Cecil Taylor once remarked, “If I was a bass player, I would want to be Barry Guy.” It is hardly a self- effacing remark, for Guy’s commitment to the near- impossible—tempo, density, complexity—seems like homage to Taylor himself, or to the late Scott LaFaro, Guy’s nearest predecessor in stretching the bass’ limits. There are parallels, too, with circular breathing multiphonic collaborators Evan Parker and Peter Evans. Technique for technique’s sake? Hardly. All artists try to gather the materials needed to realize their visions; some just need more. Recorded in October 2019 during Improdimensija at MAMAstudios in Vilnius, Irvin’s Comet alludes to the cover art, the painting “Comet” by the late British artist Albert Irvin, a work that may have suggested a comet’s transit but also presents abstracted parallel figures in contrasting colors and patterns. In the arco brilliance of both “Comet” and “Silence”, dense tapestries of bowed and plucked notes combine with sharp contrasts in volume, achieving a multiply-coded presence. Further, floating amid the upper register mysteries of “Comet”, it sounds like a theremin could have been set loose among the strings. There is often a sense in Guy’s work of how much could be accomplished, registered or tested within a limited amount of time, how many techniques may be rapidly alternated to create another state of musical mind. That quest for expression can be as joyous as it is darkly mysterious. “Ding Dang a Diggy Ding Dang” may seem unlikely here, wittily reimagining as it does the bass as a different kind of rhythm instrument; instead of a walking bass, it is a fretless chordal instrument, a rhythmically charged, idiomatic composition filled with sliding chords suggesting acoustic bluesmen with William Parker and/or Chuck Berry lending a hand. “Old Earth Home” is a pizzicato lament, a work as emotionally direct as one could imagine, suffused with specifically Spanish passions. Heir to Narciso Yepes or Charles Mingus, it moves from the dark intensity of minor modes towards the playful light of the major. The concluding “Barehead” is a maelstrom of bowing and plucking, energized runs and pinpoint lights amid upper- register harmonics, plucked chords and bowed frenzy. Fully appreciating Guy’s performances requires the visual component. It ends nagging questions about how he is accomplishing one thing or another, even while hands and mind remain quicker than the eye. Meanwhile, Irvin’s Comet is a good stand-in.
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"Guy is, of course, nothing short of a phenomenon, what with his, in the best sense of the word, sagacious blend of passion, all manner of technique, lightning fast response time and multitude of stylistic inferences." Cadence
“.....Das experimentellste Werk das er an diesem Abend spielte, waren seine “Five Fizzles” für Kontrabass solo. In Anlehnung an eine sogenannte Reihe kurzer Prosastücke Samuel Becketts besteht die Komposition aus fünf musikalischen Miniaturen ganz unterschiedlichen Charakters. Guy strich, zupfte, schlug und streichelte seinen Kontrabas auf alle erdenklichen Weisen und entlockte ihm Klänge und Geräusche, die man nicht für möglich gehalten hätte. Und doch hat diese Musik nichts Konstruiert-Avantgardistisches an sich, sondern wirkte sehr urtümlich, erdverbunden, vital. Ähnliches lässt sich auch von “Inachis” sagen, einer Kompsition für Solovioline, zu der Guy auf dem Kontrabass spontane Reaktionen anbrachte. Zum Schluss spielte Maya Homburger nochmals eine Sonate von Biber. Sie gestaltete sie derart frei und emotional, dass man plötzlich unsicher wurde, ob es sich da wirklich um ein barockes Werk handelte. (Thomas Schacher, NZZ, 7. April 2006)
Review for TIME PASSING... by Ben Dwyer for soprano, improvising voice, bass baritone and string orchestra by Barry Guy. Please use the following link to read the excellently written review by the Irish composer and guitarist Ben Dwyer:
This CD is available for mailorder and also on our band camp site
Reviews for Folio (ECM 1931) with Barry Guy, Maya Homburger, Muriel Cantoreggi, Münchener Kammerorchester, Christoph Poppen
Jazzman - Choc du mois
Not since Penderecki’s heyday have I been so bowled over by music which so compellingly fuses startlingly inventive and ear-tingling string textures and timbres with the emotional passion and drive of a “Verklärte Nacht” or “Metamorphosen”. … The starting point for Folio was provided by Nicolai Evreinov’s play The Theatre of the Soul, which, to quote Guy, ‘demarcates characters into the rational, emotional and subconscious aspects of the soul’. This helps structure the music’s textural multi-layering and architectural shape, which is experienced as though part of a dream-like trance. Maya Homburger’s Baroque violin plays the role of the ‘emotional’, while Barry Guy’s double bass improvisations symbolise ‘rationality’ and Muriel Cantoreggi’s modern violin and the Munich strings represent the ‘subconscious’. … So charismatically involving is this truly virtuoso performance that at times … it feels as though the entire ensemble might literally explode with excitement. With only twelve players in the orchestra, everyone becomes a soloist, and the result is a stunningly engineered rollercoaster ride of unremitting emotional intensity. Julian Haylock, The Strad
