NEW YORK TIMES
September 25, 2009
By Nate Chinen

BILL FRISELL: 'FILMS OF BUSTER KEATON, MUSIC BY BILL FRISELL'

Soundtrack scoring takes a more literal turn on “Films of Buster Keaton,” a DVD out this month on Songline/Tone Field, with music by the jazz guitarist Bill Frisell. The project came about in the early 1990s through a commission from Arts at St. Ann’s; two related albums were later released on Nonesuch, but this is the first commercially available pairing of music and film. Mr. Frisell was obviously inspired here, composing pieces for his working trio at the time, with Kermit Driscoll on bass and Joey Baron on drums. His score for “Go West” (1925) captures both the despondency of the film’s hard-luck hero and the giddiness of frontier promise. He works similar marvels with two earlier shorts, “One Week” and “High Sign,” managing a deft commingling of song form, twangy atmosphere and structured anarchy. The music is lithe and responsive — especially when it comes to the pratfalls that Mr. Baron punctuates like an ace vaudevillian — and it honors Keaton’s genius sincerely, in the present tense.