Derek Bailey remembered
January 2006
A full collection of tributes to the late musician, including a number of pieces which were not published in the magazine.
On Christmas Day 2005, Derek Bailey died, aged 75, from complications arising from motor neurone disease. David Toop charts his determinedly nonidiomatic approach to guitar playing through a career that spanned television showbands backing comedians like Morecambe & Wise, the birth of European free improvisation, and the founding of the pioneering independent record label Incus. Plus, artists, colleagues and friends offer their personal tributes to one of free music's most enduring, radical figures.
Han Bennink
Dearest Derek, Trying to get away from the yearly xmasstreefuss, I
went to Addis Ababa to play with Jimmy Jimmel Mohammed and the
legendary Getatchew Mikurya. I had a great time, but... Everything
changed by the second Christmas Day when Mary phoned me and told me
that you said goodbye to us. OK, I did not see you for a year or
so, but!and!!NOW!!!WHAT? All memories came up: staying at the
houseboat and you knocking politely on the door asking, 'May I have
one of those little oranges, love?'
Making our first duo album, ICP004. By the way, Evan was the one
who introduced you to us - you both coming in a Morris Minor with
Gavin Bryars to Wuppertal - we all played in a large group (Machine
Gun) with Brötzmann, and Paul Rutherford was there too. The work
with ICP, especially Misha and also Wim T Schippers - man, we had
such a great time! I r emember meeting your mum and Simon. On the
duo tours in England you always booked in very cheap B&Bs and a
couple of times including Leeds you didn't rent a drum kit for me
because you told me, 'There are plenty of chairs and tables to play
on!' The recording by Evan, Topography Of The Lungs. The many
variations from Company. Unbelievable! You did soooo much for the
music. The book about improvised music, the TV series, it seems
endless. 'Bullocks!' you would answer. Later, when Karen came into
your life it was another peak. Staying on Downs Road. I think that
the last idea was 'Air Mail Special' - another great item. Thank
you so much for everything. I will miss you very much. Lots of luv,
Han
Steve Beresford (Unpublished)
When I think of the guitar, I hear Derek.
John Butcher
Around 1974, BBC TV aired a programme spotlighting British jazz. It
ended with an awkward Spike Milligan introducing a few minutes of
Bailey/Guy/Rutherford with something like, 'And now folks, you
probably won't like this, but they're pushing forward musical
boundaries.' I did like it. It was puzzling but extraordinary, and
the fact that, 30 years on, the boundaries remain well and truly
shoved, owes much to Derek Bailey's incisive thinking and profound
musicality. Playing with him was terrific, but I also have a
fondness for peripheral moments; a late lunch after a recording
session, courtesy of the 'Incus expense account'; a 3am walk
through the Lower East Side after a Tonic gig, with Derek at 70,
full of energy. He was a man who repelled pretension, refused to be
shoehorned into comfortable categories, and played amazing
guitar.
Martin Davidson (Emanem Records)
Some Derek Bailey anecdotes from the 1970s: Driving across London
to make a solo recording at my house and unloading his gear to
discover that he'd brought one amplifier, two speakers, three
pedals and numerous cables - everything, that is, except a guitar.
Handing out a (Michel Waisvisz) Crackle Box to audience members to
accompany a solo concert. Confusing a provincial audience expecting
a 'pleasant' guitar concert, by starting off with a football that
was supposed to hit an amplified thunder-sheet, but which hit the
audience instead. Showing his boredom with someone else's group by
putting his guitar aside, attaching a contact mic to his throat and
eating an apple.
Pulling an enormous (Gavin Bryars?) score across the whole stage,
thereby hiding his playing partner (Han Bennink) from view.
Setting up his guitar and practice amp in the Wigmore Hall so that
he could play an encore without leaving the dressing room.
THF Drenching
Discovering free improvisation, and particularly Derek,
revolutionised my musical thinking. At the time I joined Limescale
I was a guitarist, and proud that my instrumental technique was
once compared unfavourably to that of a cat. Free improvisation
dissolved these abstract musical moralisms. Here was music where
instrumental proficiency no longer meant flaccid
selfaggrandisement. And it wiped the floor with the composerly
prejudice for abstract thought, proved you could knock out
something like Stockhausen's Zugvogel sieben Tagen a week in a room
above a pub.
Much is often made of Derek's formidable purism. I think of him as
a musician who pushed his own purism to its breaking point. So much
so that it actually becomes strikingly impure, wonderful and
heterodox. There's no hairshirt on this shit. Full of chats, jokes,
bird recordings, beauty, rubbish and invention spread out like an
assault course for his guitar to negotiate. His only prerequisite
was surprise, and the opportunity to play.
