Jazz News From NPR

Jazz guitar legend Bill Frisell looks back on his 40-year career

XPN | By Stephen Kallao,

Published June 2, 2026 at 4:53 PM EDT

Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell takes great care with each note he plays. When he stopped by the World Cafe studio to talk about his new album, In My Dreams, he brought that same care to the stories he chose to tell as we discussed what he's learned since he began releasing albums more than 40 years ago.

Today, we'll share some of our favorite moments from that conversation, plus Frisell performs a live set.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe's engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

Jazz News From NPR

Stephen Kallao

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Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

See stories by Kimberly Junod