#Derek Bailey

[anamon-book]

デレク・ベイリー　灰野敬二／寄り添い合いし 秩序と無秩序の気配かな Drawing close, attuning - the respective signs of order and chaos J-Factory TKCF-77017, Tokuma Japan Communications Design & Cover Drawing = Keiji Haino

#Drawing close attuning - the respective signs of order and chaos #寄り添い合いし 秩序と無秩序の気配かな #derek bailey #デレク・ベイリー #keiji haino #灰野敬二 #disc jacket #cd jacket #cover art #anamon #古本屋あなもん #あなもん

[shihlun]

13th May 1979, Amsterdam.

Peter Brötzmann and Derek Bailey. (Emi Sugiyama)

Emi Sugiyama, Misha Mengelberg & Peter Brötzmann. (Derek Bailey)

Peter Brötzmann. (Emi Sugiyama)

#Peter Brötzmann #Peter Brotzmann #Derek Bailey #Misha Mengelberg #Emi Sugiyama #free jazz #free improvisation #1979 #Amsterdam

[dustedmagazine]

Derek Bailey / Paul Motian — Duo in Concert (frozen reeds)

Specializing in archival recordings, the Helsinki frozen reeds label has come up with another doozy. This time unearthing in the Incus archives previously unreleased concert recordings of guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Paul Motian for the release "Duo in Concert." Released at the tail-end of 2023, the LP version captures the duo live at the 1990 Jazz Marathon at De Oosterpoort festival in the city of Groningen, the Netherlands. As bonus digital tracks, the label offers recordings made at the New Music Cafe in New York City in 1991. A conversation between Bill Frisell and Henry Kaiser discussing these recordings and their collective experiences playing with Bailey and Motian is included as liner notes.

It's hard to approach a recording from two of my all-time favorite artists with any sense of objectivity, not to mention a heavy dose of expectation. And with a pairing that — at least on paper — doesn't immediately make outright sense, a certain degree of trepidation preempts the initial listening process as well. Accounts of both Bailey and Motian's contrariness and adversarial approach to performing are legion. Having seen both musicians live, I always had the feeling that everything could go off the rails at any moment. There was a certain sense of peril and uncertainty that pervaded their music — and not only because what they were doing was risky but more because they didn't seem to adhere to any rules of musical decorum.

When I first saw Bailey play solo in the mid-1980s, he broke off his set mid-concert to start sharing what seemed like random anecdotes with the audience, then picked right back up and started to play all over again. He stopped abruptly once more a bit later to tune his guitar (actually not much unlike what goes on in Indian classical music). It was almost as if he didn't see the point of himself being there. What he played — when he actually played — was undeniably brilliant. But his attitude came across as ambivalent and irascible, to say the least.

Similarly when I caught Motian in the early 1990s with his trio of Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano, he seemed to revel in the act of eloquent disruption, of not letting things ride but of seeking to derail and create situations where the music took sudden turns down unknown roads. Motian soloed like a kid discovering the drums for the first time, alternately bashing the toms or dropping bombs of bass drum cymbal crashes, then suddenly shifting to exquisite brush work on the snare, echoing his time with Bill Evans.

So, what was I to think of this improbable pairing? Obviously, from the start I was rooting for them. These guys were my heroes. But heroes also fall. I'm happy to say that over repeated listens "Duo in Concert" did not disappoint for one second of these recordings. It would be interesting to know if this concert in Groningen was their first meeting, or if they'd had the chance to play together in a more informal setting beforehand, because the 35-minute set sounds so fresh and invigorating. As if they had met for the first time, discovering their shared language and limitations in real-time before a festival audience. Adding to this the music also comes across as very intimate, as if Motian and Bailey had already played many years together and were picking up on a conversation they'd been having the last time they met. Consequently, both players sound not only completely engaged with the music, but actually excited by what they're coming up with. Practically as though they found themselves in a perpetual state of surprise and delight for the entire length of the concert. "Duo in Concert" is truly an inspiring listen.

