Line; Three; Godson Song (18.45)
    Bill Frisell (g/elg); Arild Andersen (b). Oslo, August, 1982.
    (ECM 1241)