Agustí Fernández
I consider one of the greatest privileges to have shared music with
Derek Bailey. The last time we played together was at a concert, 12
May 2005 in Barcelona, at La Pedrera, Gaudí's emblematic building.
I knew Derek was very sick and I was ready for a solo concert in
case he didn't show up. The organisation was also alerted. But he
came to the venue and played with exquisite devotion for the whole
set. Fantastic music. After the concert Derek was exhausted but
very happy. His last words before getting in to the taxi were: 'Big
ears! Big ears!' Some months later, on 24 December, I bought Carpal
Tunnel, Derek's last solo recording. I listened to it on the 26th,
just before I knew he had died on the 25th. I don't know what to
think of this sequence of facts.
Fred Frith
Back in the 80s I took part in a Channel 4 programme dedicated to
unorthodox guitar playing. Keith Rowe, Hans Reichel and I were
invited, along with a couple of others and, of course, Derek. His
response was wonderful: he would be happy to participate if the
programme was only about him! Derek and I had hit it off from the
moment I was the only audience member at a concert of his in 1971.
He invited me home for tea, and we ate pork pies and talked about
cricket. Meeting Derek changed my life, actually. His encouragement
and support gave me the feeling that I was doing something that
mattered. He came to Henry Cow gigs and radiated enthusiasm while
unfailingly and cheerfully complaining that we weren't improvising
enough. As a player Derek had a fearless and resolute clarity, and
because he was so curious, and so willing to challenge himself, you
never saw him perform without hearing things differently. Which
made improvisation the most exciting and logical thing to be
doing.
Will Gaines
I first met DEREK BAILEY in the early 60s, working with his group,
in Sheffield & Cheshire, with TONY OXLEY, BUNNY THOMPSON...
MAN, they were the swingingest musicians I'd heard since coming to
Britain. In America, I'd been working with people like ERIC DOLPHY,
THELONIOUS MONK & CHICO HAMILTON. DEREK & the group were
the best heard since arriving in Europe... And that's saying
something!!!! Along with JOHN STEVENS, DEREK was an energy, a
spearhead, a futurist, a pulse of life, which won't die. What can I
say about DEREK? In one word, CREATIVE!! I used to say to him, YOU
PLAY IT MOTHER, I'LL DANCE IT!! I next came across DEREK when he
booked me for a week in London with Company... THAT was an
experience!! He then asked me to go to Sweden, Switzerland, then
four days in New York. No gig was the same, except the NY venues in
the middle of nowhere. I recorded a CD with DEREK, Rapping With
Will. Another of DEREK'S ideas. Man, he was a one-off! I kept
saying to him, 'I'M JUST A TAP DANCER'. He must have seen or heard
something he liked. We did have the same sense of humour. RIGHT ON
BABY!!!!!!
Keiji Haino
My greatest happiness comes when I experience rock from a new
source. Derek Bailey once gave me such happiness. It was in London,
when we were recording a radio show in the BBC studios, him on
guitar and me on vocals. I made one request to him before we
started - rather than one long track, I wanted us to divide the
time into shorter segments. It was between these segments that I
felt the vibrations of happiness. I was standing in front of the
mic, a little behind Mr Bailey so I could see his back. Just before
he started playing I could see him shake his shoulders slightly,
marking out a rhythm. Involuntarily, my heart shouted out, 'Rock
exists here, even here!' This happened several times during the
set.
Someone once told me that when Mr Bailey was asked what he thought
about me in an interview, he replied, 'He's just as strange as I
am'. I took great pride in that. I dedicate these next words as my
own prayer for the repose of his soul:
That, which while enfolding this now and present perfume, speaks,
'I will use to the fullest this form bestowed upon me' and blurs
into the firmament - ah, where and in what form will it next be
devised
Toby Hrycek-Robinson (Moat Studios)
In more than 30 years of recording music, I have never met anyone
with Derek's charm, elegance and flair - as a performer and a
person. Most people who heard him play were changed by the
experience. My wife Kasia, having previously never heard a note of
improvisation, beamed for days after hearing Derek play for the
first time. She couldn't explain why. She simply felt uplifted.
Work would invariably stop in our studios when Derek came to the
Moat to record. Musicians of every genre would drop by from other
rooms - initially to sneak a quick listen, mostly to end up staying
all day. Derek had the great gift of making what can be an
impenetrable form of music readily accessible to anyone with even
half an ear open to something new.
