Derek Bailey (January 29, 1930 – December 25, 2005) was an English avant-garde guitarist and leading figure in the
free improvisation movement. Bailey was born in Sheffield, England. A third generation musician, he began playing
the guitar at the age of ten, going on to study with John Duarte among others. As an adult he found work as a
guitarist and session musician in clubs, radio, dance hall bands, and so on, playing with many performers
including Gracie Fields, Bob Monkhouse and Kathy Kirby, and on television programs such as 'Opportunity Knocks'.
Bailey was also part of a Sheffield based trio founded in 1963 with Tony Oxley and Gavin Bryars called 'Joseph
Holbrooke' (named after the composer, whose work they never actually played). Although originally performing
relatively 'conventional' jazz this group became increasingly free in direction [1].
Bailey moved to London in 1966, frequenting the Little Theatre Club run by drummer John Stevens. Here he met many
other like-minded musicians, such as saxophonist Evan Parker, trumpet player Kenny Wheeler and double bass player
Dave Holland. These players often collaborated under the umbrella name of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble,
recording the seminal album Karyobin for Island Records in 1968. In this year Bailey also formed the Music
Improvisation Company with Parker, percussionist Jamie Muir and Hugh Davies on homemade electronics, a project
that continued until 1971. He was also a member of the Jazz Composers Orchestra and Iskra 1903, a trio with double
bass player Barry Guy and trombone player Paul Rutherford that was named after a newspaper published by the
Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.
In 1970, Bailey founded the record label Incus with Tony Oxley, Evan Parker and Michael Walters. It proved
influential as the first musician-owned independent label in the UK. Oxley and Walters left early on; Parker and
Bailey continued as co-directors until the mid-1980s, when friction between the men led to Parker's departure.
Bailey continued the label with his partner Karen Brookman until his death in 2005.
Along with a number of other musicians, Bailey was a co-founder of Musics magazine in 1975. This was described as
"an impromental experivisation arts magazine"[citation needed] and circulated through a network of like-minded
record shops, arguably becoming one of the most significant jazz publications of the second half of the 1970s, and
instrumental in the foundation of the London Musicians Collective.
1976 saw Bailey form Company, an ever changing collection of like-minded improvisors, which at various times has
included Anthony Braxton, Tristan Honsinger, Misha Mengelberg, Lol Coxhill, Fred Frith, Steve Beresford, Steve
Lacy, Johnny Dyani, Leo Smith, Han Bennink, Eugene Chadbourne, Henry Kaiser, John Zorn, Buckethead and many
others. Company Week, an annual week long free improvisational festival organised by Bailey, ran until 1994.
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 neurone disease. (from Wikipedia)
BOOKS
Derek Bailey - Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice (1992)
Ben Watson - Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation (2004)
he has been really an influence for me. and someone who gave me the feeling, not to be alone with this "weired" way of understanding and performing my music and the courage to DO.
if you like, watch one of my performances here called 'into the tonal no-mans-land':
Online Now!
