Home » Jazz Musicians » Barney Wilen

Barney Wilen

Barney Wilen made a strong impression on the Paris scene in the mid 1950s. Wilen was a self taught player and became one of Europe's best and more modern saxophonists.

Bernard Jean Wilen, AKA Barney was born March 4, 1937, in Nice to a French mother and an American father. He studied the alto and, at 16, moved to Paris where he played with Henry Renaud, Bobby Jaspar and Jimmy Gourley He grew up mostly on the French Riviera; the family left during World War II but returned upon its conclusion.

According to Wilen himself, he was convinced to become a musician by his mother's friend, the poet Blaise Cendrars. As a teenager he started a youth jazz club in Nice, where he played often. He moved to Paris in the mid-'50s and worked with such American musicians as Bud Powell, Benny Golson, Miles Davis, and J.J. Johnson at the Club St. Germain. He was very fortunate to tour and record with Miles Davis in 1957. This led to him performing on the soundtrack to the Louis Malle film "Lift to the Scaffold" in 1957. The recording won the Prix Louis Delluc the next year.

Two years later in 1960 he performed with Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk on the soundtrack to Roger Vadim's Les Liaisons Dangereuses. He also appeared at the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival, one of the first non-Americans to do so. During the '60s, Wilen explored with free jazz and Indian music. He appeared at the 1967 Berlin Festival and engineered Archie Shepp's 1969 live performance at the Algiers Festival.

In the late 70's and 80's he returned to playing the ballads of his influences Sonny Rollins and Harold Land leading to him being awarded the Grand Prix Charles Cros in 1987. In the 90's he continued to be active, playing at many European summer jazz festivals and recording. He died of cancer May 25, 1996 in Paris, France. Much of Wilen's later work was documented on the Japanese Venus label. Source: barneywilen.com

Tags

22
Album Review

Miles Davis Quintet: In Concert At The Olympia, Paris 1957

Read "In Concert At The Olympia, Paris 1957" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Another live Miles Davis recording. Well, once the studio outtakes have dried up, this is the only seam left to mine. Happily, with advances in sound technology, old radio broadcasts are increasingly being dusted down and treated to a little digital TLC. Since 1983, Fresh Sounds Records has been a leading light in reissues and archival releases (see Fresh Sound Records and the Legacy of Recorded Jazz), in addition to producing many hundreds of contemporary artists. This one from Jordi ...

7
Album Review

Barney Wilen: Zodiac

Read "Zodiac" reviewed by Chris May


Tenor saxophonist Barney Wilen's Zodiac is the soundtrack for a mid-1960s film that never got off the storyboard. The backstory... Like other French jazzmen who came of age in the second half of the 1950s, Wilen benefited from the penchant nouvelle vague film directors had for jazz soundtracks. Aged twenty years, Wilen cut his filmic teeth in 1957 recording under Miles Davis' musical direction on Louis Malle's Ascenseur Pour l'Echafaud. With Davis and Malle on his c.v., other film work ...

505
Album Review

Barney Wilen and His Amazing Free Rock Band: Dear Prof. Leary

Read "Dear Prof. Leary" reviewed by John Kelman


Any album combining '60s hits like “Ode to Billie Joe" and “Respect" with Ornette Coleman's “Lonely Woman" deserves more than a passing glance. The late French saxophonist Barney Wilen was already thirty-one when he recorded Dear Prof. Leary with His Amazing Free Rock Band in 1968 for the German MPS label. Best-known by then (and, likely, afterwards as well) as Miles Davis' saxophonist on the trumpeter's noir-esque soundtrack to director Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour L'échafaud (1958), Promising Music's reissue of ...

Read more articles
3

Recording

'La Note Bleue,' The Album That Marked The Great Return Of Barney Wilen, Presented In A Stunning Limited Edition Deluxe Box Set

'La Note Bleue,' The Album That Marked The Great Return Of Barney Wilen, Presented In A Stunning Limited Edition Deluxe Box Set

Source: Elemental Music

This deluxe box set presents the original LP La Note Bleue by the Barney Wilen Quintet in a 180-gram virgin vinyl, sounding better than ever after being newly remastered from the original 24-track analog master tapes by the sound engineer that initially recorded the album, Hervé Le Guil, assisted by Daniel Cayotte. La Note Bleue was awarded the Grand Prix Jazz de l’Académie Charles Cros as “The Best French Jazz Album of 1987”, and features Barney Wilen on tenor and ...

1

TV / Film

Barney Wilen and Kenny Dorham

Barney Wilen and Kenny Dorham

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Jazz and French movies were a natural fit in 1950s. The most famous soundtrack is Miles Davis's Ascenseur Pour L'echafaud (Elevator to the Gallows), recorded in Paris in December 1957 with Davis (tp), Barney Wilen (ts), Rene Urtreger (p), Pierre Michelot (b) and Kenny Clarke (d). Almost as well known is Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (Dangerous Affairs 1960), recorded in New York in July 1959 with Charlie Rouse and Barney Wilen (ts), Thelonious Monk (p), Sam Jones (b) and Art ...

1

TV / Film

Barney Wilen and Donald Byrd

Barney Wilen and Donald Byrd

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

In the summer of 1958, the Donald Byrd Quintet arrived in Paris to play at the Au Chat Qui Peche, a Left Bank jazz club. Also that summer, French saxophonist Barney Wilen was approached by film producer Sandro Bocola, who had an idea. In December 1957, Wilen had recorded with Miles Davis on the soundtrack to Elevator to the Gallows. Bocola wanted to make Jazz in Camera, an avant-garde film that would be an updating of Gjon Mili's Jammin' the ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

In Concert At The...

Fresh Sound Records
2023

buy

Zodiac

We Are Busy Bodies
2022

buy

La Note Bleue

Elemental Music
2021

buy

Moshi Too -...

Concord Music Group
2012

buy

Jazz In Camera

Sonorama
2012

buy

Dear Prof. Leary

Promising Music/MPS
2008

buy

Videos

Similar

Lee Konitz
saxophone, alto
Ben Webster
saxophone, tenor
Coleman Hawkins
saxophone, tenor
Gerry Mulligan
saxophone, baritone
Hank Mobley
saxophone, tenor
Benny Carter
saxophone, alto
Paul Gonsalves
saxophone, tenor
Bud Shank
saxophone
Al Cohn
saxophone, tenor
Illinois Jacquet
saxophone, tenor
Don Byas
saxophone, tenor
Arnett Cobb
saxophone, tenor

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.