Bill Frisell

Grammy Award-winning jazz guitarist Bill Frisell was born on March 18, 1951, in Baltimore, Maryland. His recording career spans three decades during which he has released more than 30 albums. His career as an artist is broadly defined by geography rather than any particular ensemble and can be broken down into two critical periods - the time he spent on the east coast in New York and the time spent in the northwest in Seattle, Washington. In the 1980s, Bill Frisell was an active participant in New York's vibrant jazz scene, and he performed and recorded with a huge number of artists as well as playing in his own highly regarded quartet. Signed to the ECM label, he released three albums as a leader including In Line (1983), Rambler (1985), and Lookout for Hope (1988). During the 1990s, he had relocated to Seattle, and it was during his time there that two of his most popular albums were recorded. The 1992 album Have a Little Faith was a journey through America's rich musical history and featured sources of inspiration as diverse as Aaron Copeland and John Hiatt. That album was followed up two years later by This Land (1994), a collection of original songs performed by some outstanding jazz musicians which was widely acclaimed at the time in the specialist jazz press. Other albums in his catalog include The Sweetest Punch (1999), Ghost Town (2000), East/West (2005), Guitar in the Space Age! (2014), and Small Town with Thomas Morgan (2016). Signing with Blue Note Records, Bill Frisell released Harmony (2019), Valentine (2020), Four (2022), and Orchestras (2024). Bill Frisell has collaborated with many artists over the decades including nearly 20 albums with Paul Motian and Joe Lovano and over 30 with John Zorn and his various musical projects. He’s also worked many artists outside the jazz world including Vernon Reid, Elvis Costello, Petra Haden, Marianne Faithfull, Alan Ginsberg, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ginger Baker, David Sylvian, Norah Jones, Paul Simon, Richard Hell, Lucinda Williams, Shawn Colvin, and many others. In 2026, Bill Frisell relased the live recording In My Dreams, a acoustic chamber set featuring Jenny Scheinman, Eyvind Kang, Hank Roberts, Thomas Morgan and Rudy Royston.