Three voices singing the American ground
Frisell, Miles, and Blade have learned to breathe as one, the sound spare and deliberate.
Circuit Rider sounds like three musicians playing in a room the size of a chapel—cornet, electric guitar, drums, nothing else. Ron Miles' tone is thin and searching, almost conversational; Bill Frisell's guitar sits in the same quiet register, sometimes humming underneath, sometimes answering directly. Brian Blade doesn't rush. When he hits the drums it matters. The whole thing has the feel of folk music played by jazz musicians who've decided speed and flash mean nothing anymore.
This is the third outing for Miles and Frisell as a band, and by this point they've learned how to sit in silence together. Blade, who joined them on Quiver (2012), has deepened that ease. JazzTimes critic Britt Robson heard something crucial in the way Blade anchors these pieces—a drummer who understood that Americana and jazz don't need to argue with each other, that country and swing can occupy the same melody. The songs here really do sound like heirloom tomatoes, to use Robson's phrase: ordinary-looking, worth slowing down for, tasting like something specific to one place.
Circuit Rider isn't a departure for Miles and Frisell, but a settling in. If you've heard their earlier work together and wanted to know how deep they could go with a third voice, this is the answer. It's spare enough to hear every choice each player makes. That's riskier than it sounds.
