Deep Dead Blue [Import, Limited Edition, Live]

Elvis Costello, Bill Frisell | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 21, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import, Limited Edition, Live
• Label: Wea Int'l
• ASIN: B00000AOR1
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,609 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Weird Nightmare

2. Love Field

3. Shamed into Love

4. Gigi

5. Poor Napoleon

6. Baby Plays Around

7. Deep Dead Blue

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intimate, December 12, 2003

By 

space_antelope "space_antelope" (Baltimore Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deep Dead Blue (Audio CD)

Close your eyes. On the left of the stage sits Elvis Costello, geeky glasses, geeky smile, a microphone in his hand. On the right, Bill Frisell sits on the edge of a little Fender amp, rocking gently, picking his guitar in only the way he can.

While the audience applause in between each of the tracks on this album leads me to believe the setting was not quite as small as I like to imagine it, my imagination still beats out my reason. And that's what makes listening to this record so exciting. Clocking in at under twenty-seven minutes, and costing over twenty dollars, I had to wonder if this was worth the money. After it sat on my "To Buy" list for a few months, I decided to just spring for it.

I waited until, given what I'd read about the album and what I've already heard from Costello and Frisell as artists on their own, I thought the timing was right. It was a late night in November, sort of chilly outside. I wrapped up in a favorite blanket and listened to the album.

The album begins with "Weird Nightmare," an obscure Charles Mingus composition. Costello's voice is haunting when paired with Frisell's sparse lines, and Mingus' creepy lyrics bring out the best in both musicians. The tone is similar through the next three (two written by Costello, one a Lerner & Loewe standard) before picking the mood up considerably on "Poor Napoleon." Though it was originally recorded for Costello's "Blood & Chocolate," it is rerecorded here to a very effective end. Costello's voice is dead on, and (once again) perfectly matched to Frisell's one of a kind style.

This is music that needs to be heard. The next time you're lonely, pour yourself a glass of red (or two), light up a Lucky Strike, and curl up with a blanket. These twenty-seven minutes might not make you feel entirely better, but they'll certainly make you feel comforted.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite MacManus/Frisell, July 14, 2000

By 

Marcelo Gobbo (Capital Federal, Buenos Aires Argentina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deep Dead Blue (Audio CD)

I must say this is a delightful cd... only if you are an open-minded listener. I thought every Costello or Frisell fan was such kind of person. Should I say that through the years I realize I was mistaken? I guess both Costello and Frisell ask for the same musical curiosity (or, lets say it: heterodox musical erudition) from the listeners than the one that obsessed them all the way; that is: their opening to different styles in music is not the attitude of a snob --is the rejoice of a musician who let him be surprised by the "new values" as well as by the traditions of their roots. That is the only way you can enjoy this cd: let you be driven into the subtle complexity of Frisell's guitar on "Love Field" and "Poor Napoleon", two underrated masterpieces written by Costello, who sings them as if he had learned the best of Sinatra's or Bennett's style (but remaining himself); or dive for that rare jewel that is "Shamed into Love" just to merge full of charity and self-consciousness; or re-read the Lerner and Loewe classic "Gigi" and realize that every thirty/fourty-some guy is a nowadays Louis Jourdan character is this XXI century world. Of course, there is more: you have "the taste of beauty" (that already was on "Spike") with "Baby Plays Around"; the rare Mingus song facing a darkness that's always lighten; and the original "Deep Dead Blue" version with its real "deep-end" approach, that breathless feeling of ephimeral marvel, that sort-of-satori revelation that can only be captured when a sublime songwriter (and very personal singer --I must admit: the kind of singer I prefer: honest and imperfect like the glimpse of a truth) and a talented musician, both of them as open-minded as faithful to themselves, work together for an open-minded listener with a wide open and sensitive soul. (By the way, excuse me for my English --it is not my everyday language).

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful performances, June 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Deep Dead Blue (Audio CD)

With regard to the other review on this page, it is an album with both Bill Frisell AND Elvis Costello...

I happen to like Frisell very much, and I think this duet is a unique chance to hear these two magnificent musicians in a situation that neither would normally find himself.

The performances are haunting, especially Love Field (an overlooked gem from Goodbye Cruel World). I think a fan of either musician would find this an enjoyable cd.