William Richard Frisell was born on March 18,1951 and is an American jazz guitarist, composer and arranger.
26 Facts About Bill Frisell
2.
Bill Frisell first came to prominence at ECM Records in the 1980s, as both a session player and a leader.
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Bill Frisell went on to work in a variety of contexts, notably as a participant in the Downtown Scene in New York City, where he formed a long working relationship with composer and saxophonist John Zorn.
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Bill Frisell was a longtime member of veteran drummer Paul Motian's groups from the early 1980s until Motian's death in 2011.
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Bill Frisell was born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, but spent most of his youth in the Denver, Colorado area.
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Bill Frisell studied clarinet with Richard Joiner of the Denver Symphony Orchestra as a youth, but by his teens, was more interested in guitar.
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Bill Frisell graduated from Denver East High School and went to the University of Northern Colorado to study music.
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Bill Frisell became ECM's in-house guitar player, and worked on several albums, most notably Jan Garbarek's 1982 Paths, Prints.
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Bill Frisell played in Paul Motian's trio, along with saxophonist Joe Lovano.
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Bill Frisell organized a regular working group in the mid-1980s consisting of Kermit Driscoll on bass, Joey Baron on drums, and Hank Roberts on cello.
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In 1988 Bill Frisell left New York City and moved to Seattle, Washington.
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Bill Frisell branched out by performing soundtracks to silent films of Buster Keaton with his trio and contributed to Ryuichi Sakamoto's album Heartbeat.
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Bill Frisell continued the trend marked by Have a Little Faith by more explicitly incorporating elements of bluegrass and country music into his music.
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Since 2000, Bill Frisell has lived on Bainbridge Island, Washington, near Seattle.
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Several of Bill Frisell's songs, including his recording of "Over the Rainbow" and "Coffaro's Theme," originally composed in 1995 for an Italian movie, La scuola, were featured in the film Finding Forrester in 2000.
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In 1999 Bill Frisell was commissioned by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to compose Blues Dream, which he premiered on November 15,1999.
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Bill Frisell later recorded the work for a 2001 release on Nonesuch.
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Between 2003 and 2005, Bill Frisell acted as musical director for Century of Song, a series of concerts at the German Ruhrtriennale arts festival.
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Bill Frisell was a judge for the sixth annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists careers.
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Bill Frisell has united with Matt Chamberlain, Tucker Martine, and Lee Townsend in the Floratone band, and they released an album on Blue Note featuring guest performances of Viktor Krauss, Ron Miles and Eyvind Kang.
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In 2008 Bill Frisell performed as a featured guest on Earth's album The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull.
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In 2009 Bill Frisell featured in a duet rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" with singer-songwriter Sam Shrieve.
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In 2010 Bill Frisell started working with the Savoy Jazz label and released Beautiful Dreamers in August 2010, then a second release of Sign of Life in April 2011.
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In September 2011, Bill Frisell released All We Are Saying, a full-length offering of his interpretations of John Lennon's music.
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Bill Frisell's quintet includes violinist Jenny Scheinman, pedal steel and acoustic guitarist Greg Leisz, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Kenny Wollesen.
26.
In 2017, Bill Frisell received an honorary doctorate of music from his alma mater, Berklee College of Music.