Barre Phillips End To End

180g Vinyl LP!
Final Album On Vinyl LP!
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 this journey: it is a beautiful and moving musical statement. All the qualities we associate with his 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.
"Any listener with the patience for these pieces to unfold and allow themselves to be transported by the power of a single performer’s ability to entertain will find new worlds to explore on subsequent listens." - Ed Enright, Downbeat (Editor’s pick)
"The now 83-year-old Barre Phillips compares his album 'End to End' with the last pages of a diary. With 'Journal Violone' from 1968, we owe the philosopher on the double bass the first bass solo album in jazz history. Now the Californian native has recorded his officially last solo work in his long-standing adopted home of southern France. In thirteen chapters, the five core pieces of which reveal an amazing song character, it became a moving testimony of the lifelong persistent search for what has never been heard like this before. [...] In the three cycles overwritten with 'Search', 'Inner Door' and 'Window to the outside', which are like steps to cognition, amazing things consistently happen. Once again, it turns out that the pioneers of the jazz avant-garde are far ahead of many of today's image strikers in their progressive thinking about improvisation." - Karl Lippegaus, Westdeutscher Rundfunk
"Phillips’ solitary recital offers up an invaluable aperture into what a lifetime spent mastering an instrument sounds like. Whether the finished folio is actually his final formally-recorded voyage with the solo format ultimately matters not given both the copious body of work that precedes it and Phillips’ unstated, but no less discernible assurances that musical expression is still very much a part of his artistic fiber and polestar. Bass aficionados and neophytes take note: this is a set that meets exacting muster with the exemplars of the increasingly populous format of solo four-string exposition." - Derek Taylor, Dusted
"There is no missing the depth and thoughtfulness of the playing, which moves between extended passages of pizzicato seeking, percussive thrumming of the strings with the bow and singing arco lines. The bassist had five planned areas of exploration in mind when the recording began, but the album also includes its fair share of spontaneous material. […] Then as now, however, the playing is singular." - Peter Margasak, Downbeat
"According to the artist himself, this offering is a valedictory statement and, if so, it is a stunning way to sign off. As with a virtuoso on any instrument Phillips can catch the ear with a single note or relatively simple phrase, but it is his poise, self-possession and desire to work with space and silence, rather than rush to fill it, that makes this work so compelling. There is such clarity in both the developmental path and the ambience of each piece, possibly a fringe benefit from Phillips’ extensive work in film music […] Free of superficial pyrotechnics, this is a masterfully measured work that should appeal as much to lovers of song as to students of sound." - Kevin Le Gendre, Jazzwise
"Across 13 concise unaccompanied tracks, Phillips explores a striking array of textures — ghostly bowed lines that can sound almost flutelike, percussive tapping of the strings, abstract melodies that unfold leisurely — all captured with disarming intimacy. Phillips says ‘End to End’ is his final solo album; if so, he couldn’t have hoped for a purer distillation of his genre-transcending art." - Hank Shteamer, Rolling Stone
"The new album is gorgeous. Beautifully recorded, Phillips’ sense of form, sublime tone and harmonic imagination take us on a gradually unfolding journey. This is mostly freely improvised music – Phillips mentions in the liner notes that he had ‘five areas of prepared material, five ‘songs’ I wanted to explore’ - but tends to a very tonal and compositional approach. […] Most pieces explore one sound area patiently for the duration of the track. The pieces are fairly short for freely improvised music, mostly under 3 minutes with the longest just over 6. The overall impact is a meditative, entrancing experience – a fully mature artistic statement from a musician who has reached the summing up of his solo development. I’m reminded of a chronological retrospective of Joan Miro at the Tate a few years ago – the first room of the exhibition had paintings rammed full of exhilarating detail. By the final room, the paintings were washes of colour with simple lines, yet the same emotional charge and intensity were compressed into these sparse paintings. While I wouldn’t call Phillips a minimalist, there is something here of the same condensed clarity. Fifty years after inventing the genre, Phillips continues to push the solo double bass into new and beautiful territories." - Olie Brice, London Jazz News
"There aren’t many solo bass albums released and there is probably a reason for that. But when the artist releasing one is acclaimed improviser Barre Phillips, it’s wonderful. Over the course of one five section piece (‘Quest’) and two four part solos (‘Inner Door’, ‘Outer Window’), he explores the huge range and emotional scope of his instrument and its both surprising and powerful to hear all the ways four strings and a big, wide resonant body can be used to make sound." - Stuart Derdeyn, Vancouver Sun
"Legendary double bassist and improviser Barre Phillips writes what is billed as the final chapter in his storied history of solo bass recordings on the aptly titled ‘End To End’. He recorded what is generally regarded as the first solo double bass album in 1968 with ‘Journal Violone (Opus One)’ […] If this really is his last solo double bass statement, Phillips has ended on a high note, in full possession of his powers as player and improviser. ‘End To End’ is a stunning exemplar of solo double bass performance—from the creator of the form, and still the grand master of it." - Mark Sullivan, All About Jazz
