Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London)[1] is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses
early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras in the UK and Europe. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music under
Buxton Orr, and later taught there.[2]
Guy came to the fore as an improvising bassist as a member of a trio with pianist
Howard Riley and drummer
Tony Oxley (Witherden, 1969). He also became an occasional member of
John Stevens' ensembles in the 1960s and 1970s, including the
Spontaneous Music Ensemble. In the early 1970s, he was a member of the influential free improvisation group
Iskra 1903 with
Derek Bailey and trombonist
Paul Rutherford (a project revived in the late 1970s, with violinist
Philipp Wachsmann replacing Bailey). He also formed a long-standing partnership with saxophonist
Evan Parker, which led to a trio with drummer
Paul Lytton which became one of the best-known and most widely travelled free-improvising groups of the 1980s and 1990s. He was briefly a member of the
Michael Nyman Band in the 1980s, performing on the soundtrack of The Draughtsman's Contract.[1]
Career
London Jazz Composers' Orchestra
Guy's interests in improvisation and formal composition received their grandest form in the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra. Originally formed to perform Guy's composition Ode in 1972 (released as a 2-LP set on Incus and later, in expanded form, as a 2-CD set on Intakt), it became one of the great large-scale European improvising ensembles.[1] Early documentation is spotty – the only other recording from its early years is Stringer (FMP, now available on Intakt paired with the later "Study II") – but, beginning in the late 1980s, the Swiss label Intakt set out to document the band more thoroughly. The result was a series of ambitious, album-length compositions designed to give all the players in the band maximum opportunity for expression, while still preserving a rigorous sense of form: Zurich Concerts (with
Anthony Braxton), Harmos, Double Trouble (originally written for an encounter with
Alexander von Schlippenbach's
Globe Unity Orchestra, though the eventual CD was just for the LJCO), Theoria (a concerto for guest pianist
Irène Schweizer), Portraits (a 2-CD set of musical portraits of the band members and their internal groupings), Three Pieces, and Double Trouble Two. The group's activities subsided in the mid-1990s, but it was never formally disbanded, and reconvened in 2008 for a one-off concert in Switzerland. In the mid-1990s Guy also created a second, smaller ensemble, the Barry Guy New Orchestra.[2]
Other activities
Guy has also written for other large improvising ensembles, such as the NOW Orchestra and ROVA (the piece Witch Gong Game inspired by images by the visual artist
Alan Davie).
His current improvising activities include piano trios with
Marilyn Crispell and
Agusti Fernandez. He has also recorded several albums for ECM, which often focus on the interface between improvisers and electronics, including his work in Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble and his own Ceremony.
Guy's session work in the pop field includes playing double bass on the song "Nightporter", from the
Japan album Gentlemen Take Polaroids.
He is married to the early music violinist
Maya Homburger. After spending some years in Ireland, they now live in Switzerland. They run the small label Maya, which releases a variety of records in the genres of free improvisation, baroque music and contemporary composition.
In 2016, Guy was appointed Honorary Professor at the
Rhythmic Music Conservatory (RMC) in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he periodically conducts workshops and master classes.[3]
Style
Guy's jazz work is characterised by free improvisation, using a range of unusual playing methods: bowed and
pizzicato sounds beneath the bass's bridge; plucking the strings above the left hand; beating the strings with percussion instrument mallets; and "preparing" the instrument with sticks and other implements inserted between the strings and fingerboard. His improvisations are often percussive and unpredictable, inhabiting no discernible harmonic territory and pushing into unknown regions. However, they can also be melodious and tender with due regard for harmonic integration with other players, and at times he will even play with a straight jazz swing feel.
Similarly, in his concert works, Guy manages to alternate harmonic and rhythmic complexity worthy of 1960s experimentalists such as
Penderecki and
Stockhausen with joyous, often ecstatic, melody. Works such as "Flagwalk" for string orchestra and "Fallingwater – Concerto for Orchestra" display Guy's compositional skill in handling extended forms and writing for large instrumental groups.
Some of his compositions, such as "Witch Gong Game" for ensemble, use
graphic notation in conjunction with cue cards to lead performers into playing and improvising material from numbered sections of the score.
He is also an architect.
