Track Listing

1. Open Prairie [From Billy the Kid]
2. Street Scene in a Frontier Town [From Billy the Kid]
3. Mexican Dance and Finale [From Billy the Kid]
4. Priairie Night (Card Game at Night) /Gun Battle [From Billy the Kid]
5. Celebration After Billy's Capture [From Billy the Kid]
6. Billy in Prison [From Billy the Kid]
7. Open Prairie Again [From "Billy the Kid"]
8. Saint-Gaudens in Boston Common: Col. Shaw and His Colored Glasses, ...
9. Just Like a Woman
10. I Can't Be Satisfied
11. Live to Tell
12. Saint-Gaudens in Boston Common: Col. Shaw and His Colored Glasses, ...
13. No Moe
14. Washington Post March
15. When I Fall in Love
16. Little Jenny Dow
17. Have a Little Faith in Me
18. Billy Boy

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #112491 in Music
• Released on: 1993-02-23
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
Have a Little Faith guitarist Bill Frisell italicized his stature as a composer and arranger within a combo setting that achieves a perfect balance of form and free-wheeling interpretive intensity. Frisell's core working section of the time (drummer Joey Barron and bassist Kermit Driscoll) are augmented by clarinet innovator Don Byron and a very fine accordionist, Guy Klucevsek , which gives this music chamber-like tonal colors, while allowing Frisell to elicit expansive big band gestures through a repertoire of material that is never hectic, just blithely eclectic-staking a claim for Frisell in the pantheon of great American composers and songwriters with whom he allies himself here. Thus there's a blissfully funky reading of blues giant McKinley "Muddy Waters" Morganfield's "I Can't Be Satisfied" and--from the other side of the universe--a loveably raucous take on John Phillip Sousa's "Washington Post March." Elsewhere, Frisell navigates the waters of such enigmatic modernists as Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Sonny Rollins, Bob Dylan, and John Hiatt with equal affection and grace. --Chip Stern

Customer Reviews

quite literally a desert island disk
People like to make lists and talk about the 10 best of this or the essential list of that, but in my work I travel to, and live in, places that are the cultural, if not geographic, desert islands. No, I'm not talking about Nebraska. I'm talking places where they don't have compact disks. Which means that you have to bring your own (or at least you used to -- technology may obviate that need now). Anyway, many times I have been forced to pack a limited number of CDs which I knew that I would end up listening to multiple times. This disk has always made the cut.

It is a startling collection in many ways. The range of covers from John Philip Sousa to Ives to Muddy Waters to Dylan and Madonna is eclectic to say the least. This is real Americana. The instrumentation -- drums bass guitar accordion clarinet -- is similarly unique, and allows for some really unusual voicings. The ensemble playing in consistently intelligent and it up to the material. Just a really wonderful disk.

Have a little faith in Bill
Even after listening to this album countless times over the last 7 years, I still am nowhere near sick of it. The title track (an instrumental cover (as all the songs on this album are) of a John Hiatt song) is possibly my favorite song ever recorded. It is so tranquil and emotional, as is all his playing. Take any opportunity you get to see this man in concert; he is a national treasure. If anyone is making "American" music now, it is Frisell. This is my favorite album of his, just above Nashville and Good Dog Happy Man.

Indespensable
Bill Frisell is a traditionalist in the very best sense. This collection of songs by a diverse collection of American composers and songwriters transcends trendy eclecticism and restates what we often fail to remember: that America is still an extremely large and varied place. Blues, country, Tin Pan Alley and pop all come from the same well of American composing.

Wise enough to realize the past is not merely a thing to be obliterated in the search for "innovation" or "something entirely new" or worse, "alternative", Frisell builds upon that which has preceded us. Connections which are not at all obvious are highlighted on this disc. There is in fact a progression from Stephen Foster to Charles Ives to Muddy Waters to Sonny Rollins to John Hiatt and yes, to Madonna. Frisell understands that and illuminates and refreshes these examples of a particularly American esthetic.

In fact, this disc powerfully makes the statement that traditional forms are by no means exhausted and that fresh sensibilities can make valuable use of the past. Anyone interested in just how rich contemporary improvisational music can be needs to devote time to Bill Frisell and his entire body of work.