Derek Bailey
Derek Bailey
Derek Baileywas an English avant-garde guitarist and leading figure in the free improvisation movement...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth29 January 1930
song duos
I like duos with percussionists. I like the songs that percussionists sing.
thinking player fine
I think the blues is fine for blues players, but free blues has never made much sense to me.
thinking play absence
In the absence of that, I am happy to play solo, but I don't think there is any comparison.
play listening records
If you could only play a record once, imagine the intensity you’d have to bring into the listening.
player methodology adapted
But that methodology where players are pitted against other unfamiliar players has been so widely adapted now that anybody plays with everybody.
thinking people solo
I think playing solo is a second rate activity, really. For me, playing is about playing with other people.
sides cottages industry
I have always been attracted to the cottage industry side of this business.
music degrees intimacy
Undeniably, the audience for improvisation, good or bad, active or passive, sympathetic or hostile, has a power that no other audience has. It can affect the creation of that which is being witnessed. And perhaps because of that possibility the audience for improvisation has a degree of intimacy with the music that is not achieved in any other situation.
thinking want way
I wouldn't want to be ideological about it but I think of it as being the best way to approach this kind of playing. I don't think it works in other music, other kinds of playing.
player young middle
Younger players in this music often turn out to be middle aged; it is not a young music.
people kind sometimes
Even if it is difficult playing with other people - sometimes it's great, sometimes it isn't, but that is kind of the point of it. It loses its point playing solo.
murder concerts solo
Solo concerts are murder, I find; I don't like doing them.
studios
Nowadays, I really like playing in studios.
research
I don't research anything.