Derek Bailey (guitarist) explained

Derek Bailey
Birth Date:29 January 1930
Birth Place:Sheffield, England
Death Place:London, England
Genre:Free improvisation, avant-garde, European free jazz
Occupation:Musician, record label owner
Instrument:Guitar
Years Active:1950s–2005
Label:Incus
Associated Acts:Joseph Holbrooke, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Tony Oxley, Evan Parker, Iskra, Company, Jazz Composer's Orchestra, Han Bennink

Derek Bailey (29 January 1930 – 25 December 2005) was an English avant-garde guitarist and an important figure in the free improvisation movement.[1] Bailey abandoned conventional performance techniques found in jazz, exploring atonality, noise, and whatever unusual sounds he could produce with the guitar. Much of his work was released on his own label Incus Records. In addition to solo work, Bailey collaborated frequently with other musicians and recorded with collectives such as Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Company.

Career

Bailey was born in Sheffield, England. A third-generation musician,[2] he began playing guitar at the age of ten. He studied with Sheffield City organist C. H. C. Biltcliffe, an experience he disliked, and with his uncle George Wing and John Duarte. As an adult he worked as a guitarist and session musician in clubs, radio, and dance hall bands, playing with Morecambe and Wise, Gracie Fields, Bob Monkhouse, Kathy Kirby, and on the television program Opportunity Knocks.

Bailey's earliest foray into free improvisation was in 1953 with two guitarists in Glasgow. He was part of a trio founded in 1963 with Tony Oxley and Gavin Bryars called Joseph Holbrooke, named after English composer Joseph Holbrooke, although the group never played his work. The band played conventional jazz at first, but later moved in the direction of free jazz.[3]

In 1966, Bailey moved to London. At the Little Theatre Club run by drummer John Stevens, he met like-minded musicians such as saxophonist Evan Parker, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, and double bassist Dave Holland, with whom he formed the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. In 1968 they recorded Karyobin for Island Records. Bailey formed the Music Improvisation Company with Parker, percussionist Jamie Muir, and Hugh Davies on homemade electronics. The band continued until 1971. He was a member of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra and formed the trio Iskra 1903 with double bassist Barry Guy and trombonist Paul Rutherford that was named after a newspaper published by Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. He was a member of Oxley's sextet until 1973.

In 1970, Bailey founded the record label Incus with Tony Oxley, Evan Parker, and Michael Walters. It was the first musician-owned independent label in the UK. Oxley and Walters left early in the label's history; Parker and Bailey continued as co-directors until the mid-1980s, when friction between them led to Parker's departure. Bailey continued the label with his partner Karen Brookman until his death in 2005.

With other musicians, Bailey was a co-founder in 1975 of Musics magazine, described as "an impromental experivisation arts magazine".[4]

In 1976, Bailey started the collaborative project Company, which at various times included Han Bennink, Steve Beresford, Anthony Braxton, Buckethead, Eugene Chadbourne, Lol Coxhill, Johnny Dyani, Fred Frith, Tristan Honsinger, Henry Kaiser, Steve Lacy, Keshavan Maslak, Misha Mengelberg, Wadada Leo Smith, and John Zorn. Bailey organized the annual music festival Company Week, which lasted until 1994. In 1980, he wrote the book Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice. In 1992, the book was adapted by Channel 4 in the UK into a four-part TV series, On the Edge: Improvisation in Music, which was narrated by Bailey.

Bailey died in London on Christmas Day in 2005. He had been suffering from motor neurone disease.[5]

Music

Throughout both his commercial and improvising careers, Bailey's principal guitar was a 1963 Gibson ES 175 model.[6] Although he occasionally made use of prepared guitar in the 1970s (he would, for example, put paper clips on the strings, wrap his instruments in chains, or add further strings to the guitar), often for Dadaist/theatrical effect, by the end of that decade he had, in his own words, "dumped" such methods.[7] Bailey argued that his approach to music-making was actually far more orthodox than that of performers such as Keith Rowe of the improvising collective AMM, who treats the guitar purely as a "sound source" rather than as a musical instrument. Instead, Bailey preferred to "look for whatever 'effects' I might need through technique".

