1994 · Album
This Land
Recorded 1994 · Elektra Nonesuch · Personnel: Bill Frisell (guitar), Don Byron (clarinet), Billy Drewes (alto saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Kermit Driscoll (bass), Joey Baron (drums)
Don Byron's Clarinet and Frisell's Americana Vision
Byron's clarinet cuts through with a brightness that grounds Frisell's effects-laden guitar in something deeply rooted.
This Land works because Don Byron's clarinet keeps it honest. Frisell had spent years exploring texture and volume dynamics, sometimes disappearing into his own effects. Byron doesn't let that happen. His bright, piercing tone on these pieces—especially the way he locks into unison lines with Frisell—anchors the guitar's more slippery explorations in something tangible and melodic. With Billy Drewes on alto sax, Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, Kermit Driscoll on bass, and Joey Baron on drums, there's a full horn section pumping beneath these compositions, but Byron's clarinet has a distinctive voice that cuts through. It's folk-inflected Americana that Frisell had been circling for years, and Byron's presence—his directness, his melodic clarity—gives the album its backbone. The AllMusic reviewer Glenn Astarita caught this balance: Frisell's "deft utilization of volume control" and his "slithery mode of attack" work precisely because they're counterbalanced by the horn sections' "pumping notes and harmonious choruses." This isn't Frisell disappearing into abstraction. It's a conversation between a guitarist learning to color within the lines and collaborators who insist on melody, on being heard. The album sits comfortably within his Nonesuch catalog but with a clarity and rootedness that's harder to find in his earlier, more experimental work. It's a record about restraint—about knowing when to step back and let Byron's clarinet do the talking.
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