The guitarist and man behind brand-new Big Sur, composed in 10 days at Glen Deven Ranch.

Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell established himself as part of the American musical canon in the ’80s, but he defies classification, blending blues, country and rock, among other styles. Frisell got his start largely at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, when Monterey Jazz Festival Artistic Director Tim Jackson was booking there.

Jackson commissioned Frisell’s epic new work, Music of Glen Deven Ranch, composed at the Big Sur Land Trust’s Palo Colorado property of the same name. With a quintet, Frisell debuted the work at the Jazz Festival last year, then recorded it as Big Sur with the OKeh label last spring. Now they’re back on tour, this leg beginning Wednesday at the Sunset Center.

Frisell, who lives in Seattle, was in the airport headed to Iceland to record when the Weekly caught up with him.

Weekly: How did you first get to know Big Sur, and had you been here before?

Frisell: Maybe two or three times I’d driven by in a rush, from L.A. to San Francisco. One time, I played at the Henry Miller Memorial Library.

I got to the ranch much later than I was planning. It was the middle of the night, and I couldn’t really see where we were going. I’d never been up off Highway 1. We turn off the road and it’s like, whoa, where are we going? It was just dark forest, like Hansel and Gretel. When I woke up, it was the first time I really got to experience what Big Sur is.

How did working at Glen Deven Ranch influence the album?

It’s just so awesome, the natural beauty. But that’s the easy answer. Much more than that was the chance to just shut off all this noise. There was no computer, no television, no phone. And I was completely by myself. I didn’t have any schedule. I never even looked at the clock. There was no pressure. It allowed this internal space to happen that’s almost impossible to find these days.

It just allowed me to let out the music. I don’t know where the music comes from – it’s just melodies floating around inside me.

Did you draw from other artists who have worked here?

I was reading Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur while I was there. The first part of that book is almost like an exaggerated description of the first night I got there. He was trying to quit drinking and was walking up the side of the mountain; it just resonated, his description, while I was trying to quit my mind from the usual treadmill-type thing.

Do you think it’ll be different playing on the Monterey Peninsula?

That’s what’s so cool about this. All summer we were playing in Europe, in places where Big Sur didn’t really mean anything for them. It’ll be cool to just see if I feel some recognition.

There’s strong melody on this album, but guitar seems to rarely be front and center. Is there one lead voice, or do all the players take turns?

I write the music and sort of set up this atmosphere or world for us to be in, and from that point, so much happens because of the people I chose to play with. It’s like improvising, but not just out of thin air.

There are parts written out, but it’s not like we’re just reading the music. Everyone in the band is making super-fast decisions all the time. Every time we play, you never quite know what’s going to happen.

My least favorite thing is to have it be set, and we play it over and over the same way. I want to be surprised every time.

Do you think of your music as a particular genre?

I don’t really like to do that. It’s not so easily split up into the way it’s laid out in a record store or on iTunes. Even when I put a title on something, I feel a little uncomfortable. It could be holding it back from whatever someone’s imagination could come up with.

“Highway 1” sounds like the perfect anthem for that drive to Big Sur.

It’s weird I said all that. Sometimes it helps, some kind of framework. Just having this thing called Big Sur, it gives people something to hang on to.

BILL FRISELL’S BIG SUR QUINTET performs 7:30pm Wednesday, Nov. 6, at Sunset Center, San Carlos and Ninth, Carmel. $29-$80. 620-2048, www.sunsetcenter.org.