But more than the enjoyment I got from recording Derek's music over
many years is my pleasure in the man himself. Erudite, witty and
plain-speaking, yet equally instinctive and profound, Derek was
someone who never failed to delight me with his presence. I will
miss him terribly.
Susie Ibarra
Derek was a true original, a romantic with a great sense of humour.
From his dentist-gum guitar picks to his uncanny background of
playing in a Latin salsa band, he always brought a presence of
great pleasure, beautiful and outrageous music, and a soulful,
childlike existence. I miss the white wine and fish dinners and
long evenings of great conversation. I miss the great concerts of
the unexpected and delightful surprises. I miss the dear friend
who, with his wife, Karen, shared their passion and love of life
with everyone. With a cigarette and dark shades, Derek has stamped
an impression of one mean guitarist in my head... and heart.
Jak Kilby (photographer)
It must have been in the early 1970s. Usually I have the time and
place logged in my picture files, but this was one of those
instances when that did not happen, since, for a variety of
reasons, I took no photographs. But John Stevens had roped me in to
drive to a gig, in any case usually a pleasure. Lol Coxhill had
organised this one and it was an oddball even as such things went
at that time. Lol, together with John and Derek Bailey, were going
to play free improvised music at an English boys' public school,
somewhere in the Home Counties, and give a talk on this to those
eager students.
During a verbal interlude, Lol and Derek ganged up on John,
announcing to the attentive boys that their Uncle John Stevens
would now entertain by tap dancing! Now, John had a childhood
history of this art since his father was a tap dancer, but here he
was wearing plimsolls (in those pre-trainer days). And John did
dance, as hard as he could to get a sound to the free and
fragmented accompaniment of Lol's soprano and Derek's guitar. And I
just caught sight of that rare wry grin on Derek's face (which it
later took me years to photograph!).
Joëlle Léandre
I met Derek in 82 in New York. I had received a French grant to be
there, take time, play, meet people... Great time! I saw Derek's
name in The Voice and I contacted him. We played all day and drank
tea! It was fantastic; the only thing I remember in this place was
a small matelas, a table and a huge pile of Incus discs on the
floor... and we played and talked, drank and played. 'Le gentleman
à la guitarre', I could call Derek; I learned a lot with him; later
in New York, he invited me to Company, then we played in England,
the BBC where we recorded, then we played quite a lot in duo in
Europe and recorded again until the last time in duo, also in
Liverpool, two or three years ago...
Derek was a great 'elegance' person, with a lot of spirit, very
funny sometimes and a 'strong' individualism, all his playing, his
life and his musical life was an 'elegance': only this simplicity
to be, to be a musician without any hierarchy in sounds, aesthetic,
gentle, just 'making music together'... It's rare!!! We never
talked about music after concerts!! But I learned this jubilation,
this freedom to be 'you' and responsible. In any case Improvisation
is a collective music (even if we sometimes like to play as
soloist) but just play this unique result like a 'foods' is
natural; this unique result can ask us a lot of questions, but also
sometimes transcend us! Merci Derek, nous sommes un peu orphelins
maintenant... so long.
George Lewis
Everyone who plays with Derek tells a different story, because he
seemed to play differently with each person. For me, I imagined
that a speeded-up recording of Derek would sound like white noise,
with equal power at all frequencies. I would improvise a responsive
multimodal filter, wrestling an octopus that seemed to anticipate
everything you were doing - although Derek was anything but a
Calvinist. Free will (and free improvisation) is largely about
listening, something that Derek did supremely well while tempting
the border separating tenacity and style from obstinacy and stasis.
His landmark book on improvisation proved that musical
experimentalism could engage a wide audience across many fields
with issues of vital importance to humanity. Derek jumpstarted a
new field of inquiry and inspired a new generation of organic
musician-intellectuals, using nothing less than his musical
approach, executed via other means - in which everyone came away
telling a different story.
Alan Licht
I saw Derek perform numerous times in New York since 1990,
including the notorious encounter with Pat Metheny at the Knitting
Factory, but for me the most memorable concert was a duo with James
'Blood' Ulmer one afternoon at Tonic. The two had never played
together before; Ulmer did a very nice, droney solo guitar set, and
then Derek came on for the duo. Ulmer stayed in simple, tonal mode;
Derek played a couple of pleasant sounding, empathetic jazz chords
and then, for the next hour, played nothing but the most discordant
clusters possible. It wasn't an attack - his manner, both during
and after the concert, was utterly genial, as it tended to be, no
matter where in the musical spectrum he'd been dropped into. It was
a statement of purpose and of commitment to the alternative
approach to the guitar and playing music with other people he'd
pioneered since the 60s. That low-key determination was one of
Derek's essential characteristics, and very, very inspiring.
