Guitar Gods
Two of the best guitarists ever-yes, ever-are in Manhattan clubs this week: Bill Frisell, with an especially promising quintet at the Village Vanguard and Pat Martino, paying tribute to Wes Montgomery at Iridium. Guitarists are plentiful, but these guys are extraordinary.
Frisell, back in the halcyon '80s, was the East Village improvisers' electric stringman of choice, a soft-spoken man by turns gently melodic and outrageously explosive. Since moving to Seattle in the '90s, he's muted some of his crunch in favor of high-lonesome Americana, but on his most recent album East/West he refreshes unlikely tunes-"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" among them. He plays his instrument top to bottom and inside out; his band settling in for a rare two-week gig includes trumpeter Ron Miles and reedsman Greg Tardy, musicians as unpretentious yet full of feeling and surprises as Frisell himself.
Martino, the Philadelphian who had a near-death experience in the mid '80s and lost all his memories-including incredible chops-bounced back more focused than ever. He wields his prickly-pointed ax on April 19?23. Having first emerged in the '60s with organ groups, he's always been a soulman, while claiming an interest in Eastern thought as well. Today he's an utter virtuoso but not a show-off-just a man with enthralling musical ideas and the skill to pull them off.
Other standouts this weekend include: Sista's Place in Brooklyn (456 Nostrand Ave.) and its Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival with drummer Andrew Cyrille and tenor saxophonist Odeon Pope (April 21) and trumpeter Charles Tolliver's quartet (April 22). Also, the "new music" venue Roulette moves into Location One (20 Greene St.) to present "A Festival of Work On, In and About the Piano" with Myra Melford visiting from UC Berkeley (April 21); Robin Holcolmb is in from Seattle (April 22), Kathleen Supové joins David Borden's Mother Mallard synthesizer ensemble (April 23); and includes a rare recital by pure, oblique Connie Crothers (April 25).