Bill Frisell—after performances with his Trio at The Kennedy Center  in Washington, DC, and the Shaumburg Prairie Center for the Arts, outside of Chicago, this weekend—takes his 858 Quartet, featuring Ron Miles, Hank Roberts, and Eyvind Kang, outside of Toulouse in Southern France to start a three-week European tour tomorrow night. The Washington Post's Mike Joyce says that, at Friday's Kennedy Center concert, for all the deft effects-pedal work and gadgetry Bill harnessed while playing, "what stood out most was Frisell's inherent fascination with melodic pull."

Last month, Frisell was joined by Kang, along with bassist Viktor Krauss and lap-steel guitarist Greg Leisz, for a few live performances of the guitarist/songwriter's latest Nonesuch release, Disfarmer. (Krauss and Leisz had performed on the recording; Kang replaced the album's violinist, Jenny Scheinman, who is on maternity leave.) In the JamBase review of the album, writer Ron Hart says it "should please any fan of such Frisell classics as 1997’s Nashville and 1999’s outstanding Good Dog, Happy Man."

Disfarmer was inspired by the stark black-and-white photographs of early 20th-century Arkansas outsider artist Mike Disfarmer. Frisell's music, says Hart, is the perfect complement to such haunting imagery. He writes:

Nobody in modern music can blur the line between dark country and modal jazz like Frisell, and these 26 tracks manage to create a thoroughly fitting atmosphere to parallel the mood of Disfarmer’s photographs, several of which are featured prominently in the liner notes of this album.

The pieces, the reviewer concludes, "perfectly capture the era and the region in all of its sepia-toned beauty."

Read more at jambase.com. For more on Frisell's European tour, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.