Label: Nonesuch
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Blues Dream
On his new cine-mental CD, Blues Dream, Bill Frisell and a meandering band of lazy funkateers play electric-guitar blues with acid-jazz overtones like there was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. Parts one and two of "Like Dreamers Do" open the gate to a timeless garden of pleasure, calling up old bottleneck-guitar styles and languid marching bands. The pace picks up ever so slightly on "Outlaws," which could be a soundtrack for a Wim Wenders Western.
Only twice in 18 tracks does Frisell's vision lapse. "Pretty Stars Were Made to Shine" and "The Tractor" stick out from the rest of this strolling, lollygagging material like a pair of daisies growing in a wood pile. But overall, Frisell's playing throughout this suite of dreams is full of feeling as a form of intelligence, as is the work of his sidemen. Sweet dreams are made of this.
