Artist: Fred Frith
Genre(s):
Retro
Rock
Discography:
Gravity
Year: 2001
Tracks: 19
Clearing
Year: 2001
Tracks: 11
Upbeat
Year: 1999
Tracks: 13
Guitar Quartet: Ayaya Moses
Year: 1997
Tracks: 14
Eye To Ear
Year: 1997
Tracks: 9
Step Across The Border
Year: 1990
Tracks: 26
In the '60s and '70s, much (if not virtually) present-day improvisation was jazz-based. That began to change in the '80s, when a meaning numeral of tilt musicians began exploring the possibilities of free improvisation and raw classical forms. Fred Frith is one of the more striking. Co-founder of the underground British dance band Henry Cow in 1968, Frith affected to the U.S. in the late '70s, where he began associations with such New York-based experimental musicians as cellist Tom Cora, harper Zeena Parkins, saxist John Zorn, and percussionist Ikue Mori. Frith lived in New York for 14 long time; some of his well-known ventures in that sentence included Massacre (with Bill Laswell and Fred Maher), Skeleton Crew (with Cora and Parkins), and his sextet Keep the Dog. In the '80s, Frith's compositional activities increased; he began piece of writing for dance, motion-picture show, and theatre, and for such ensembles as the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Ensemble Moderne, Asko Ensemble, and his own Guitar Quartet. Primarily known as an improvising guitarist, Frith has also performed on sea bass (with Zorn's Naked City) and fiddle (with Lars Hollmer's Looping Home Orchestra). Frith has played on albums by the Residents, Brian Eno, Amy Denio, and René Lussier, to name just a few. Frith was the subject of Step Across the Border, a documentary film by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzels. By 2000, Frith was a prof of typography at Mills College in Oakland, CA, and continued to handout a bevy of albums including Eleventh Hour in 2005 and Carbohydrate Factory in 2007.