The hour-long Folio was Barry Guy’s response to a very specific commission from the BT Scottish Ensemble… It was, though, a prescription tailor-made for Guy: as well as a composer he is also a double-bass virtuoso who makes regular forays into the jazz world, and his wife Maya Homburger is a distinguished baroque violinist. The result of all these happy connections is an intriguing, multi-faceted work: a sequence of self-contained pieces linked by a series of improvised commentaries for the double bass and baroque violin, which carries its considerable weight of extra-musical associations lightly. … However, the textures and the command of musical layering and string techniques are impressive on their own terms. Andrew Clements, The Guardian
Folio is a hugely ambitious piece. It consists of a series of improvisations for Barry Guy’s own double bass, sometimes with Maya Homburger’s baroque violin, interspersed with five movements for Muriel Cantoreggi’s modern violin and string orchestra. Additionally, there are two sequences, based on Diego Ortiz’s Recercada Primera of 1553, serving as a bridge between baroque violin and modern instruments. … He proves himself a composer of sure instincts with this absorbing work, which combines spontaneity and shapeliness, stasis and excitement. Stephen Pettitt, Sunday Times
L’œuvre … tresse et alterne partitions orchestrales et improvisations de l’un ou de deux des solistes. Pas plus que le langage instrumental du contrebassiste, les improvisations des deux violons n’étonneront les habitués des musique improvisées européennes, mais on reste confondu par le naturel qui les portent cette écriture libre de tout dogmatisme et qui nouent ensemble les deux discours en un matériau d’une aussi peu discutable cohérence. Franck Bergerot, Jazzman
other reviews :
"When certain musicians have been central to your musical landscape for two thirds of your life, when innumerable words have been written about them by some of the most distinguished commentators, when their command of instrumental technique and improvisational inventiveness is beyond all reasonable question, and when you have enthused about them on numerous occasions, what is there left to say? What you said in the first place: listen." Wire, Oct. 98, Barry Witherden
"Barry Guy proved in his solo that he is the most awesome bassist in improvised music." Downbeat, October 1993
"... Guy is master of his instrument and servant of a questing imagination that constantly transforms daunting abstraction into the strangely beautiful ..." Graham Lock
"... While the greatest entertainment was provided by the closing Stuppner, the strongest musical impression was made by the rapidly slithering runs and two-part harmonics of Xenakis' Theraps, a piece which Guy himself described as taking the player 'to the edge ... and beyond'. An area on the double bass where there's hardly a better guide than Barry Guy." Irish Times
"For a complete contrast, Guy played five short improvisations he called Fizzles. Adding to his impressively varied repertoire of plucked and bowed sounds, he used a whole table full of paintbrushes and drumsticks, even the kind of wire brush that swing drummers use to create a soft wash for a romantic ballad. He performed the piece at breakneck pace, his hands moving over the entire course of the five-string bass from scroll to tailpiece in a blur, hands and fingers flashing like stroboscopic lightning bolts. Even more incredible than this display of superb athleticism, the music that came out was intelligible, intricate and altogether fascinating." Stephen Pederson, Halifax, Nov. 1999
"... The visual or theatrical element is always present, especially in the bewildering complexity of his hand movements ... Barry Guy strays right to the edge of music and beyond, where only the bravest will follow." Douglas Sealy (Irish Times, April 1999)
"Memo I, written by Bernard Rands and performed by Barry Guy, the bass player with foot on the amplifier control, in an extraordinary display of creative virtuosity." The Guardian
"All his music, like his double bass playing, has a certain style and exuberance: of virtuosity taken to its limits, of sheer guts and fun." Financial Times, London
IRCAM "British take the honours": Barry Guy practically stole the whole week single-handed with the brilliant entertainment of his solo double-bass recital, a superbly packaged selection of virtuoso (including a gritty version of Xenakis's Theraps) and theatrical pieces (bringing the house down with his famous clown piece, Hubert Stuppner's Ausdrucke)" Classical Music
"Bassist and composer Barry Guy is a force of nature. Always on the edge of anarchy, at his best he can pack chaos into concrete structures to make exquisite music. His hugely demanding Concerto for Orchestra Fallingwater reveals both his wildness and his ability to master it." The Times, London October 96
"Barry Guy’s Fallingwater was a glittering orchestral kaleidoscope, according the players a measure of freedom within a rigorously controlled structure." The Independent, London October 96
"Bitz!, as it is called, consists of ten short movements whose proportions are derived from Le Corbusier's Modular: and a definite sense of balance comes across ... the music acquired the intensity of a collection of expressionist woodcuts." The Guardian
