Sam Amidon, Bill Frisell and Shahzad Ismaily headed into the NPR studios recently to record an excellent Tiny Desk Concert.
Talk about placing some of best fringe musicians in a room together. Bill is one of the leading jazz guitarists, well known for his progressive compositions in the field of folk and classical as well as jazz, whilst Shahzad Ismaily is a largely self-taught musician and composer who has played with numerous artists from Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy to Josephine Foster. He has also composed for dance and theatre. With Sam Amidon at the helm you never know where he might take you. They don’t disappoint.
They performed two tracks from Lily-O: Blue Mountains and Pat Do This, Pat Do That, a traditional re-worked song that also goes by the name of Pat (or Paddy) Works on the Railway. For their finale they perform Short Life (another traditonal re-worked song) which featured on his previous album Bright Sunny South. This version has some nice improvisation near the end from Sam…I won’t say any more other than it’s brilliant.
More Tiny Desk Concerts here: www.npr.org/series/tiny-desk-concerts