Snapshots In Sound: Bill Frisell

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MUSICAL POSTCARDS ARE always par for course for guitarist Bill Frisell. Through his sublime reconciliation of jazz, country, rock and blues, he creates picturesque soundscapes that transport listeners to small-town America where it seems as if time has stopped.

So it comes as no surprise that his latest disc, "Disfarmer" (Nonesuch Records), a musical portrait of legendary Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer, is so haunting.

What captured Frisell about Disfarmer's images were the honest, stately, sometimes unsettling expressions on the subject's faces.

"Somehow, he got them off guard," Frisell says. "It's like you really get to see them and what they really were like. There's hardly anybody smiling in them. He wouldn't give them any warning when he took the photo; he would just sort of wait and wait and wait. And the people would be just standing there, not really knowing what's going on."

The guitarist didn't just use the photos as inspiration — he visited Disfarmer's hometown of Heber Springs, Ark.

"Something really amazing happens to me when I just travel around to different places — that all feeds into the music," Frisell explains. "Then thinking about him as a person, the more I found out about him; he was really an unusual character. He was completely unrecognized for being any kind of artist when he was alive. People were afraid of him, basically. ... The photographs weren't discovered until 20 years after he had died."

Asked whether he felt any kindred spirit with Disfarmer, given Frisell's knack of pushing his music to the periphery of various genres, the soft-spoken guitarist says he felt something more like compassion.

"I feel like I've been so lucky in my life. I've gotten so much recognition and so much support and all of these opportunities to play music during my life," he says.

"He had none of that. I'm inspired by people like him who got little recognition during their lives like Thelonious Monk. Of course, Monk was on the cover of Time magazine, but there were long periods of his life where people thought that he was crazy, too."

» Kennedy Center, Terrance Theater, 2700 F St. NW; Fri., Oct. 16, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $35; 202-467-4600, Kennedy-center.org. (Foggy Bottom-GWU)

Written by Express contributor John Murph
Photo courtesy Ralph Gibson