Barney Wilen

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Bernard Jean "Barney" Wilen (born March 4, 1937 in Nice ; † May 25, 1996 in Paris ) was a French musician ( soprano , tenor saxophone and composition ) of modern jazz .

Live and act

Wilen was the son of a French woman and an American and moved to the United States in 1940. In 1946 he returned to France and played in a family band ( cousin orchestra ) that performed at festivals in the Nice area. From 1950 he accompanied traveling jazz musicians. He worked u. a. with the musicians John Lewis , Roy Haynes , Nico Bunink and Bud Powell . In 1953 he and his quartet won an amateur band competition in the cool jazz category . At that time he was still studying law, but was already established in the jazz scene. After recording with Sacha Distel , Miles Davis brought him in 1957 to record the soundtrack for the Louis Malle film “ Elevator to the Scaffold ”, which appeared on the album Ascenseur pour l'échafaud . It was with this film music that he became famous, but was also a little specialized in this genre: “ Dangerous Liaisons ” (as a guest at Thelonious Monk ( Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 ) and Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers ), “ Un témoin dans la ville ” and George Gruntz '" Emotional Cruelty " are further film scores with the instrumentalist Barney Wilen. In 1959 he traveled to the United States, where he performed at the Newport Jazz Festival . In the same year he appeared at the Festival Internazionale del Jazz di Sanremo and in 1960 (with Waldi Heidepriem ) at the Frankfurt Festival . In the same year he played in Paris with Jean-Louis Chautemps .

In the mid-1960s he also turned to free jazz. He also experimented with electroacoustic possibilities : the Barney Wilen Quartet improvised on the documentary by François de Ménil about the 25th Grand Prix Automobile de Monaco in 1967 (in which Lorenzo Bandini was fatally injured) and light installations by Etienne Oléari . This production was performed in 1968 as part of the Berlin Jazz Festival in the Berlin Academy of the Arts , but also in New York (there in the presence of Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg ). It was also documented on an LP, Auto Jazz , for MPS . He also performed the Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature by George Russell in 1970 in Berlin.

He also began to be interested in non-European music: Joachim E. Berendt brought him in 1967 for the production of Jazz Meets India with Indian musicians at the Donaueschinger Musiktage and the Berlin Festival. In the same year he improvised electroacoustically over music by Ravi Shankar at the Free Jazz Meeting Baden-Baden . In 1969 he went on a study trip to Africa; the first in 2013 published album Moshi Too , like its 1972 predecessor published (the fusion album Moshi with Michel Graillier and Micheline Pelzer ) a result of this confrontation with the African music culture. As early as 1968 Wilen experimented in the jazz-rock sector, a. a. 1968 with Barney Wilen and His Amazing Free Rock Band (with Joachim Kühn , Mimi Lorenzini , Günter Lenz and Aldo Romano ), which also appeared in Germany and recorded the LP Dear Prof. Leary - a homage to Timothy Leary .

In the 1980s he moved back to his old home in Nice , where he still composed film scores for the films Triaden des Kusses (1989) and Le coeur fantôme (1996). Some of his recordings have only been released in Japan and have become expensive collector's items as LPs .

He also worked as a sound engineer, u. a. for Archie Shepp .

In 1958 he received the Prix ​​Django Reinhardt . The comic book Barney et la Note Bleue (1987) by Jacques de Loustal and Philippe Paringaux is loosely based on Wilen's life.

Discography (selection)

  • Barney Wilen Quintet Jazztone (F) J1239 (released as CD: Fresh Sound (E) FSR-CD 48, with Hubert Fol , Nico Bunink, Lloyd Thompson , Al Levitt )
  • Tilt (1957) Swing (F) LDM30.058 (also released as CD)
  • Milt Jackson / Percy Heath / Barney Wilen / Kenny Clarke Jazz sur Seine (1958) Philips (F) P77127L (also published as CD: EmArcy (F) 548317-2)
  • Un témoin dans la ville (1959) Fontana (F) 660226HR (also published as CD: Fontana 832658-2)
  • Barney (1960) RCA (F) 430053 (published as CD: BMG (F) 74321-454092)
  • Eje Thelin with Barney Wilen (1966) Dragon DRCD 366
  • Zodiac (1966) Vogue (with Karl Berger , Jean-François Jenny-Clark , Jacques Thollot )
  • François Tusques , Barney Wilen Le Nouveau Jazz (1967) Disques Mouloudji
  • Auto Jazz: Tragic Destiny of Lorenzo Bandini , MPS (D) 15164ST (1968, with François Tusques, Beb Guérin , Eddy Gaumont)
  • Dear Prof. Leary , MPS 15191 (1968)
  • Barney Wilen & Mal Waldron French Story Alfa Jazz (J) ALCR-7 (1979)
  • Barney Wilen & Dièse 440 Live In Paris , Marge / Impro 07 (1983)
  • La Note Bleue , IDA Records / OMD (1986)
  • French Ballads , IDA Records (1987)
  • Moshi Too , Sonorama Records (2013)
  • Live in Tokyo '91 (Elemental Muaic, ed. 2019)

Lexigraphic entries

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andrew Wright Hurley The Return of Jazz: Joachim-Ernst Berendt and West German Cultural Change New York: Berghahn 2009, p. 112f.
  2. ^ Andrew Wright Hurley The Return of Jazz: Joachim-Ernst Berendt and West German Cultural Change New York: Berghahn 2009, p. 196
personal data
SURNAME Wilen, Barney
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilen, Bernard Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French jazz musician (tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, composition)
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Nice
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1996
Place of death Paris