Concert works
Orchestra
Incontri (1970)
Anna (1974)
Flagwalk (1974)
Songs from Tomorrow (1975)
Voyages of the Moon (1983)
The Eye of Silence (1988)
UM 1788 (1989)
After the Rain (1992)
Concerto for Orchestra: "Fallingwater" (1996)
Large ensemble (seven or more players)
Bitz! (1979)
D (1972)
Look Up! (1991)
Play (1976)
Soloists and large ensemble (seven or more players)
Statements II – Ex (1979)
Works for 2–6 Players
Bubblets (1998)
Buzz (1994)
Eos X (1976)
The Eye of Silence (1989)
Four Miniatures (1969)
Games (for All Ages) (1973)
Mobile Herbarium (1992)
Pfiff (1979)
Redshift (1998)
rondOH! (1985)
String Quartet No.2 (1970)
Un Coup de Dés (1994)
Whistle and Flute (1985)
Solo works (excluding keyboard)
Celebration (1994)
Statements II (1972)
Solo voices and up to six players
Remembered Earth (1992)
The Road to Ruin (1986)
String Quartet No.3 (1973)
Waiata (1980)
Eos (1978)
Kingdom (1992)
No Man's Land (1974)
Video Life (1986)
Music for film or television
Breaking the Surface (1986)
Electroacoustic works
Hold Hands and Sing (1978)
These works are published by Chester Novello, UK, and further information may be found on their Barry Guy page.[4]
Recordings
Solo
Statements V-XI for double bass and violone (1976), Incus 22 – Early solo playing
Assist, Jazz & NOW 4 (1985) – Solos plus a long duo improvisation with Fred Van Hove
Fizzles (1993), Maya MCD 9301 – Solo double bass and chamber bass
Symmetries (2002), Maya MCD 0201 – Solo double bass
Vade Mecum II (1993), Soul Note 121211 – With Bill Dixon
1994, Study – Witch Gong Game (1994), Maya MCD 9402 – Barry Guy and the NOW Orchestra
Nickelsdorf Konfrontation (1995), Silkheart 143 – Joel Futterman-Kidd Jordan Quintet
Sensology (1995), Maya MCD 9701 – Duo with Paul Plimley
The Secret Magritte (1995), Black Saint 120177-2 – Larry Ochs with Lisle Ellis, Barry Guy, Chris Brown, Marilyn Crispell, William Winant, Rova Sax Quartet
Social security (1996), Victo cd043 – Mario Schiano
Extremely Quartet Hat (1996), ART CD 6199 – John Law
Hilliard songbook: new music for voices (1997), ECM New Series 1614/15 – Hilliard Ensemble with Barry Guy bass
Gudira (1998), Nuscope Recordings 1003 – with Robert Dick and Randy Raine-Reusch
Bingo (1998), Victo CD056 – Rova Saxophone Quartet, composition: Witch Gong Game by Barry Guy (Guy does not play)
Sit fast (1998), Virgin Classics 7243 – Fretwork, composition: Buzz by Barry Guy (Guy does not play)
Lux aeterna (2000), ECM 1695 – Thomas and Patrick Demenga, cello; includes composition Redshift by BG (Guy does not play)
Fayka (2001), Enja ENJ-9447 2 – Duos with Mahmoud Turkmani
2 of 2 (2001), SOFA 510 – Tri-Dim + Barry Guy (+ Jim O'Rourke)
Total Music Meeting 2002 (2002), Audiology II, a/l/l 006 – Compilation CD of 11 groups live in Berlin
Grain (2002?), DotDotDot Music 003 – One (very) short solo track on this compilation
November Music 2003 (2003), November Music NM 007 – One track on compilation CD
Barry Witherden: "Conversation Pieces", in: Jazz Monthly, April 1969, pp. 8–10 (an article describing Guy's playing style as a member of the Howard Riley Trio of the late 1960s).
Benjamin Dwyer: "An Interview with Barry Guy", in: B. Dwyer: Different Voices. Irish Music and Music in Ireland (Hofheim: Wolke Verlag, 2014), p. 133–142.
Maya Recordings The website of Maya Recordings, Maya Homburger and Barry Guy. Featuring articles, biographies, discographies, news & diary, reviews and photogallery.