02.07.2023

Music

Barre Phillips & Giancarlo nino Locatelli - Danze degli scorpioni

Dark moon music.

If you are interested in the moon.

Music concentrated in the process of discovering music, taking any risk. Extreme.

How extreme is the exploration of one’s instruments, body, memories and stories.

Vibrant, fast but at the same time calm music; slow.

In search of the sound. Of movement that becomes sound. Of sound that becomes voice.

That becomes movement.

We dedicate this music to Coleman Hawkins, master improviser.

When the musician plays from a certain (some constant) layer of imagination

then through some balance of action and reception

the music can render a similar layer of imagination open in the listener.

It is so complex the way music moves us both physically and emotionally

but in these pieces of Barre and Nino’s the effects are so simple. We are taken

even before any wondering to where we might be going.

And once mobile, we cohabit in the river they produce.

The reciprocity of our imagination.

Of all the many concerts i have had the fortune to attend, i remember this one

clearly as a bell and physically as a vaulted building, a construction in space,

free of birds... but full of being human.

A wheel and a stick

a barn door and a latch

a coat and a nail on the back of the door

a goat and a rockface

a boat and the surface of the water

a film of objects arrive in my imagination asking

if they might accompany this music.

Mischief and compassion.

And of the bass and the reeds… do they lean on each other?... who cares

do they follow one another?... who cares

We care simply that together they bring

landscape and feelings,

memories…

or simply a knock on the door

to where memories and feelings are housed within us.

I long for this music, for its next note

and yet am also satisfied with each sound...

each note and each chord, when it arrives.

Mischief and compassion.

The flick of the tail

the nature of the beast

sharp and mellow

and you never know which is next.

…

For these two musicians, listening is queen;

here the space for song is placed in silence;

here the ears lead and the tongue follows

here the ears dictate and the fingers oblige.

Here notes don‘t knock to enter

they slide into being

like spaces in an animated conversation.

“is it you or is it I“

said the apple to the tree

“is it I or is it you“

said the foot to the shoe

“we shall forever be“

said solid land to salty sea

Mischief and compassion.

— Julyen Hamilton

WE ARE NOT A BAND ON THE MARKET PLACE

“We are not a band on the market place”, that’s what Barre told me after our concert in Ulrichsberg. We were very happy with ourselves and the music, they asked us for two encores, but every festival we would do as a duo would be one less opportunity to complete the course, which had not yet come to an end, with the trio he had with Urs Leimgruber and Jaques Demierre.

Such seriousness, respect for work, for people!

Barre could not take on the commitment of looking after a new group.

I was both annoyed and admiring. I really regretted not being able to promote our duo, except in occasional situations and outside the festival circuit. But at the same time, I understood his motives well, and I could only agree. The practice of multiplying the number of collaborations out of all proportion was the cause, and is even more so today, of the lack of depth of so many performances and publications.

I knew that I would miss the confrontation with a musician who was stronger than me, as I told him in our conversation after the concert. We no longer crossed paths musically, but we heard from each other from time to time, always with much affection. Barre transmitted and taught me so much. Even by not playing with me.

I wish I could still play with him but “we are not a band on the market place”.

— Giancarlo nino Locatelli, February 2023

Barre Phillips (October 1934, San Francisco) is an American jazz and impro music double bass player. A professional musician since 1960, he moved to New York in 1962, then to Europe in 1967. Since 1972 he has been based in southern France where he founded the European Improvisation Centre. He studied briefly in 1959 with S. Charles Siani, Assistant Principal Bassist with the San Francisco Symphony. During the 1960s among others he recorded with Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Giuffre, Archie Sheep, Lee Konitz and Marion Brown. Phillips’ 1968 recording of solo bass improvisations, issued as “Journal Violone” in USA is generally credited as the first solo bass record. “Music from two basses”, a 1971 record with Dave Holland, was probably the first record of improvised double bass duets. In the 1970s he was member of the well-regarded and influential group The Trio, with saxophonist John Surman and drummer Stu Martin. In the 1980s and 1990s he played regularly with the London Jazz Composers Orchestra, led by fellow bassist Barry Guy. He worked on soundtracks of the motion pictures Merry-Go-Round in 1981 and Naked Lunch together with Ortnette Coleman in 1991. He also worked among others with Peter Kowald, Joelle Leandre, Derek Bailey, Peter Brötzman, Evan Parker and Joe Manieri.

Giancarlo nino Locatelli (clarinets, 2nd level certified soundpainter) was born on 12th November 1961. He received his first music lessons from his father, an accordionist, studied piano and, in 1985, graduated in clarinet. Among the musicians with whom he played and/or recorded with are S. Lacy, B. Phillips, J.J Avenel, J. Betsch, I. Aebi, G. Robair, W. Fuchs, P. Lovens, P. Kowald, F. Grillo, T. Lehn, F. Monico, M. Falascone, A. Bosetti, G. Schiaffini, C. Calcagnile, S. Piccolo, E. Sharp, Z. Parkins, W. Leo Smith, A. Baars, I. Henneman, T. Delius. He has often collaborated and works with poets and performers such as F. Beltrametti, T. Raworth, D. Villa, M. O’Hara, A. Ruchat. He has produced original music for several theatre companies.
With actor Antonello Cassinotti he has been investigating the relationship between word and sound for more than twenty years. “Ohtuchemisuicidi” is the last work produced, starting from Van Gogh by Artaud. In 2011 he presented So Long!, a solo concert on compositions by Steve Lacy at “Battiti” by Rai Radio3 and “Jazz not dead” by Radio Popolare Roma. In 2013 he recorded a solo on the Bb clarinet on compositions by Steve Lacy, in which Situations is included, a piece never recorded by Steve and which gives the title to the work. Since 2014 he has been part of the Multikulti group (Calcagnile, Botti, Falascone, Locatelli, Mitelli, Mirra, Evangelista), Cristiano Calcagnile’s octet dedicated to the music of Don Cherry. With Multikulyi and the electroacoustic group MRCA (Calcagnile, Falascone, Locatelli) he took part in Clusone Jazz 2015.
In 2011 (Libramont) 2014 (Girona) and 2015 (Paris) he participated in Think Tank , the annual international meeting of Soundpainters, organized and directed by W. Thompson. In 2016 and 2017, with the irreplaceable collaboration of Maestro Davide Gualtieri, he organized the Think Tank at the G. Verdi Conservatory in Milan.
He has been collaborating with pianist A. since 1996. Braida and the duo is currently involved in various projects.
He has formed the group Pipeline 8 (Locatelli, Alberto Braida, Luca Tilli, Sebastiano Tramontana, Gianmaria Aprile, Andrea Grossi, Cristiano Calcagnile, Gabriele Mitelli) with whom he recorded live in November 2016 in Pisa Jazz “prayer” to music by Steve Lacy and is working on a project on original pieces based on poems by Tom Raworth.  With Trio Pipeline, A.Grossi and C.Calcagnile, he recorded the “Kakuan suite.”