Guitarist Bill Frisell looks to the silver screen

With its landscape-evoking Americana twang and penchant for heady atmospherics, Bill Frisell's music has often been described as "cinematic." So it's only fitting that in his latest project, the renowned guitarist has turned to the silver screen for inspiration. On the album

When You Wish Upon a Star

, Frisell and his band play arrangements of classic scores from films by the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and Sergio Leone.

Frisell brought the project to the Ardmore Music Hall on Tuesday, proving that even without the visuals, movie music can weave a compelling story.

After the soft-spoken guitarist briefly introduced his "friends," the band went into their theme song, a gauzy, atmospheric take on the Disney classic. It was followed by the James Bond theme "You Only Live Twice," with a buzzsaw solo from Frisell that played with the franchise's trademark contrast between seductiveness and danger.

The opening songs featured alluring vocals by Petra Haden, but it was in the wordless pieces, where her pliable voice became another instrument, that the singer truly shined. Daughter of late jazz bass great Charlie Haden, Petra was a member of the 1990s alt-rock band That Dog and has since pursued a variety of projects, including her own a cappella sound track tribute, Petra Goes to the Movies.

The one common piece between the two projects is Bernard Herrmann's theme for Hitchcock's Psycho, rendered in a way that showed off drummer Kenny Wollesen's quick-change versatility, shifting suddenly from cool-jazz swing to coloristic punctuation for the stabbing strings. Violinist Eyvind Kang and Haden paired up to render the eerie themes while Frisell spun weblike patterns along with them.

The show's highlight was a suite of Ennio Morricone's music from Leone's spaghetti western masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West.

Frisell's reverb-swathed sound hung over the main theme like a billowing curtain before launching into a gorgeously lyrical solo that conjured expansive desert vistas. His tone turned violent on the gunfighter swagger of "As a Judgment," which featured a howling solo by Kang. Then Wollesen settled into an incongruous reggae groove for the sing-song "Farewell to Cheyenne."

Haden contributed controlled screams to Frisell's own creepy theme music for the 1994 Halloween special Tales From the Far Side, then offered a charmingly awkward take on the lyrics to the Bonanza theme to close out the evening. A brief encore finally brought the curtain down with a warm, galloping "Happy Trails," offering the enticing promise of another meeting with this stellar ensemble.