I also recall Thurston Moore introducing Derek to The Stooges' Ron
Asheton after a set at Tonic by Thurston, Derek and Loren Connors.
'Oh, I've heard a lot about you,' Derek said to Ron. 'Especially
today...'
Oren Marshall
Derek was a big inspiration to me. He was a fantastic example of
how open a musician can be. I played Company Week in 1992 and there
was one night when everybody was playing at the same time. After a
while I thought, 'What's the point? All this large group Improv
stuff just ends up sounding the same.' I just stopped playing and
went and sat in the audience. And then Derek came out and sat next
to me. 'Are you all right?' he asked. 'Well, I just feel there's
nothing I can really contribute.' And he said, 'You've just got to
bathe in it.' And that completely changed my perception of
improvising in that context and also gave me another way of looking
at living in London. Rather than using up so much energy trying to
decode or take on everything that's happening, just bathe in it.
That was quite inspiring to see that level of openness in somebody
as time-worn as Derek.
Tony Oxley
I find it difficult to contemplate 43 years of friendship and
musical experiences in such a short time. I will say Derek was and
remains THE UNCOMPROMISED CONSCIENCE OF IMPROVISED MUSIC. It was my
privilege and pleasure. Thank you, Derek.
Eddie Prévost
I have known Derek Bailey for most of my adult life. 40 years ago
or so we first met during the Little Theatre period and later we
worked together in the Musicians' Cooperative. And, although we
rarely performed together over the intervening years, I am pleased
that we made a duet recording in 2000. However, we had different
affiliations and a differing slant on the nature of improvisation.
These differences do not obscure for me the impact that Derek had
upon the development and continuity of a form of music that we call
free improvisation.
Derek's passing has already been described as an end of an era. But
I think that this proposition diminishes the effect and the value
of Derek's music. I do not subscribe to the idea that free
improvisation began or ends with any individual. This only suggests
that somehow the music Derek made was so individualistic that it
failed to communicate anything beyond personal expression. Given
that the impact and the practice of improvised music is far wider
now than it was in the 1960s, when this particular initiative began
to gain momentum, Derek's music clearly has more punch than that:
for we are undoubtedly not at the end of an era. Free improvisation
is certainly impoverished with the demise of Derek Bailey. It would
have been a greater pity if his music had not had the undoubted
effect that it had (and will continue to have) upon others.
Keith Rowe
Derek... a towering presence 'I get jetlagged walking to the end of
the road', was Derek's response to my enquiring after his health.
Although Derek and I rarely saw each other, hardly ever played
together (just once, I think), there was a certain comfort in
knowing that there was this guy somewhere out there who took care
of an aspect of guitar playing that (for me) summed up all the
guitar playing that came before him. In Derek I found what I find
in every great artist... He had developed his own language,
something in the world is now missing, something irreplaceable.
Something unique.
Paul Rutherford
Derek's musical and human input were totally incompatible with the
prevailing twisted social dogma of Thatcherist/Blairism. Hardly
surprising, in a warped society of subhuman puffballs. They merely
survive, extravagantly. HE LIVES. Art, Music and Humanity are up
for sale and privatisation. DEREK IS NOT. AND NEVER WAS.
David Sylvian
Derek was a no-nonsense poet. Mischievous, provocative, elemental.
He spoke a language recognised by many but with a syntax all his
own. A discomforting amalgam of the elemental Hughes, Beckettian
reductionism and Celan-like compounds and fractures, and it says
something of his achievement that he appears to have been so many
things to so many people (it's fascinating, judging from the
numerous online testaments written since his death, that to
facilitate discussion of his work and its impact, Derek is often
compared, without pretension or aggrandisement, to artists working
in mediums other than his own). A towering giant of the guitar.
Singular, unique.
Alex Ward
Without Derek's initial encouragement and help, I might not be
doing what I do now at all, and I'm sure fewer people would know I
was doing it. However, the start he gave me is only part of what I
have to thank him for. Both when playing with and listening to him,
I've received more inspiration over the years from Derek's playing
than from that of any other musician I can think of - not to
mention sheer enjoyment. Nor has anyone been kinder to me or more
of a joy to talk (and eat and drink) with - his humour, blunt
honesty (his response to someone who praised a duo gig we'd just
done: 'Yeah, it works all right when we don't get into that flowery
shit', followed by a list of occasions when we'd perpetrated this),
and sheer conviviality will be as missed by me as his irreplaceable
guitar sound.
