Strange Meeting is a Bill Frisell composition that first appeared on his 1987 jazz trio album Power Tools, released on Antilles New Directions. The track showcases Frisell’s signature shimmering guitar tone and inventive harmonies in a lean trio setting with Ronald Shannon Jackson on drums and Melvin Gibbs on bass. A later expansion of Frisell’s collaboration with arranger Michael Gibbs produced orchestral versions on the 2024 double album Orchestras on Blue Note - LP1 with the Brussels Philharmonic and LP2 with the Umbria Jazz Orchestra - conducted by Alexander Hanson and Manuele Morbidini. The program blends Frisell’s originals with standards and traditional numbers, highlighting his ability to bend genre boundaries and evoke cinematic textures. Frisell has described the concept as being on the edge of what we know, a fitting frame for a piece that moves gracefully between intimate guitar lyricism and large-scale orchestral color.