There is much to expect that actually transpires: Bailey's spikey, chromatic fields played in jagged rhythmic runs across an incredibly wide dynamic range, spanning the spectrum from ringing harmonics on the verge of feedback to barely caressing the strings with his pick. And then there's Motian's incredible brush work paired with bombastic tom fills and tremorous bass drum drops. The real mystery is how this all manages to coalesce into — for lack of a more apt expression — an undeniable example of sheer poetry in sound. The mutual respect and inspiration between Motian and Bailey so evident in these recordings is in itself one of the most compelling aspects of this release.

A major unifier here would have to be Bailey and Motian's shared backgrounds in jazz. Bailey used to refer to himself in his earlier musical incarnation as previously sounding something like Jim Hall. But of course by the mid-1960s had realized he would, as Henry Kaiser states in the liner notes, have to depart for Planet Improv and leave the world of jazz behind. By this point in his long career Motian still had certainly more invested in the jazz tradition but seemed not to worry about what this meant. He'd long since moved on beyond what the rule keepers of the jazz world had imposed. Yet Motian also never went totally free like Bailey. And in fact, this would be the first record I'd heard where Motian plays from scratch, without any vague road map or composition to steer the musical proceedings.

But it is precisely this jazz background which lends an unmistakable narrative thread to the concert at Groningen. Bailey and Motian's collaboration is truly like a conversation in the most literal sense of the word. And like the greatest musical conversations in the context of jazz music, both players join together for this one brief point in time to tell a story together, listening and building their musical ideas from their dialogue. As hackneyed as this may sound, the end effect is a perfect example of instant composing, of creating a totally cohesive, rigorously structured piece of music from thin air.

And this encompasses  signifiers of a more narrative approach along the way: towards the midpoint of the set, Bailey fades out to let Motian take the practically obligatory drum solo, a roiling, thunderous affair across the toms and cymbals. This is followed by Bailey jumping back in with what in a more conventional jazz piece, could be the main soloist picking up again with another long passage. Along the way Bailey engages in some of the most impressionistic and nearly melodic playing I've ever heard from him, even approaching what one could construe as comping rapid chord variations to Motian's hard-driving pulse. The set ends with Motian playing a very grooving swing pattern on the high hat that not only absolutely works with Bailey's field of dissonant harmonic notes but is in itself a stroke of genius, melding the two worlds of jazz and obdurate free improvisation with a gesture of contrast and a nod to the history both of these musicians had left far behind but by no means forgotten.

For fans of Derek Bailey and Paul Motian "Duo in Concert" is an absolute must listen. For those unfamiliar with either of these artists' work, this release would be a great place to start, not only because it captures them both at the height of their powers but is also a convincing and highly moving documentation of free improvised music that shouldn't be missed.

Jason Kahn

#derek bailey #paul motian #duo in concert #frozen reeds #jason kahn #albumreview #dusted magazine #jazz #Jazz Marathon at De Oosterpoort #live #free improvisation

[jgthirlwell]

01.19.23 John Zorn and Laurie Anderson perform at the Tribute to Derek Bailey at Roulette Intermedium, NYC.

#John Zorn #Laurie Anderson #Derek Bailey #Roulette Intermedium #improv

[radiophd]

derek bailey -- aida [album, 1980]

#1980s #experimental #free improvisation #guitar #derek bailey

[bbbeternelle]

[garadinervi]

Derek Bailey, Charlie Morrow, & Friends, New York 1982, Recital, 2022, Edition of 400

#graphic design #art #music #music album #vinyl #booklet #cover #derek bailey #charlie morrow #recital #1980s #2020s

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Derek Bailey & Paul Motian - Duo In Concert

Let's kick off 2024 ... in 1990? Yeah, it feels like the right thing to do. Coming to us via the estimable Frozen Reeds label, Duo In Concert captures a rare live show from two titans — avant-improv guitarist Derek Bailey and legendary jazz drummer Paul Motian. "It's so hard to talk about, because it's so beautiful," says Bill Frisell. "It's like you're seeing some new species of plant that you never knew existed or something." And as usual, Bill is right! This is special stuff, a free-flowing musical conversation that provides more questions than answers ultimately — but those questions linger in your mind long after the last notes ring out. Both Bailey and Motian have passed on to some other plane of existence, but here they're as vivid and thrilling as ever.

