Musicians Bill Frisell and Petra Haden to bring musical magic to Englert Theatre

Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and musician Petra Haden will perform on Saturday as a duo at the Englert Theatre, bringing musical magic to the stage with unique collaborations.

Contributed

Bill Frisell during his first show of the night with his Bill Frisell Trio at the Temple Building Theater.

Stella Shipman, Arts Reporter


Guitar strings hum warmly against lilting, orchestral sounds of a violin, as dreamy harmonies weave into the instrumental sounds. This is the culmination of the musical talents of Bill Frisell and Petra Haden.

The duo will bring their euphonious music to the Englert Theatre on Saturday.

Frisell is a jazz guitarist, composer, and arranger. He has had a 40-year-long career, during which time he has recorded a number of acclaimed albums, including โ€œWhen You Wish Upon A Star,โ€ โ€œMusic IS,โ€ and โ€œBlues Dream.โ€

Frisell has collaborated with numerous other artists throughout his career. On his latest album โ€œFour,โ€ he records with musicians Greg Tardy, Gerald Clayton, and Johnathan Blake. He decided to work with Petra Haden after the two met in the late โ€˜90s at one of Frisellโ€™s gigs in Seattle.

Haden is a singer, instrumentalist, and composer known for her unique vocal and violin arrangements, as well as her work as a member of the alt band, That Dog. Frisell worked with her father, the late Charlie Haden, who was a jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer, and educator.

Haden grew up loving music because of the way it made her feel and the way she understood it through cinema, having first fallen in love with the score of the 1978 film โ€œSuperman.โ€ Movie soundtracks have influenced much of her compositional work today.

When it comes to her own musical style, Haden describes herself as a โ€œchameleon.โ€

โ€œI do the best I can to make sense of myself and the music in front of me,โ€ Haden said. โ€œI love experimenting with different sounds in all genres of music because itโ€™s cool to hear what the result is.โ€

This experimental quality of Hadenโ€™s music is what she believes complements Frisell so well. Both musicians enjoy layering their instrumental and vocal sounds.

Frisellโ€™s long-time manager, Phyllis Oyama, calls their music โ€œtruly transcendentโ€ and marvels at how they just keep getting better.

โ€œItโ€™s like a magic alchemy,โ€ said Oyama. โ€œYou know, theyโ€™re just, I donโ€™t know, itโ€™s kind of unexplainable.โ€

Frisell and Haden decided to begin working on an album together only a few days after they met and have collaborated on various projects ever since.

RELATED: Anne Lamott examines hope, service, and laughter ahead of visit to Englert

The first album that they made together, โ€œPetra Haden and Bill Frisell,โ€ was devoted to their duoโ€™s sound. Released in 2005 and produced by the founder of Songtone production company Lee Townsend, the album explores rearrangements of classic songs by musicians including Stevie Wonder, the Foo Fighters, Coldplay, and more.

Townsend met Frisell in the 1980s and has been producing his music ever since. He was a co-producer of โ€œFloratone,โ€ which is what Townsend calls a โ€œmusical collectiveโ€ of musicians creating studio-driven collaborative projects. Production required intensive compositional editing and sound layering, like Frisellโ€™s own recording style.

Townsend met Haden when she began working with Frisell.

โ€œPetra has such a kind of intuitive and instinctive understanding of harmony, that it kind of gives both of them a lot of flexibility to explore,โ€ Townsend said. โ€œThereโ€™s just a purity to Petraโ€™s vocals, her voice and vocal tone, that really blends well with Billโ€™s guitar tone. So, itโ€™s also kind of like a sonic, you know, very complementary sonic situation.โ€

Frisell and Hadenโ€™s performance at the Englert Theatre is part of a musical tour. The duo will also perform in Chicago, Minneapolis, and New York City, where Frisell was in conversation with Philip Watson at Rizzoli Bookstore on Dec. 7.

Frisell performed in Iowa City in the early 1980s, and more recently for several Iowa City Jazz Festivals, but this is his debut performing alongside Haden in Iowa City. Haden feels great about their upcoming performance and hopes the audience will enjoy it.

โ€œI just hope theyโ€™ll have a good time,โ€ said Haden. โ€œLike my father would say, โ€˜I want to take people away from the ugliness and sadness around us every day and bring beautiful, deep music to as many people as I can.โ€™โ€


SUPPORT THE DAILY IOWAN

The independent, student-run newsroom at the DI covers the University of Iowa and local community to keep you informed. Your support helps provide the necessary resources and training to continue our mission.