Trio to explore jazz themes at Atherton [The Record, Stockton, Calif.]

Sept. 30--Spirituality and spontaneity inform the unique jazz music created by the prolific David Friesen.

He expresses himself on the only electric bass of its type in the world.

"Jazz is what I love," said Friesen, who's based in Portland, Ore., has recorded 80 albums in a six-decade career and coaxes his musical spirit from a one-of-a-kind Hemage bass. "This is what I've been called to do. It offers me the freedom of expression."

He'll be exercising that liberty with his Circle 3 Trio -- playing new material and songs from "Brilliant Heart," a 2013 CD written for his deceased son -- Wednesday at San Joaquin Delta College'sAtherton Auditorium.

"We've never had a rehearsal," Friesen, 68, said of his current and close communication with pianist Greg Goebel, 32, and drummer Charlie Doggett, 42, both from Eugene, Ore. "We have no arrangements. The whole idea is to listen to the other person. Music changes all the time. Every time it's played, it's different. You have to take your eyes off yourselves, listen and respond creatively to what you hear."

Friesen -- he's performed with an all-icon roster of artists globally -- and the Circle 3 has crafted an unparalleled response.

"Don't get me wrong," said Friesen, a voluble conversationalist who riffs thoughtfully and precisely on his music, faith and unique instrument. "All my other groups have had good communications. Of them all, this is probably the most cohesive. The musical concept is all original. It evolves harmonically and rhythmically.

"This is totally, totally different. There's a lot of interplay. There is no leader. It's three people playing music together. Compatibility is something you can't practice."

On "Brilliant Heart," there's lots of fond reminiscence, evoked by his trio and Los Angeles guitarist Larry Koonse. It's a "memorial" recording for Scott, his son who died in 2009 at age 44. It was released in June.

"All the music was composed about his personality and characteristics," said Friesen. Seven of his son's paintings are part of the CD art, including the cover illustration. "He loved sailing. All the tunes reflect what he did."

They're buoyed by his Hemage bass, crafted specifically for Friesen by Herman Erlacher, who attended a Friesen concert in Innsbruck, Austria. Based in nearby Hall Tirol, Erlacher offered to help create a bass that was small enough to fit in an airliner's overhead storage bin yet deliver the sound of a standard double-bass. Musicians pay extra "passenger" fares to travel with those big instruments.

Friesen, who began playing bass in 1962, had experimented with a stick bass and one that split into two pieces.

"I play it like my acoustic," Friesen said from Portland. "It has a very clear, very warm sound. To say it's an electric bass doesn't describe it at all. It's the only one in the world. It sounds like what ice cream tastes like."

An apt metaphor for Friesen's first flavor of music. Born in Tacoma, Wash., he was 5 when he heard a sister's friend playing "boogie-woogie" jazz on the family piano in Seattle.

He immediately stopped playing with his toy trucks and became transfixed by the piano's 88 keys: "I never played with toy trucks again."

He "never stopped playing the piano," adding ukulele, accordion, guitar and trombone. In 1962, he "picked up a bass" while in the U.S. Army at Bad Kissingen, Germany: "It was love at first embrace. I never played anything else."

He performed in an Army trio during furloughs in Copenhagen and Paris. He didn't imagine he'd still be playing, writing, performing and recording 51 years later. Some introspection altered that.

"I was trying to grow," he said. "I wasn't thinking ahead. It was what's going on immediately. Then the thought came to me: 'Why am I playing music? Why do I love it so much?' Then I had to come to grips with the spirituality aspect.

" 'Am I just a blob living here on Earth without purpose? Where does music come from? Where do I come from? Why do I love music?' If there is a God, God created music, created me and created my desire."

In 1969, Friesen experienced a watery vision: A pool of "spiritual" colors he'd never seen before.

"He (God) was saying the pool was given to you to fill the note," said Friesen, who was born Jewish yet viewed this as a "specific" Christian faith. "That's not the note. It's the container. It's what goes in the note. The substance that edifies, comforts, heals and gives hope."

He's also gotten that from his wife, Kim, along with four children and six grandchildren. Friesen's dad, Ben, sold life insurance, mom Clara was a professional bowler and sister Dyan became actor Dyan Cannon, 76, with whom he performed on Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson's TV shows.

He still tours Europe "three or four" times a year, visits and plays in China, gives private lessons in Seattle and Portland, teaches at Annie Ebersoll Jazz in Louisville, Ky., and "keeps composing all the time."

He'll also improvises with and inspires Delta students, filling in the notes by tailoring a clinic to "their needs," he said. "We'll be looking for problems and ways to solve them, give hope and encouragement. We're all trying to improve our art form. To do better and learn to accept the imperfections in life."

Contact reporter Tony Sauro at (209) 546-8267 or [email protected].

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