Bill Frisell is in New York City this week to begin a two-week residency at the Village Vanguard. This week's line-up features the Bill Frisell Trio, with Eyvind Kang on violin and Rudy Royston on drums. Next week, Frisell leads his 858 Quartet, with Kang returning on violin, Jenny Scheinman on violin as well, and Hank Roberts joining on cello. Tonight, Portrait of a Man, a new documentary film featuring Frisell's music, receives its international premiere at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto.

Bill Frisell has won the award for Best International Guitar Player at the inaugural ECHO Jazz Awards. The award is being given for Frisell's latest Nonesuch release, Disfarmer. The ECHO gala awards ceremony will take place in Centennial Hall in Bochum, Germany, on May 5, and will be broadcast on German television on May 8.

Bill Frisell performed with his Trio—Kenny Wollesen on drums and Tony Scherr on bass—at the Kennedy Center last month. You can hear the concert online from NPR's JazzSet. In her introduction, host DeeDee Bridgewater describes Frisell as "a superman of contemporary improvisational music and one of the most compelling artists on the scene today."

The Times (UK) has had its say on the best albums of the decade, covering the best in classical, jazz, world music, and pop, and Nonesuch artists are represented in every one: John Adams at No. 1 on the classical list with Doctor Atomic Symphony; Brad Mehldau and Bill Frisell in jazz; Youssou N'Dour, Orchestra Baobab, "Cachaíto" Lopez, and Amadou & Mariam in world; the Malian duo in pop as well, along with Brian Wilson and Wilco.

Bill Frisell unveiled a new piece with Mike Gibbs and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in London last Friday. The London Jazz Festival performance will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Afternoon on 3 today. "Each year, the London Jazz Festival marshals orchestral resources for landmark special events," writes the Financial Times in a five-star review. "This year’s centrepiece was a platform for Bill Frisell." The Guardian gives it four stars, saying "the graceful balance of order and open jamming in Gibbs's orchestral score let most of this unique artist's character glow through."

Bill Frisell premieres a new work he co-wrote with Mike Gibbs in a performance at London's Barbican Hall tonight with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Tuesday. The Financial Times writes of Frisell: "Panoramic and evocative, his cocktail of jazz warmth, country whine and the echoing throb of jukebox rhythm-and-blues conjures images from the underbelly of American life. It is a vision that he never fails to coax from the many ensembles he works with."

The music of Bill Frisell's latest release, Disfarmer, was inspired by the work of 20th-century Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer. Jazz Times finds the imagery and music to be well matched, the songs "a collective act of the imagination that comes close to deciphering Disfarmer’s mystery." The albums is "one of Frisell’s most accessible," says the magazine, its music both "old and new, rich in common history, and beyond genre."

Bill Frisell takes his 858 Quartet to Southern France to start a three-week European tour tomorrow night. JamBase says his recent Nonesuch release, Disfarmer, "should please any fan of such Frisell classics as 1997’s Nashville and 1999’s outstanding Good Dog, Happy Man." The songs, inspired by the haunting work of early 20th-century American photographer Mike Disfarmer, "perfectly capture the era and the region in all of its sepia-toned beauty."

Bill Frisell and his trio are playing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on Friday, and the Prairie Center outside of Chicago, on Saturday. The Chicago Reader takes a look at the guitarist/composer with "an almost preternatural ability to evoke pensive, introspective moods of various flavors," and his latest Nonesuch release, Disfarmer, which "feels like a relatively unfettered expression of Frisell’s imagination."

Bill Frisell's latest Nonesuch release, Disfarmer, is out now. The Christian Science Monitor calls the album "a tour de force of jazz creativity by Bill Frisell," with the guitarist creating "a profoundly eerie merger of old-timey mountain music and jazz."

For his most recent Nonesuch release, Disfarmer, Bill Frisell created a set of songs inspired by the images of photographer Michael Disfarmer. Frisell first set music to film 15 years ago with scores for three Buster Keaton movies. JamBase looks at these and Disfarmer, "one more remarkable piece of work that adds to the diversity and intrinsic curiosity that resides firmly in all of Frisell's music, a player for whom the whole expanse of sound is open and eagerly explored."

Bill Frisell's Disfarmer features music inspired by the work of the late photographer Michael Disfarmer. Chuck Helm, the Director of the Performing Arts at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio, first introduced the guitarist to Disfarmer’s work hoping for such a result. Frisell tells the Columbus Dispatch, in an article about the local connection, "Your imagination can really go far with any of them ... There are so many stories."