"What I can recall is that the extra double bass did not distract from Biggi’s usual tasteful use of space. There was also a buoyancy that is also present in this quartet that took the music into different realms." - Russell Summers, who was at the concert.
When Bill Dixon said each person is their own orchestra, it took me a bit to get my head around what he meant.
The access to so many timbres and registers the contemporary improviser has can be used to make space in the music without the use of silence. An improviser can re-orchestrate themselves in the moment thereby leaving an open space where they were before. The traditional concept of the drum set always had this extreme register change in it, which is why drummers like Peeter Uuskyla can access this idea with no problem.
It also explains why the addition of Ken Filiano opens up the trio futher rather than adding density. Both bassists work on each side of an imaginary "bass part", Alan Silva once talked about the bass being able to cover the full range of the string family, it always seemed to be that in a small "jazz group" format, we bassists role was actually the string section and not just the low end. Of course, each of these traditional ideas has all the abstractions of the various movements within improvised music piled on and around them.
Anyone interested in this will know the history of Barre and Ken and their vital importance to the instrument, so I won't recount it all here. While I have played with Ken and taken lessons from both bassists, Biggi has been an important comrade in the music for me for years. If I had to pick one insight in her playing, it would be the ability to find pitch and melodic material in the most complex timbre combinations. She might be working with pitch, but it is not imposed or expected that her fellow improvisers do the same, it is similar to the way diverse pianists like Cecil Taylor, Georg Graewe, Fred Van Hove & John Tilbury are able to work in harmonic material from the keyboard into similarly texturally complex situations without having to get under the hood of the piano.
I think this gets back to an interesting concept in improvised music guitarist Sandy Ewen calls real vs. imagined sounds: The improviser tends to play "real" sounds based on exactly what they are as opposed to an imagined ideal. Pitch comes into play as well, a pitch played by one of the basses might be a harmony with a non-tempered pitch from drum set. You end up with a multidimensional tuning system that ultimately bridges the overtone series to western tempered tuning with many stops along the way! Damon Smith, St. Louis, MO
1. I Ere 12:40
2. II Saphéne 05:10
3. III Ode 25:29
4. IV Hoca 11:11
5. V Ithos 07:17
Live board recording (2-track DAT-cassette) by Simon Garber at Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Canada on July 1, 1999
Edit, transfer and mastering made in May, 2020 at Studio Fabriken, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Alto saxophone and flute: Biggi Vinkeloe
Double bass: Barre Phillips
Double bass: Ken Filiano
Drums: Peeter Uuskyla
Transfer, edit and mastering: Peeter Uuskyla and Michael Thorén
