Crossing Continents

When talking about Bill Frisell's "best of" compilation on ECM, I was a little harsh on his more recent world music type collaborations. Listening afresh to this disk, The Intercontinentals, it scrubs up quite nicely. The main influence is African but there are also tracks with a middle eastern feel and even a Brazilian flavoured number. It also has the feel of a group project, the musicians toured as a band calling themselves the Intercontimentals, and although Frisell is the name and the leader he is always a generous collaborator. There are other guitarists in the band and they are given solo space as well as Frisell. Pedal steel adds a distinctive feel from Greg Leisz and Vinicius Cantuaria is responsible for the latin moments. Christos Govetas contributes oud and bouzouki, African percussion is courtesy of Sidiki Camara and the solo violin of Jenny Scheinmann crosses all boundaries. The music has an improvised feel around core arrangements but it doesn't have a jazz flavour, being more akin to a freewheeling sixties west coast rock band updated for today. Nothing to scare the horses and well worth a try.