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Derek BaileyDerek Bailey (born January 29, 1930) is a free improvising avant-garde guitarist. Career summary Bailey was born in Sheffield, England. He played the guitar from an early age, studying with John Duarte among others. He found work as a guitarist in clubs, radio, dance halls, and so on. He began to play in a trio in Sheffield with Tony Oxley and Gavin Bryars called Joseph Holbrooke. At first they played quite traditional jazz, but became more and more free in direction. In 1966, Bailey moved to London where he met many like-minded musicians, including Evan Parker, Kenny Wheeler, John Stevens, Barry Guy and Dave Holland. He was a frequent member of Stevens' constantly-changing ensemble, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (or the SME as they tended to be known). In 1970 Bailey founded the record label Incus with Tony Oxley and Evan Parker, often said to be the first independent label owned by musicians. Above; Derek Bailey pictured at the Vortex Club, Stoke Newington, 1991 In 1976 Bailey formed Company, an ever changing collection of like-minded improvisors, which has at various times included Anthony Braxton, Tristan Honsinger, Misha Mengelberg, Lol Coxhill, Fred Frith, Steve Beresford, Steve Lacy, Johnny Dyani, Leo Smith, Han Bennink and many others. In 1980, he wrote the book Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice. This was adapted by UK's Channel Four into a four-part TV series in the early nineties, edited and narrated by Bailey. Bailey's music For listeners unfamiliar with experimental musics, Bailey's distinctive playing style can be difficult to relate to. His style is stark: the basic framwork for the music is laid down by his interest in extreme discontinuity of sound and pitch: a sequence of three notes might contain an open string, a fretted note, and a high harmonic--all with wide intervals separating them, and delivered quite crisply. Whereas many improvising players have a natural ebb-and-flow time-sense, Bailey has brusque attack and a relentless inner clock. Playing both acoustic and electric instruments, he obtains a far wider range of sounds from the instrument than usually heard, from delicate tinkles to fierce noise. He has on occasion played on the body of the guitar rather than the strings, and at one period in the 1970s was experimenting with unusual amplification setups and modified instruments, but nowadays typically plays a conventional instrument without preparations. Nonetheless, the sounds he produces have been compared to those made by John Cage's prepared piano, whilst others describe him as "a compressed insectoid version of Anton Webern". Bailey himself claims that his approach to music making is actually far more orthodox than performers such as Keith Rowe of improvising collective AMM (group), who treats the guitar purely as a 'sound source' rather than as a musical instrument. He has often expressed his admiration for swing guitarists such as Teddy Bunn (of the 1930s band the Spirits of Rhythm), and despite the tart abstraction of much of Bailey music, it's not unknown for him to throw in a fragment of an old standard or some demonically sped-up swing guitar from time to time. He has also become known for his drily ironical spoken-word pieces: deadpan monologues, audio letters to friends, spoken versions of lyrics and poems, improvised advertisements--while meanwhile his guitar snaps at the words' heels. Eschewing labels such as 'jazz', Bailey prefers to describe the music he plays as 'non-idiomatic', and has collaborated with other musicians as diverse as Pat Metheny, John Zorn, Will Gaines, David Sylvian, John Stevens, Drum 'n' Bass DJ Ninj, and Japanese punk group Ruins. Partial discography - Karyobin (with SME, Island Records, 1968; later reissued on Chronoscope)
- The London Concert (with Evan Parker, Incus, 1971)
- Solo Guitar Volume 1 (Incus, recorded 1971, reissued 1992)
- Solo Guitar Volume 2 (Incus, 1972)
- Company 6 & 7 (other players on this re-issue originally recorded at the 1977 Company Week include Lol Coxhill, Han Bennink, Leo Smith, Tristan Honsinger, Steve Beresford, Anthony Braxton and others, Incus 1992)
- Yankees (with John Zorn and George Lewis, recorded 1983; issued variously on Celluloid and Charly)
- Lace (solo guitar, Emanem, recorded 1989)
- Village Life (with Thebe Lipere and Louis Moholo, Incus 1992)
- Playing (with John Stevens, Incus 1992)
- Guitar, Drums and Bass (with DJ Ninj, Avant records, 1996)
- The Sign Of Four (with Pat Metheny, Gregg Bendian, Paul Wertico, Knitting Factory, 1997)
- Ballads, Tzadik, 2002
- Barcelona (with Agusti Fernandez), Hopscotch Records, 2001, available from
- Wireforks (with Henry Kaiser) Shanachie/Jazz, 1993 available from
- Legend of the Blood Yeti with Thirteen Ghosts and Thurston Moore
- Improvisation Ampersand/Runt 1975, available from
- Live at Lamar's (Shaking Ray Records 003, with Dennis Palmer and Bob Stagner, recorded live in Chattanooga, TN 1999) Shaking Ray Levis
References - Ben Watson. Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation. ISBN 1844670031
External links Bailey, Derek Bailey, Derek Bailey, Derek Bailey, Derek
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