Home » Jazz Articles » Barre Phillips
Jazz Articles about Barre Phillips
Barre Phillips / Motoharu Yoshizawa: Oh My, Those Boys!
by John Sharpe
Expatriate American bassist Barre Phillips is the banner name on another in the Chap Chap series of improvised encounters from Japan issued by the NoBusiness imprint. He boasts an illustrious back-story. His Journal Violone (Opus One,1968) is reputed to be the first solo bass album, while Music From Two Basses (ECM, 1971) with Dave Holland was probably the first record of improvised double bass duets. So it's no surprise that the veteran bassist demonstrates such mastery of the form on ...
Continue ReadingMike Westbrook Concert Band: Marching Song Volumes 1 & 2 Plus Bonus Tracks
by Roger Farbey
It's hardly surprising that Mike Westbrook reigned supreme in the latter quarter of the 1960s and early 70s. His big band was voted top of that category in the late-lamented Melody Maker British jazz polls for 1970 (and the two years either side of that). In the same year, his third album, Marching Song, recorded a year earlier came third in the category “LP Of The Year" (the number one album that year was John McLaughlin's seminal Extrapolation so there ...
Continue ReadingHarold Rubin, Barre Phillips, Tatsuya Nakatani: 3 on a Thin Line
by Libero Farnè
Obiettivo e prerogativa dell'improvvisazione assoluta sono quelli di saper costruire un flusso narrativo dal senso compiuto, concatenato e denso di qualità melodiche, dinamiche e timbriche, senza poter contare su temi noti e condivisi. Non che manchi l'esigenza di ricercare e trovare spunti melodici, anzi sono proprio la qualità e la spontanea naturalezza di queste invenzioni melodiche a conferire autenticità e consistenza al dialogo collettivo, che però in primo luogo fa affidamento su un'istantanea sintonia percettiva ed emotiva nella prefigurazione di ...
Continue ReadingHeiner Stadler: Brains on Fire
by AAJ Italy Staff
Heiner Stadler è nome pressoché sconosciuto se non agli addetti ai lavori o a qualche curioso appassionato jazzofilo. Nasce nel 1942 a Lessen in Polonia, cresce ad Amburgo dove studia pianoforte, armonia e composizione al conservatorio, per poi trasferirsi nel 1965 a New York. Qui intesse una serie di relazioni con importanti musicisti dal background assai variegato (si va sa Benny Golson a Barre Phillips, da Joe Chambers a John Gilmore e Joe Farrell, da Dee Dee Bridgewater a Thad ...
Continue ReadingHeiner Stadler: Brains on Fire
by Hrayr Attarian
Heiner StadlerBrains on FireLabor Records2012One of the most exciting reissues of the first quarter of 2012 is composer and pianist Heiner Stadler's pioneering Brains on Fire, originally released in 1973. The two-CD reissue adds three lengthy, previously unreleased tracks and informative and well-researched liner notes by critic Howard Mandel. Interestingly, Stadler occupies the piano chair only on five of the eight pieces, recorded over a seven-year span in a ...
Continue ReadingNed Rothenberg / Catherine Jauniaux / Barre Phillips: While You Were Out
by Nic Jones
One of the most consistently intriguing things about freely improvised music is the degree to which it can transcend the moment. While on the surface of it that moment might be something the free improviser has only to reach an accommodation with, on a deeper level such practitioners are arguably more subject to its vagaries than musicians who work in more deliberate and preconceived areas.
This is an indirect way of getting around to the fact that While You Were ...
Continue ReadingNed Rothenberg / Catherine Jauniaux / Barre Phillips: While You Were Out
by Kurt Gottschalk
Belgian vocalist Catherine Jauniaux is one the most underappreciated of a generation of free improv vocalists. Less a storyteller than Shelley Hirsch, more overtly musical than Phil Minton or Jaap Blonk, she falls somewhere between their spontaneous explorations and the avant art songs of Joan La Barbara. She has released only a handful of records with bands still loved by the few who recall (The Hat Shoes, Aksak Maboul and Vibraslaps, her duo with Ikue Mori) and is, perhaps, best ...
Continue Reading
