Bill Frisell
Before We Were Born

THE REVIEW

Music, like the other beautiful things in my life, I discovered slowly. I didn't have an older brother to fill me with records, the few vinyls I had at home were opera, a passion of my father which faded over the years, and some Battisti records from my mother.

The passion for enjoying the supreme art was built partly on my own, partly through peer-to-peer trading of magnetic tape cassettes. On one of these tapes, I recorded Before We Were Born one day, which, as much as it might be considered an inconsequential work in the world of music in general, at that particular time came to influence me quite a bit and gave me the exact definition of what contemporary jazz should be for me. Then I naturally realized that it wasn’t so at all, unable for some time to find something resembling this work.

Bill Frisell recorded his early works for ECM, I believe he entered to replace Pat Metheny in a recording project and then stayed until Rambler in '86, a work that I bought original but didn’t find what I was looking for, before starting to record with Elektra Nonesuch. Before We Were Born is his first album with this label and came out in '89.

It was during that period that he collaborated with Zorn, in News For Lulu (magnificent with the pedals) and in Naked City* which came out the following year for the same record label, which helps us get a clearer idea of the content of the aforementioned album. Certainly, we won’t find grindcore lashes, but a clear tendency towards a more avant-garde type of language, where Frisell tends to use a compositional approach positively influenced by Zorn, even in the role of arranger in Hards Plain Drifter, a piece referring to the collage style in the cinematic rhythm of Spillane (1987).

Accompanying Frisell, besides what used to be his band, with Kermit Driscoll on bass, Hank Roberts on cello, and Joey Baron on drums, we also find the obliquities (forgive me, Brian) of Peter Scherer, and the icing on the cake that hunk Arto Lindsay, who closes the album in a way only he knows how.

And if twenty years ago such an album was surprising for me, today it still proves to be a very engaging listen. Placing it in its context is peeking into the window of time at a brilliant moment in Frisell's career. And if Zorn has the great gift of bringing out the best and often darkest side of others, Frisell here had the genius to reverse the process, exorcize it, and metabolize it into an album full of power and electricity.

*the first Naked City album is released under the name of John Zorn