"... For those who may harbor the misconception that solo bass recordings are somehow monochromatically monotonous or limited in scope, Fizzles offers compelling evidence to the contrary. Barry Guy has given us one of the most fascinating improvised bass recordings in recent memory. Not for the timid, but it pays huge dividends for the adventurous listener whose ears are open." Carl Baugher, Cadence
"... Barry Guy’s desire to break down the barrier between instrument and musician is best experienced by hearing Fizzles on headphones, which will bring you closer to/inside the instrument's gigantic vibrating body. This is virtuosic technique at one with a highly expressive imagination." Chris Blackford
"Anyone who has seen Guy performing live will know that the double bass bequeathed to us by centuries of musical history is only the foundation of his instrument. He expands its forms, and his playing methods, by any means necessary: specially carved false bridges, brushes, mallets and amplification all come into play as Guy wrestles with his bass, and his body. It makes an immensely exciting visual display. While that aspect of a Guy performance is missing from Fizzles, his immense musicality is not. Nor is his slyly playful humour. The range of sound Guy gets from his instruments would make Mingus mutter, but the sound is always subject to the immediate logic of the moment. Fizzles is an exhilarating display of one musician's pursuit of that logic, wherever it leads him. Nick Kimberley
"Barry Guy, who is devoted to old music as to jazz and avant-garde, masters his instrument with incredible bravura." Neue Zeit, Graz
"Guy impresses yet again as one of the best bassists of his generation." Melody Maker
"And in addition, Barry Guy happens to be a genuine virtuoso, one of the best soloists in jazz." New Statesman
Es ist einerseits die souveräne, nie in Effekthascherei abdriftende Instrumentalistik, andererseits die zwingende Ereignishaftigkeit seiner musikalischen Fantasie, die diesen bestechenden Bassisten, Improvisator & Komponisten auszeichnet. Außergewöhnlich ist zu dem, mit welchem Gespür für Spannungsinhalte Guy organisch Erfahrungen mit klassischer Musik (Alte wie Neue) und Erforschungen im Bereich der freien Improvisation zu einem Individualstil zusammenführen kann. Guy ist zweifellos ein vor keinem Risiko zurückscheuender Spontanerfinder, der die Aggregatzustände seiner Musik bestechend zu variieren weiß. Von aufbrausender Vitalität fast bis zum Stillstand. Hierfür streicht und zupft Guy, jeden Quadratzentimeter seines Instrumentes nützend, flächige Entwicklungen,bei denen sich die Klangmassen in unterschiedlichen Tempi und unterschiedlicher Dichte ineinander wälzen, heraus, und im Gegensatz scharfkantige Mosaike, in denen die Symmetrie der Spannung der Außermittigkeit frönt. An extraordinary guy. Hannes Schweiger
Barry Guy: Five Fizzles For Samuel Beckett by John Sharpe
Not to be confused with Fizzles (Maya, 1993), which contains the first documented version of the titular work along with other pieces for solo bass, Five Fizzles for Samuel Beckett is a 14 minute limited edition EP which does what it says on the tin. Virtuoso British bassist Barry Guy has long drawn inspiration from other art forms, especially writings and visual works. Beckett wrote eight texts between 1960 and 1976, seven written in French (under the title Foirades which was translated as "Fizzles," although it also possesses other meanings, including notably "wet fart" as Beckett was well aware) and one, "Still," in English.
In an interview with Declan O'Driscoll published in Music & Literature No. 4 (2014) Guy explains: "Each Fizzle is a short compressed outburst -literary chamber music of great power and beauty. It occurred to me that these "outbursts" could form the basis for little improvisations , each dedicated to particular bass colors and articulations. I have variously performed them in sets of three, five, or seven according to the program at hand. I find them to be a motivator for precise thinking and musical rhetoric."
While Beckett's pieces can be analyzed in terms of phrase length and language, Guy has further parameters at his disposal: speed, volume, and the choice of whether to attack the strings with bow, fingers or other implements. These he combines to realize five concise contrasting exhibitions of dazzling technique which deliver a visceral impact. Close recording at a concert in Vilnius the Lithuanian capital, in 2011, allows full appreciation of the nuances which Guy achieves both with and without his volume pedal.
Although "Fizzle I" largely comprises swooping arco glissandi in perpetual motion, it incorporates a brief lyrically keening interlude, which gives it the flavor of a miniature three part suite. While maintaining similar momentum, in "Fizzle II" Guy bounces either a stick or his bow off the strings to create a stream of tiny koto-like tics, interspersed with silence before closing by hitting the strings and letting the harmonics resound.
"Fizzle III" features strummed tremolos with ringing outliers, while "Fizzle IV" begins with deep resonant slurs before flurries of dense pizzicato sweep between both ends of the fingerboard. "Fizzle V" passes in a litany of abrasive approaches, at times violent and scratchy, but when Guy introduces a second voice with his bow more mysterious and austere.
Presenting the music in such bite size chunks encourages intense concentration without the risk of it ever becoming a daunting exercise. It's time well spent. Track Listing: Fizzle I; Fizzle II; Fizzle III; Fizzle IV; Fizzle V.