Barry Guy

Barry Guy is an innovative bass player and composer whose creative diversity in the fields of jazz improvisation, chamber and orchestral performance and solo recitals is the outcome both of an unusually varied training and a zest for experimentation, underpinned by a dedication to the double bass and the ideal of musical communication.

He is founder and Artistic Director of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra and the BGNO (Barry Guy New Orchestra) for which he has written several extended works. His concert works for chamber orchestras, chamber groups and soloists have been widely performed and his skilful and inventive writing has resulted in an exceptional series of compositions.

Barry Guy continues to give solo recitals throughout Europe as well as continuing associations with colleagues involved in improvised, baroque and contemporary music. His current regular ensembles are the Homburger/Guy duo, the Parker/Guy duo, piano trios with Marilyn Crispell and Paul Lytton, Jaques Demierre and Lucas Niggli and a recently formed trio with Agusti Fernandez and Ramon Lopez. He continues the longstanding trio with Evan Parker and Paul Lytton as well as projects with Mats Gustafsson.

More About this Artist

“Bassist and composer Barry Guy is a force of nature. Always on the edge of anarchy, at his best he can pack chaos into concrete structures to make exquisite music. ”

“... Guy is master of his instrument and servant of a questing imagination that constantly transforms daunting abstraction into the strangely beautiful ... ”
Graham Lock

“... The visual or theatrical element is always present, especially in the bewildering complexity of his hand movements ... Barry Guy strays right to the edge of music and beyond, where only the bravest will follow. ”
The Irish Times

“Guy is, of course, nothing short of a phenomenon, what with his, in the best sense of the word, sagacious blend of passion, all manner of technique, lightning fast response time and multitude of stylistic inferences. ”
Cadence