Jazz Articles about Barry Guy

Barry Guy / Marilyn Crispell / Paul Lytton: Phases Of The Night

by Nic Jones
July 6, 2008

Any subversion of the piano trio tradition as manifested in the clinical virtuosity of a technocratic elite is always welcome, and it's present here in abundance. This is not however to suggest that this trio lacks technique, it's just that the music they produce is so free of the constraints of any overt tradition that the results are compelling.

Listeners need hear no further than the opening title track for evidence. Pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Barry Guy, and drummer Paul ...

Barry Guy/Mats Gustafsson/Raymond Strid: Tarfala

by Mark Corroto
March 15, 2008

I've read interviews with jazz musicians that have told of their first hearing John Coltrane's LP A Love Supreme (Impulse!,1964) and their seemingly inability to turn over the vinyl and play the second side, fearing that it would not compare to the first side. This listener had a similar experience listening to the first (and title) track of this recording. Clocking in at more than twenty seven minutes, it is an entire meal in itself, leaving one satisfied or wondering ...

Evan Parker/Barry Guy/Paul Lytton: Zafiro

by Matthew Sumera
August 26, 2007

It's hard to account for longevity among freely improvised groups. One somehow assumes that part of the success of much of the genre relies upon the newness of encounter--flirting with the unknown that presumably can only come from fresh associations. This, of course, is one of the myths of free improvisation, for in truth there are any number of long-standing groups that have defined the heights of the genre: AMM, Alexander von Schlippenbach's trio (with Evan Parker and Paul Lovens) ...

Portrait Barry Guy: March 15-16

by Andrey Henkin
July 8, 2007

Barry GuyMoodsZurich, SwitzerlandMarch 15-16, 2007 How does a musician with a career approaching 40 years begin to attempt “summarizing it for a two-day festival? The answer, in the case of British bass innovator Barry Guy, is to not. Given the opportunity to present a “Portrait of himself, Guy, along with festival organizers Maya Homburger and Patrik Landolt, instead chose to reflect on the past by remaining squarely in the present, with a handful of current ...

Agusti Fernandez / Barry Guy / Ramon Lopez: Aurora

by Andrey Henkin
March 24, 2007

It would be a fallacy to think that any musician who inhabits the world of free improvisation wishes that world to be a noisy chaotic place. Indeed, one cannot make any assumptions these days about free players, whether it be based on age, background or collaborators. Though Spain has not produced the avant-garde swarms of other places in Europe, it has a respected ambassador in pianist Agusti Fernández. But to call Fernández avant-garde is another fallacy. Call him flexible, call ...

Evan Parker / Barry Guy / Paul Lytton: Zafiro

by Eyal Hareuveni
February 1, 2007

My level of expectation for a new release by the trio of Evan Parker, Barry Guy and Paul Lytton is always high. These British gentlemen are masters of free improvisation and have collaborated together for almost forty years in many groups, like Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers' Orchestra and the more recent New Orchestra and Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. They have criss-crossed over the years in duos, trios and trios augmented by like-minded improvisers such as pianists Marylin Crispell and ...

Evan Parker / Barry Guy / Paul Lytton: Zafiro

by Mark Corroto
January 21, 2007

The best comparison to the trio of Evan Parker, Barry Guy and Paul Lytton in modern performing jazz might be Keith Jarrett's trio with Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock. Like Jarrett's trio performances of jazz standards, the Parker/Guy/Lytton meetings are modern benchmarks for trio interplay, empathy and creative music. But where Jarrett begins his exploration at a well-known point of departure, Parker, Guy and Lytton draw upon their forty-year codex of improvisation--not only as a jumping-off point, but as their ...