Bill Frisell – Sign Of Life : Music For The 858 Quartet – Savoy Jazz – SVY17818 - ***

Bill Frisell plays jazz, folk and blues, but there's no dirt under these fingernails. Frisell's considered interpretations of durable American genres are hand-tooled for the konzerthalle, not the juke joint.
The sixty year old guitar guru is joined on Sign Of Life by the viola player Eyvind Kang, the cellist Hank Roberts, and the violinist Jenny Scheinman.
Tasteful downtown New York types all, working as The 858 Quartet, they frame Frisell's precise, folksy licks in humming, minimalist string parts, making epically respectable Aaron Copland Americana for a miniaturised mythical Ansel Adams landscape.

(28/8/11)