Eschewing labels such as "jazz" and "free jazz", Bailey described his music as "non-idiomatic". In the second edition of his book Improvisation..., Bailey indicated that he felt that free improvisation was no longer "non-idiomatic" in his sense of the word, as it had become a recognizable genre and musical style itself. Bailey frequently sought performance contexts that would provide new stimulations and challenge that would prove musically "interesting", as he often put it. This led to work with collaborators such as Pat Metheny, John Zorn, Lee Konitz, David Sylvian, Cyro Baptista, Cecil Taylor, Keiji Haino, tap dancer Will Gaines, Drum 'n' Bass DJ Ninj, Susie Ibarra, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and the Japanese noise rock group Ruins. Despite often performing and recording in a solo context, he was far more interested in the dynamics and challenges of working with other musicians, especially those who did not necessarily share his approach. As he put it in a March 2002 article of Jazziz magazine:

Bailey was also known for his dry sense of humour. In 1977, Musics magazine sent the question "What happens to time-awareness during improvisation?" to about thirty musicians associated with the free improvisation scene. The answers received varied from long, and theoretical essays to plain, direct comments. Typically pithy was Bailey's reply: "The ticks turn into tocks and the tocks turn into ticks."[8]

Mirakle, a 1999 recording released in 2000, shows Bailey moving into the free funk genre, performing with bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma and drummer Grant Calvin Weston. Carpal Tunnel, the last album to be released during his lifetime, documented his struggle with the carpal tunnel syndrome in his right hand which had rendered him unable to grip a plectrum. This problem marked the onset of motor neurone disease. Characteristically, he refused invasive surgery to treat his condition, instead being more "interested in finding ways to work around" this limitation. He chose to "relearn" guitar playing techniques by utilising his right thumb and index fingers to pluck the strings.

Discography

As leader/solo

As a member

Arcana
With Bill Laswell and Tony Williams

Company

Iskra 1903
With Paul Rutherford and Barry Guy

As co-leader

With Joseph Holbrooke Trio

With the Spontaneous Music Ensemble

With others

Source:[10]

As sideman

With Steve Lacy

With Tony Oxley

With John Zorn

With others

Source:

References

Sources

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Cook, Richard. Richard Cook (journalist). 2005. Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia. Penguin Books. London. 0-14-100646-3. 28.
  2. Web site: Kelsey . Chris . Derek Bailey . AllMusic . 2012-06-25.
  3. Web site: Bryars . Gavin . Joseph Holbrooke Trio: The Moat Studio Recordings Gavin Bryars . gavinbryars.com . 5 March 2019 . 30 November 2009.
  4. Web site: College Archives: Little magazines . King's College London . 2008-01-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070707181938/http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/iss/archives/collect/1mo70-07b.html . 7 July 2007 . live .
  5. News: Derek Bailey . Fordham. John. John Fordham (jazz critic). 2005-12-29. The Guardian. 2017-06-08.
  6. Web site: Derek Bailey's guitar by John Russell . Incusrecords.force9.co.uk . 2012-06-25.
  7. Web site: Correspondence with bailey from 1997, quoted at . Efi.group.shef.ac.uk . 2012-06-25 . 19 July 2007 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070719131746/http://efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mbailpg3.html . dead .
  8. Web site: "Musics", no. 10, November 1976, quoted at . Efi.group.shef.ac.uk . 1953-10-12 . 2012-06-25 . 28 September 2006 . https://web.archive.org/web/20060928231506/http://efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mbaileym.html . dead .
  9. Web site: Derek Bailey Album Discography . AllMusic . 4 March 2019 .
  10. Web site: Derek Bailey Credits . AllMusic . 5 March 2019.

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