"Grandiosely recorded by Gérard de Haro in the studio Buissonne, just two hours away from Phillips’ domicile, the 13 tracks sequenced by Manfred Eicher on three themes radiate subtly mature beauty. Whereby the filigree exploration of prepared material is imperceptibly interwoven with improvisations celebrated in situ. Which is also fascinating in terms of playing technique, because Barre Phillips invents highly variably nuanced timbres whose intensity is incomparable." - Sven Thielmann, Stereo
"The album is divided up into a series of three lengthy pieces, and, from a purely technical perspective, is fascinating to hear in that the high-pitched harmonies contrast markedly with the lower registers, and part of the skill that Phillips possesses is to make that transition appear seamless. Although the material is prepared, Barre Phillips manages to dissect the contents with a distinctive improvised feel and explore them within the setting of a studio, thus offering more of a live mood to proceedings. Some of the parts have an early music feel and there is a strong influence of J.S Bach, while both Corelli and Villa-Lobos are present in his compositions. On part two of, ‘Quest’, for example, the spirit of Bach permeates the music and that is even more pronounced on part five where Bach’s cello suite immediately springs to mind, but not in any derivative sense. With both the extensive and exemplary sleeve notes for this album, ECM is threatening to shed its usual minimalist reputation. However, in the case of Barre Phillips, that is no bad thing at all." - Tim Stenhouse, UK Vibe
"The music sounds relatively dry for the most part, with enough headroom and space to really hear the bass sing and the unhurried lines slowly decay, with harmonics ringing towards the future. Phillips’ breathing is also wonderfully present in certain moments, just above and behind the center of sound. Phillips’ strong, sonorous tones stretch forth from his fingers, reaching deep into the ether. The spartan pizzicato melody that opens ‘Quest’ is slowly repeated with subtle variations before sweeping forward into beautiful arco work that is occasionally thickened with double stops. The last three sections of ‘Quest’ are further explorations of ideas and themes hinted at in Part 1, delicate, delicious pizzicato alternating with restrained arco passages which glance backwards and forwards. ‘Inner Door’ and ‘Outer Window’ follow similar arcs. Describing any of it in detail seems like a crime against nature. This is not the music of a young man. There is an inner sense of serenity and calm that permeates throughout. The music may be un-flashy, but it’s virtuosic in its ability to convey complex ideas through a few, relatively simple themes. Much the way a single pizzicato strike produces a central pitch and an endless series of harmonics, so too does this music develop, as Phillips takes a central idea and runs with it." - David Menestres, Burning Ambulance
"The sound world of Barre Phillips seems almost like a legacy during his lifetime, captured here as if in a burning mirror in three clearly structured multi-part pieces (Ouest, Inner Door, Outer Window) under the motto "End to End", which signals something like the artistic sum of a lifetime's work. In its two dominant manifestations, the instrument shows itself alternately in its dual form like a fascinating tilting figure. Once a jazzy plucked body with impressive resonances, boldly meandering into the quarter tones, not evading the associations with Indian stringed instruments (sitar). On the other hand, as a delicately sonorous string instrument with sophisticated melisms and adventurous flageolet effects. The central musical categories rhythm and melody are presented here separately as well as the opposites sound and noise, whereby the double bass can then occasionally sound like a distant thunderstorm. The artist, who is well over 80 years old, proves to be a real experimenter in almost every detail; at the same time, the prudence of his sound research and formations achieves the result of something like crystalline beauty – mature, valid 'classicity'. Is it possible to define the somnambule security with which an artificial terrain – of whatever kind - is measured?" - Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, Faustkultur
"As with a virtuoso on any instrument Phillips can catch the ear with a single note or relatively simple phrase, but it is his poise, self-possession and desire to work with space and silence rather than rush to fill it, that makes this work so compelling. There is such clarity in both the developmental path and the ambience of each piece, possibly a fringe benefit from Phillips’ extensive work work in film music […] Free of superficial pyrotechnics, this is a masterfully measured work that should appeal as much to lovers of song as to students of sound." - Kevin Le Gendre, Gramophone
"The music of the Phillips Bar has never sounded with so much evidence and sincerity, both rich in a mastery of the gesture of absolute purity, and overwhelming fragility. In a kind of integral exposure, the double bass player, especially with the bow, takes his instrument to areas that only the greatest at the end of an existence dedicated to music are able to reach. A very big record." - Stéphane Ollivier, Jazz Magazine

Features:

• 180g Vinyl
• Audiophile High Quality Pressing
• Mastered From Original Analog Source
• Recorded at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes les Fontaines, March 2017
• Made in Germany