Orchestras

On this expansive live set, guitarist Bill Frisell’s long-standing trio with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston is accompanied (and sometimes swallowed) by two different orchestras: the Brussels Philharmonic, with nearly 60 musicians, and the smaller Umbria Jazz Orchestra, just 11 players of a jazzier bent. On the first and third discs, from Brussels, the group performs tunes like “Lush Life,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” “Moon River,” and “A Flower is a Lovesome Thing” alongside some Frisell originals (“Doom,” “Electricity”), all swathed in strings and arranged to sound like a 1950s movie soundtrack. The Umbria performance is livelier; the arrangements are more Ennio Morricone than Henry Mancini, showcasing individual instrumentalists at times. The way a muted trumpet shadows Frisell’s guitar on “Strange Meeting” — originally recorded with Power Tools, a one-off group Frisell assembled with bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson in the late ’80s — is a highlight of the whole set. And the Umbria versions of “Doom” and “Electricity” are extremely different from the Brussels ones. This could have just been Bill Frisell With Strings, a much less enticing prospect than what we actually get.