My creative writing teacher in college drilled into us the mantra "show don't tell." Don't tell people your character is heartbroken. Show them. Don't tell your readers that your character is sneaking into a room. Show them that he is insinuating himself there. The difference is between the product and the process. To extend the metaphor to music, rock wants to wow you with the end result, and jazz is about getting there.
My journey through jazz has been odd and, at times, rough. I dived into it about a decade ago with a curiosity-driven purchase of Bill Frisell's Live solely because of the record-company derived proclamation on the outside of him being the "Hendrix of the jazz guitar." That he was, and it was very nearly too much for these tender ears.
Squawking and honking, squealing and squirming, Frisell's guitar lines were anything but standard jazz-guitar fair. This was mind-blowing stuff to someone whose music barely reached outside of the many Pearl Jam-alikes around back then. I didn't listen to it often, and when I did it was rarely for long - it was just too alien sounding. Drummer Joey Baron rarely plays on the beat, often just skittering about on the rims of his drums, placing well-timed thumps with his kick drum and splashing about on his cymbols. Kermit Driscoll, on bass, bubbles and bobs around, at times mimicking, but not replicating, Frisell's squirrely guitar lines.
Frisell's music, as represented on Live, is quirky, off-kilter yet infused with a twang akin to bluegrass played at the tempo of ragtime. That he would go on to create modern-day scores for several Buster Keaton movies, or provide music for Gary Larson's prime-time Far Side cartoon special is no surprise. Serious jazz it is, but it is nothing if not whimsical - which is where Frisell differs so drastically from his contemporaries. It's not hard to imagine the smile Frisell must often wear while playing, for his music is less about his considerable chops than it is about the pure joy of playing.
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