reptetive, sad, pleasant
The pieces of music on this album were done by a professional bunch of folk who for some time have been going on in a certain direction. It's the first Frisell album I ever bought, so I can't say much about the guy's past. Anyawy, most pieces on this album are sad. Some of them are repetitive and boring. Few have interesting compositions. All in all it's a pleasant affair. It's the kind of music some people would want to listen to sitting in an old rocking chair and looking at the post-sunsent with a glass of fine Cognac on the side, thinking about nothing in particular.

just a listener
this is only the second recording released by frisell that i've heard that I like. musicians, most of them guitar players, sing praises to frisell's mastery as a jazz guitarist. i'm not a musician, just someone listening to music I like, mostly jazz, and i am attentive to the suggestions of my betters, the musicians. so i've been listening to frisell, hoping that some day the light bulb will go on and i'll understand what makes him a great jazz guitarist on his trio recordings, where his sound, to my untrained ears, drones on and on, and when it isn't droning it disturbs me with a hokeyness unexpected to jazz.

well, history, mystery isn't a trio outing, it's an octet of a string trio (the other recording by frisell I like is richter 858) and a jazz quartet and frisell on guitars, covering a range of americana, which is say some of it sounds hokey to me and some of it drones on, but with thirty selections there's breathing, exhaling and inhaling, and frisell's musical ideas and vision become democratic and not the stuff solely for the music specialist.

frisell is committed to american music of the united states. jazz is american music, arguably, america's only music, in which case any american music frisell plays is jazz. personally, not a form of reasoning i'm prepared to follow, nor am I saying this is frisell's question: is jazz americana music or is americana music jazz?

however, it is evident in history, mystery, more than in other frisell recordings i've heard, that he's working on something important musically, in the manner of charles ives.

Circus music
That's what my daughter called it, and she's right. I know Frisell makes these sort of discs occasionally, with bizarre horn arrangements, but I don't care for them. Heck, I can't even tell if there's a guitar anywhere in some of these tracks! I shouldn't have bought it before listening closely. My mistake. If you like Nashville, Good Dog Happy Man, Gone Like a Train, Blues Dream, The Willies, East/West, Unspeakable -- this is nothing like any of them.

music for grownups
Miles Davis once said that the secret to playing jazz was capturing the feel of children's rhymes like "Patty Cake." Bill Frisell captures it perfectly, and his music is simple, playful, and fun. It's also serious and complex. No contemporary jazz artist (other Keith Jarrett) puts me in touch with the poignancy of life the way Bill does, with the sweetness of being alive, with delight in what's transient and beautiful in the face of great loss and inevitable death. Bill (like Keith) understands how important it is to keep jazz connected to its roots in blues and American popular song. ("All Blues" would be a good title for Bill's entire oeuvre.) I think this is why I resonate more to his music than to trickier cutting edge jazz, which sometimes sounds like an unfun puzzle. History, Mystery has the kind of artistic scope of Blues Dream, but it's even larger, more natural, and more satisfying. It contains echoes of The Intercontinentals, but sounds deeper, less concepty, and more settled. The pairing of guitar and violin has an illustrious history: Rheinhardt and Grapelli, McLaughlin and Goodman, McLaughlin and Shankar, Abercrombie and Feldman. Add Frisell and Scheinman to that list.

Still Growing on Me
This holds together much better then one might think, 30 tracks from different sources. There is a very nice flow to it. I like this more then East/West, less guitar histrionics (but there is a bit). It most reminds me of his "The Intercontinental", probably my favorite Frisell recording.
His version of "A Change is Gonna Come" on here is gorgeous!