Mark Wastell
Simon Fell and I had just arrived in New York to take part in
Company 2001. We knocked on his apartment door at the now famous
Soho Suites Hotel and were greeted by Derek wearing his comfortable
slippers and holding a tea towel. 'Cup of tea lads? Karen, where
are the biscuits?' A few hours later we're on stage with Derek,
John Zorn, Rhodri Davies, Joey Baron, Will Gaines, Annie Gosfield,
Jennifer Choi and Min Xiao Fen. In front of a Derek-worshipping
capacity crowd at Tonic, we played two sets a night for four
nights. I have to keep reminding myself it wasn't a dream. A
wonderful memory for me, another wonderful week at the office for
Derek.
Alan Wilkinson
I first met Derek in the mid-80s in Leeds when I was running the
Termite Club. He and Han Bennink did a fantastic gig for us at a
pub called the Cardigan Arms (later released on Incus as Han). On
another visit to our usual venue at the Adelphi, we all arrived to
find the room double-booked. Without further ado, another pub
within walking distance was phoned and the entire gig moved lock,
stock and barrel up the road. Derek, landlord of new pub, audience,
indeed everyone had a very memorable night at the new venue.
On these numerous visits to Yorkshire, the local musicians were
encouraged to play by Derek, who made it very much part of his
'raison d'être' to check out new musicians wherever he went. It was
as a result of this I received a gobsmacking invitation to play in
a small Company line-up playing in Switzerland and Italy.
To an improvisor, that's like being asked to join John Coltrane's
Quartet, The Rolling Stones, or something similarly momentous. The
line-up included Derek, Barre Phillips, Ernst Reijseger, Steve
Noble and myself. Ernst couldn't do the first gig in Geneva, and
over dinner before the gig Derek suggested we start with him and
Barre in duo and Steve and I in duo. I suggested we start with a
quartet, since I'd only met Barre five minutes before, but was of
course in awe of his reputation. Derek's immediate reply was, 'OK,
we start with Barre and Alan in duo and Steve and I.' He always
wanted to throw you into the deep end and enjoy watching you not
drown, because he knew you wouldn't.
Davey Williams (Unpublished)
"Derek was more important than even he knew, or cared about to
begin with. Anyway, I was watching him play solo at some gig in
south London. Several college student-looking people, who clearly
weren't liking the music, exited the auditorium. As they passed the
front of the stage, they angrily threw their ticket stubs onto the
stage at Derek's feet. Totally nonplussed, Derek remarked, "Yes,
well I figured it was about time for a clear-out."
Derek was a fellow who did what he did (which was massively
innovative), not because he thought he'd be famous or admired, but
because he wanted to do it. As it turned out, he was both famous
and admired, not that it made any difference to him. And that in
itself is to be admired."
Otomo Yoshihide
His improvisation was his way of life. Living daily life like his
improvisation. That I learnt from Derek et al best. And it is the
most important philosophy for me Improvisation looks as though it
always disappears somewhere. However, it incessantly is succeeded
and is alive in our way of life.
Ingar Zach
I met Derek Bailey for the first time in at his house in Hackney in
January 2000. A couple of months before, I rang him up to ask if I
could stop by for a play and a chat. I had heard CDs with Derek in
1998-99, and I was totally taken by his music. I was just starting
up with improvisation and I just knew that I had to play with him.
For me, the most important side of Derek was his honesty, both as a
person and in music. He didn't care about success, being famous and
all that. He was a musician who was in constant search for his
music. That's why his music always sounded so fresh and strong. I
got to know him in the last five years of his life. Although it was
a short time, I felt that I got to know him, just by playing with
him. I am very grateful to have had the chance to know Derek and
his music. I will miss him.
Comments
Hard to believe its been almost 13 years. Still, I love re-listening to his entire output.
Robbie Steininger
I first heard Derek's recordings in the early 80s; already open to "free jazz," improvisation, & delta blues, he changed my view of the world as much as Sun Ra, Son House, Jack Kerouac, Mad Magazine & my teensge viewing of "Hard Day's Night. I'm still attempting to free up my "Ornette-Coleman-slide-guitar playing thanks to Derek.
ElHotRod32
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