Michel Portal - Alors !​!​! (September 10, 2021 souffle continu records)

Could the missing link between Eric Dolphy and Albert Ayler be the Michel Portal of 1970? After having worked alongside François Tusques defending a free jazz “made in France”, we find him here, heading up an international quintet of which each member is on fire: John Surman, Barre Phillips, Stu Martin and Jean-Pierre Drouet. The quintet had full leeway to break out the free-form in long ambient tracks to compose this Alors!!! which leaves listeners with just one word to say: More!

Do we still need to present Michel Portal?... Clarinetist destined for the classical and contemporary world after his passage in the Paris Conservatory, he decided to try his hand at jazz, with an incendiary flamboyance! After his first experience with André Hodeir and Pierre Michelot, he would break all the codes with François Tusques (Free Jazz, in 1965) before starting the emblematic Michel Portal Unit. It is the Portal of those years that Alors!!! offers us the chance to listen to again.

“There are periods of insolence”, the musician declared and the year 1970 was one all on its own. Heading up an impetuous international troupe, a quintet consisting of John Surman (saxophones, bass clarinet), Barre Phillips (double-bass), Stu Martin (drums) and Jean-Pierre Drouet (percussion), Portal moves from alto sax to clarinet in the compositions shared with his partners.

From the off, the group sparks an explosion with the sound of “OO Bam Ba Deep” battered by the horns and percussion. Next up is the fabulous free jazz of “Yes, Oh Yes, You Wonderous Sun Kissed Maiden!” and the fantastic disjointed march of “Ça Boom?” which shakes up the musicians every which way. The quintet imagined that listeners would need to catch their breath, and thoughtfully added: “Billie the Kid” and “Undercurrent”, marvelous moments of ambient mystery.

Audacious from beginning to end, including the sleeve – the bird-man and his quintet brain designed by Avoine, –, the album is a fabulous object, to which the label Futura gave wings at the time. And as it is being reissued today there is just one word to use: the French translation of the title, So!!! 

1. Oo Bam Ba Deep 05:18

2. Billie The Kid 01:57

3. Yes, Oh Yes, You Wonderous Sun-Kissed Maiden 14:04

4. Ça Boom? 00:56

5. Y En A Marre 05:40

6. Undercurrent 05:36

7. New Peace 02:02

8. Ça Boom ! 07:52

PREORDER

Biggi Vinkeloe / Barre Phillips / Ken Filiano / Peeter Uuskyla - The Forgotten Song (April 2021)

"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

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Biggi Vinkeloe / Barre Phillips / Peeter Uuskyla Trio - MBAT (April 2021)

1. Schnee Hat´s 08:48

2. Mbat 09:49

3. Fita 05:00

4. Nuit d´ êtê 08:49

5. Fenska 03:22

6. Fragments 11:35

7. Sri Lanka 08:58

8. Blue Wind 09:43

Recorded April 21, 1993 at Swedish Broadcasting Corporation Music Production Umeå, Sweden. LJ Records originally relesased the album 1994.

Alto sax, flute: Biggi Vinkeloe

Double bass: Barre Phillips

Drums, percussion and original cover design: Peeter Uuskyla

Recording engineer: Bo Andersin

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Barre Phillips - End To End (ECM 2018)

Barre Phillips was the first musician to record an album of solo double bass, back in 1968, and he has always been an absolute master of the solo idiom. In March 2017, Barre recorded what he says will be his last solo album, the final chapter of his “Journal Violone”: it is a beautiful and moving musical statement. All the qualities we associate with Barre’s playing are here in abundance – questing adventurousness, melodic invention, textural richness, developmental logic, and deep soulfulness. End to End was recorded at Studios-La-Buissonne in the south of France, and produced by Manfred Eicher. It is issued in both CD and LP formats.

Barre Phillips, Double Bass

TRACKLIST

BARRE PHILLIPS - QUEST

1 (Part 1) 02:38

2 (Part 2) 02:21

3 (Part 3) 03:14

4 (Part 4) 04:33

5 (Part 5) 02:36

BARRE PHILLIPS - INNER DOOR

Play 6 (Part 1) 02:35

7 (Part 2) 02:51

8 (Part 3) 02:20

9 (Part 4) 05:48

BARRE PHILLIPS - OUTER WINDOW

10 (Part 1) 02:18

11 (Part 2) 06:12

12 (Part 3) 02:43

Barre Phillips | Motoharu Yoshizawa 吉沢元治 - Oh My, Those Boys! (NO BUSINESS RECORDS 2018)

1. Oh My! 54:59

2. Those Boys! 20:19

Barre Phillips - bass

Motoharu Yoshizawa 吉沢元治 - homemade electric vertical five-strings bass

Recorded live on the 5th April 1994 at Café Amores, Hofu, Yamaguchi, Japan by Takeo Suetomi / Concert produced by Takeo Suetomi

Compositions by Barre Phillips and Motoharu Yoshizawa

Mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios

Photos by Akihiro Matsumoto

Design by Oskaras Anosovas

Produced by Danas Mikailionis and Takeo Suetomi (Chap Chap Records)

Release coordinator - Kenny Inaoka (Jazz Tokyo)

Co-producer - Valerij Anosov