#derek bailey #paul motian #bandcamp monday

[musicktoplayinthedark]

My albums selection for the nex week:

- Vivenza – Europe - Force - Unité - Métal

- Anne Gillis – Aha

- K2 – They Live We Slave

- La Furnasetta & VivianKrist - Noise for all genders

- Derek Bailey, Joëlle Léandre – No Waiting

- Maschine Nr. 9 – Headmovie

- Borguefül - Horst

- Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka – Languoria

- Alison Cotton – Only Darkness Now

- Bernard Parmegiani ‎– L'Œuvre Musicale En 12 CD 8

#musical sugestion #musical selection #vivenza #anne gillis #k2 #la furnasetta #viviankrist #derek bailey #joelle leandre #maschine nr. 9 #borgueful #sofie birch #antonina nowacka #alison cotton #bernard parmegiani #noise music #industrial music #experimental music #krautrock #ambient music #avant garde

[nmtkmrnke]

#derek bailey #Youtube

[shihlun]

Derek Bailey, Jazz Hot N° 283, May 1972.

#derek bailey #free improvisation #jazz #free jazz #1972 #jazz hot

[zef-zef]

Derek Bailey

Zürich, 1988

source: galerie123 photo: Dany Gignoux

#photography #artist photography #Derek Bailey #1988 #zurich

[radiophd]

evan parker / dererk bailey / han bennink -- the topography of the lungs [album, 1970]

#1970s #jazz #free jazz #experimental #free improvisation #evan parker #han bennink #derek bailey

[jdsoundbite]

Top 40 Over 40.33: Blemish

Top 40 Over 40.33: Blemish

I think I’ve found my personal record of the year. It’s Roberta Flack’s First Take. There’s a song on it called I Told Jesus that joins Jesus is Waiting by Al Green as the only songs that give me a feel for what it is about Christianity that moves people. (I was raised in a secular humanist family, and never set foot in a church as a child.) It was recommended to me by Simon Joyner, and it made…

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#Al Green #Already Gone #Blemish #C.L.R. James #Christianity #Cold War #David Sylvian #Derek Bailey #Divorce #Doug Henwood #First Take #Jacques Derrida #Mark Fisher #New Hampshire #Pere Ubu #Roberta Flack #Scott Solter #Simon Joyner #Specters of Marx #The Eagles #Toshimaru Nakamura #Vermont

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Lisa Ullén

Photo by Märta Thisner

Lisa Ullén is a pianist based in Stockholm, Sweden. Born in 1964 in Seoul, Korea and raised in Northern Sweden, where she moved after being adopted just prior to turning 4, Ullén initially focused her love of music in its immensity into classical piano training. Encounters with modern composition and improvisation steered her away off the straight and narrow, and she’s pursued both sides of music as a major contributor to Stockholm’s avant-garde music scene throughout this century. She is a valued side-person for bandleaders such as Anna Högsberg and Finn Loxbo, and a strong collaborator in ensembles such as Reading Music, which presents work by composers including Nomi Epstein and Hanna Hartman, and the free improv trio Space. Ullén has also recorded several volumes of solo piano music. Bill Meyer wrote of the most recent such release, Heirloom, “It’s easy to get hung up on the novelty of Ullén’s sounds, which impart a visceral thrill that’s likely to keep you coming back to them. But as one spends time with them, the existential dimension of how they’re played looms larger.”

