Bill Frisell heads to Bay Area for gigs with friends old and new

Even Bill Frisell’s simplest phrases are shaped by a lattice of influences too thick to untangle.

The inveterately inventive guitarist assembles bands in much the same way, by weaving together a web of relationships dense with shared, crisscrossing history.

He kicks off a series of Northern California gigs Sept. 24 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, introducing his new ensemble Harmony Five. While the tour marks the quintet’s inaugural flight, the musicians share so many different bandstand experiences that you can trace nearly four decades of Frisellian adventures through the personnel.

“In my own mind it’s some sort of puzzle, and adding one new person in there puts in a million possibilities,” said Frisell, who celebrated his 75th birthday at the SFJAZZ Center in March with an all-star cast that included Harmony Five’s Luke Bergman on guitars, bass and vocals; singer Petra Haden; cellist Hank Roberts; and the most recent addition, Berkeley-raised drummer Tim Angulo.

Harmony Five also performs Sept. 25-26 at the Freight in Berkeley and Sept. 29 at Healdsburg’s Raven Performing Arts Theater. The new group expands on the quartet that recorded Frisell’s 2019 ethereal, folk-tinged album “Harmony,” a project focusing on his original tunes interpolated with songs by Stephen Foster, Lerner and Loewe, and Billy Strayhorn.

“That album was very early in that group’s history,” Frisell noted. “We went on and did a lot of touring and a lot of music developed along the way. I’ve been writing new music, and I’m really excited about what might happen with Tim in the mix.”

He connected with Angulo via the drummer’s fellow Berkeley High graduate Ambrose Akinmusire, an acclaimed trumpeter with whom Frisell performs in the trio Owl Song, named for Akinmusire’s album (the trio plays at SFJAZZ in March 2027). When Owl Song’s drummer couldn’t make a major Los Angeles gig at the last minute in 2023, Angulo saved the day. Frisell was duly impressed by his sensitivity.

“After I met him, we’d get together and play and play, just the two of us,” Frisell said. “I thought, maybe Luke could join us, and we ended up playing quite a few trio gigs.”

A graduate of the Brubeck Institute at the University of the Pacific, Angulo moved to New York City to study at the New School and now lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He’s been back in the Bay Area numerous times, playing with Akinmusire, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, and avant-pop vocalist and multi-instrumentalist L’Rain (who plays San Francisco’s Rickshaw Stop with Angulo Dec. 2).

The connection with Frisell is still a pinch-me situation for the drummer. “I’ll be talking with him, and be like, oh my God, this is Bill Frisell!” Angulo said. “Musically it’s amazing. It feels like the truth all the time. It’s inspiring to play with someone who’s so committed to beauty and really playing a song.”

Hank Roberts has been part of Frisell’s search for the sublime since the mid-1980s. They first recorded together on the guitarist’s third album, 1988’s “Lookout for Hope,” and the cellist has played on many of his projects since then, including a series of string-centric albums in the aughts that started with a program inspired by German painter Gerhard Richter, 2004’s “Richter 858.”

Petra Haden’s connection with Frisell is multi-generational. She and her sisters are the triplet daughters of late bass innovator Charlie Haden, who recorded several times with Frisell on albums with storied drummers, particularly Paul Motian and Ginger Baker.

Petra and the guitarist launched their collaboration with an eponymous 2003 duo album focusing on standards and pop tunes, a relationship that fully blossomed on Frisell’s wistful 2016 album “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

His SFJAZZ birthday concert was the first time that the Harmony Five musicians all shared a stage. “In fact, that was the first time Petra and Tim Angulo met and played,” Frisell said.

With Angulo’s keen sense of dynamics and brush skills he’s ideally equipped to blend into the flow while making himself felt.

“Harmony could be strong, but it was delicate and quiet and I don’t want to lose that,” Frisell said. “I don’t want to predict what will happen. There will still be all this singing, but probably more instrumentals, though Petra can sing a lot of instrumental music we play.”

Ultimately, Frisell looks to surround himself with musical confidants who share his joy in impromptu discovery, a search at the center of Harmony Five’s mission.

“These are all my really good friends, and there’s a lot of trust,” he said. “I’m excited and nervous, but I’d like to say I’m not afraid. I always get nervous in a new situation.”

Contact Andrew Gilbert at [email protected].

BILL FRISELL’S HARMONY FIVE

When & where: 7 & 9 p.m. Sept. 24 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Santa Cruz, $26.25-$52.50, www.kuumbwajazz.org; 8 p.m. Sept. 25-26 at The Freight, Berkeley, $54-$74, www.thefreight.org; 7:30 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Raven Performing Arts Theater, Healdsburg, $44-$89, raventheater.org.