Wow what a bad christmas for free guitar improvisers.
We lost a legend. Hold your lighters up


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. Although originally performing relatively traditional jazz this group became increasingly 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, occasionally collaborating under the umbrella name of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (or the SME as they tended to be known).
Derek Bailey pictured at the Vortex Club, Stoke Newington, 1991.
Derek Bailey pictured at the Vortex Club, Stoke Newington, 1991.

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.

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 died in London on Christmas Day, 2005. He had been suffering from motor neuron disease

Does anyone have any Derek stories? I only know the name and saw some archive footage. But I guess now is a reminder to delve into his work I was amazed how much this guy recorded after he was diagnosed with Carpel Tunnel. I would imagine alot more people from England or Japan might have run into Derek rather than America since he was unusual musician.

Tell your story or antecdote. Maybe some of you knew friends of Bailey. WHo knows on the World Wide Web

Sad news - Much respect to Derek Bailey - a truly 'free improviser'.

I have an album called 'Arcana' from 1996 in which he plays in a trio with the late great Tony Williams on drums and Bill Laswell on bass. Good stuff, if you're open minded.

I'll bet Jimi and Zappa are jamming with Derek tonight ...

Miles said:

Oh yea the Arcana album. That album is the one only Bailey project I have. That was a crazy project. I thought he played on that. I liked how Laswell accompanied the guitar dissonance and how Tony williams was playing so heavy on that shit. It sounded like Armageddon I am interested in getting the Mirakle album with Tacuma on Bass and Weston on drums. I hear it's some funk free jazz type thing.

Anyways, thanks Miles for saying a word or two about Bailey.

No sweat, Trickology. Gotta respect the true masters - and there's yet one less today.

I shall be getting out 'Arcana' and giving it a spin, in respect of the great man.

Reading your thread reminds me I need to do more research into Bailey's work (of which there seems to be tons) and also finding some good stuff by Evan Parker and Anthony Braxton, two more unique but 'jazz-related' artists I'm interested in.You may not like everything people like Bailey and Evan Parker do, but they are truly 'keeping it real'. There's no real money in their line of work, that's for sure.

Where are the young generation of 'out there' but not rubbish free improvisors and true jazz experimentors? Maybe 'real jazz' truly is 'the music of unemployment' as Frank Zappa once so memorably said and they just daren't try it.

They all went to Japan and Europe and became permanent residents

Here's a good interview from AllaboutJazz

http://www.allaboutjazz.c...p?id=16595

Im curious as to who is linked to Bailey on Prince.org it will give you a idea 6 degrees of bailey.

I know Buckethead got his start on "Company" release and Henry Kaiser
So...that's something interesting.

Well at least we still have Henry Kaiser. Which reminds me I need to get his Yo Miles sets.

Keep it going...Incidently who has the "sign of 4 project"? I heard cats buzzing about this when it dropped.
[Edited 12/27/05 0:43am]

Novabreaker said:

the face should be....



Alot musicians that was their mentor to the outsider realm.

Interesting Bailey interview, Trickology. Thanks.

I actually have 2 of the 'Yo Miles' CDs - the first one 'Yo Miles!' and the latest (I think) 'Upriver'. Both are good, tho I feel they stick too closely to the original versions a lot of the time, which kind of defeats the object. There's a few points and tracks where they do go into their own thing with it, but not enough. Miles himself used to screw the original tracks up and chuck them around at gigs, so if he had no 'final version', there ain't one. Kaiser and Wadada Leo Smith play pretty good though.

That's the trouble with modern jazz - too much reverence for the past + not enough improv = dead music.

Miles said:

Have you tried errrr Elliott Sharp? You might be into that dude.
He only has 50 albums