A lovely, understated exercise in minimalism,
Deep Dead Blue
documents a set of otherwise unaccompanied guitar/vocal duets between
Bill Frisell
and
Elvis Costello
, recorded live at
the Meltdown Festival
in London's
Queen Elizabeth Hall
on June 25, 1995. Although the performance isn't even quite half an hour long, it's the perfect length for holding a listener's attention.
Frisell
co-wrote the title track, one of the five songs bearing a
Costello
credit; the others are underexposed items from
's mid- to late-'80s catalog, plus selections by
Charles Mingus
(
"Weird Nightmare"
) and
Lerner & Loewe
"Gigi"
).
is once again the refined, mature vocal stylist of
Painted from Memory
, but
holds the real key to the collaboration with his impeccably restrained support. He expertly controls the dynamics of each piece, often stripping his part down to single-note lines, which lends surprising emotional impact when he allows full chords to wash over
's voice; his articulation is crisp and clean, his chordal voicings often novel and unexpected. It's no real surprise that the two work well together, given the musical affinity demonstrated on
's masterful reinterpretations of
material on his own album
The Sweetest Punch
. The pleasures of
are, to be sure, much subtler than either of those recordings, but they make an elegant and fascinating supplement. ~ Steve Huey