In this moment, this is some music that means and/or has meant a lot to me. What I listen to and whatchanges.

Thelonius Monk — Criss Cross

What I particularly like about Monk is how his playing and compositions form a single entity. Even so his songs have an integrity all of their own. They are very much like his playing — there is this amazing clarity to everything he does. Every phrase is exceptionally well-articulated, even when it is slightly slurred. And he goes in the wrong direction at all the right places.

Andrea Neumann — Solo at Monopiano Festival

I have known Andrea Neumann´s music for a long time and I love her approach to time, sound, and space.There are such strengths and frailties in her music. Also, a lot of the music I listen to and really appreciate is like this — it is something that happens in a particular space and unfolds in real time. You can sometimes listen to it and appreciate it afterwards, via videos like this one, but it is not produced to be recorded, packaged, and sold.

Derek Bailey — Solo Guitar

When I started to dig into improvisation, I listened to a huge number of players, Derek Bailey among them… Big inspiration, also a huge impact on me.

Helmut Lachenmann — “Ausklang” from Musik für Klavier mit Orchester

Fantastic piece; how did they get all these extended techniques in an orchestral situation? Ueli Wiget on the piano — there are so many amazing classical pianists. But it’s also the composition as such, and the way it transposes one of the key elements of the piano as an instrument — its resonance, the Ausklang — into an orchestral setting. All instruments work with resonances in some ways, of course, but to do it collectively like this, and pick up on and extend effects which stem from the piano is beautiful and impressive.

Robert Wyatt — “Shipbuilding”

Of course… Robert Wyatt: his songwriting, his arranging, his voice. Also his choice of covers, and ability to make them his own. This one seems very apt again.

Captain Beefheart — “The Floppy Boot Stomp” from Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)

Outstanding, especially this late phase. Kudos to the Magic Band; I love the trombone. The instrumentation and arrangements on this one are fantastic, so carefully chiseled, yet full of surprises.

Aretha Franklin — “Climbing Higher Mountains” (Live at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, 1972)

I went to a gospel camp when I was 13 — I found a note for it somewhere, and applied without telling my mum. I took a long train ride to south of Sweden. I have always admired gospel music and not least gospel piano players. I would like to be one. But listening to Aretha in this movie is pretty good too… My gospel camp was not even close to this, but the feeling and energy reminds me of it.

Carla Bley — “The Lord Is Listenin’ To Ya, Hallelujah!”

The gospel according to Carla, with great trombone from Gary Valente. Carla’s music has followed me since my late teens. Always… Trombone again…

Kristine Scholz, Mats Persson, Sten Sandell — “To Begin With”

When I studied at the Academy, I had seminars with Mats Persson about new contemporary music and we played a lot of different material. A huge inspiration. Mats and Kristine Scholz are an outstanding duo. I love their careful interpretations of different composers. On this recording, they are joined by Sten Sandell, another amazing idiosyncratic pianist.

Bill Evans — “Gloria´s Step” from Sunday at the Village Vanguard

Amazing trio, extraordinary, with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motion. Once upon a time I was living in North Carolina, and among other things I did, I studied jazz piano and copied Bill Evans’ solos . But when I arrived in North Carolina, I had already gotten my head set on other things.

Cecil Taylor — Looking (Berlin version)

Morning, lunch, dinner — always Cecil… also his solo Silent Tongues. I attended a workshop with him in Stockholm in the late 1990s. I was too shy to say anything, but it made a huge impact. His solo concert at this time was a real thing… Life has not been the same since.

#dusted magazine #listed #lisa ullén #thelonius monk #andrea neumann #derek bailey #helmut lachenmann #robert wyatt #captain beefheart #aretha franklin #carla bley #kristine scholz #mats persson #sten sandell #bill evans #cecil taylor

[b1lliesb1ues]

Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey

#Anthony Braxton #Derek Bailey