Barre Phillips's recording "Journal Violone" (Opus One, London, 1968) is the first recorded album of solo free double bass in the history ofjazz.
His move to New York in the 1960s brought him into contact with the free jazz and new music scenes flowering there. ln 1964 he appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein and made his first trip to Europe as part of the George Russell Sextet. ln 1967, during he was offered a role in a French film, a tour of Europe with the Marion Brown Trio and a solo theater music commission in Aix-en-Provence, France.
He has lived in the south of France since 1972. He has composed musicforfilm, ballet and theater, and has recorded some 150 records, forty under his own name. Barre is in constant demand as soloist and improviser, and has played or recorded with Coleman Hawkins, Eric Dolphy, Chick Corea, Benny Golson, Jimmy Giuffre, Ornette Coleman, Joelle Leandre and Cecil Taylor, among others. He is an active teacher and clinician, and is past president of the ISB president.