Derek Bailey interview - 1974

[SandChannel]

Durn, the term plonker is already taken! Urban Dictionary: plonker

Geez... I'm a plonker that plonks. Like Frank said, "The torture never stops..."

[grahambop]

I knew that posting a Derek Bailey interview would provoke some discussion! Fortunately the only one I have left is a Joe Pass interview, nothing too contentious there!

I can’t say that I like Bailey’s music much, but I kind of admire his sticking resolutely to his own path. No way could it have been easy to do that, I think.

Oddly enough, when I first got into jazz, I heard quite a lot of his music. I used to listen to Brian Priestley’s Saturday morning jazz programme on Radio London, and he nearly always played something by Derek Bailey along with Evan Parker, etc. Really I was just listening out for the Charlie Parker/Sonny Rollins/Horace Silver stuff, but it was probably quite beneficial to hear all the other stuff Brian played. The show used to be chronological, so each week you got 2 hours of jazz progressing from the very earliest recordings all the way up to contemporary stuff. I learned a lot from it.

[Rob MacKillop]

What a great education, Graham. You don't get radio shows like that here anymore.

[grahambop]

Indeed, what were they thinking of in those days! The accountants hadn’t yet taken over.

By the way Rob, I enjoyed your 3 homages to Derek Bailey. Love the slide piece with ‘prepared plectrums’ - sounded like a Hawaiian gamelan orchestra!

[neatomic]

some quiet rainy twilight, listen to this-

derek bailey & jamie muir - dart drug -

derek with the great percussionist/monk/painter-jamie muir-

muir was the pivotal member of king crimson- larks tongue in aspic - era...the title was his!

drummer bill bruford said in interview he joined crimson to play with muir!...

cheers

ps- for the sake of geographical accuracy...gamelan would be indonesia!!..bali & java!! hah

[grahambop]

ps- for the sake of geographical accuracy...gamelan would be indonesia!!..bali & java!! hah

I probably didn’t express that very well, what I meant was that Rob’s combination of slide guitar and the ‘tuned percussion’ effect was like a collision of Hawaiian music and the gamelan.

[neatomic]

i getcha g..& thanks again for all the great interview pdfs..really been fun reading them, and all the ensuing comments on them


cheers

[ragman1]

How many posts are you going to make, Ragman, to inform us that you don't like what he does?

Don't know, but it looks like you've just invited another one...

Wasn't one post enough?

Obviously not. I've been mentioned in at least three or four other posts.

It seems you are now trying to persuade us, almost arguing that you don't like it

I'm doing nothing of the kind. Several posters have already said they don't care for it either. So arguing with whom?

My point was - and it's a very, very good point psychologically speaking - that I find it hard to understand how someone can play that stuff all the time. Could you, Rob? All the time? I doubt it very, very much.

But you've also replied to me too, I think:

I see nothing wrong with him playing his way ALL THE TIME, much as did Jackson Pollock, whose paintings I love. There is no reason at all why an artist should try to please everyone by indulging in a variety of styles.

Well, fair enough. Personally I think I'd go a bit bananas after a while, but there you are.

[neatomic]

preface- this has been a very interesting thread!!! bravo gents

when an artist gets into the minutia of his soul...and tries to turn it into art, every single new discovery seems huge and unique...i'm sure derek bailey did not see his years of playing as limited and constrained...on the contrary i think he saw himself as constantly breaking new ground....it's only for us listeners who either hear it or don't, to speculate on it's merit...

to some, jackson pollocks splatter works were the drippings of a an incompetent monkey!!...others can clearly resonate with the depth of his soul he was transferring to canvas..and applaud him for it

to each his own..no harm no foul

cheers


ps- but do listen to that bailey/muir cd someday, when the time is right

[omphalopsychos]

A bit of thoughts from a couple of years ago when I was exchanging my Derek Bailey notes with Rob. I spent some time with Bailey's compositions, but only ever found the time to record one of them.

There's a deliberateness in Bailey's avoidance of tonal harmony - you can't call these chords major or minor &c. However, applying terms like "inside" vs "outside" to describe this music is equally pointless. Derek wasn't about playing "outside"; he was about developing his language and playing rigorously inside it.

In the first two measure's Bailey lays out his intervallic building blocks.


All simultaneous and subsequent notes are spaced by major 7ths. The first two bars build up to the next bar which crescendos into a trichord with a minor second in the bass. As Ragman would astutely point out, the prime form of the Major 7 and Minor 2 are equivalent. The entire composition consists of phrases built from this sonority and occasional variations of fourth and fifth intervals (which are also equivalent in prime form). Note the almost complete absence of 3rds and 6ths. Major seconds occur rarely as well. Fair enough, Bailey didn't invent this language of non-functional intervallic composition. What he remarkably achieved, however, was an improvisational language based on it. To recall and employ these concepts in real time performance require training and musical sensibility comparable to recalling licks and phrases in jazz improvisation.

Bailey's investigation into timbre was equally meticulous, and, in my opinion, led to his best playing (his acoustic guitar recordings). At times in his improvisations he plays a phrase and then repeats it, transposed, using harmonics. He developed a variety of picking, plucking, banging, and scraping techniques that he used to draw out different sounds from the guitar. He had aesthetic goals that many of us don't share because they may be less politically or musically relevant to our situation. However, there's something to pick up from his playing for anyone. If nothing more, careful listening to his pieces to hear and identify his phrases, gestures, and devices is a great exercise for one's musical sensitivity.

[ccroft]

I want to thank Omph and Rob for taking the time to work on this music, present it and explain it a little. I've not listened to Derek a lot, but it was immediately clear to me it's anything but random plinking. I hear phrases, variations and even some things akin to licks. Clearly it's not universally liked and that's OK. Personally I find it interesting.

The "inside/outside" explanation is very good. Everything I've heard is fully inside this thing he likes to do. Most great artists in any field do the same. Even at the risk of going bananas!

[Litterick]

My point was - and it's a very, very good point psychologically speaking - that I find it hard to understand how someone can play that stuff all the time.

I might think the same about classical guitar, or gypsy jazz, were it not that many guitarists obviously enjoy the discipline of playing by rules; and their audiences enjoy what they play.

[Rob MacKillop]

Thanks for the video, neatomic. Oh, I need this music, especially after a largely tonal period of study. Anyone seen the film "Ice Cold In Alex"? It's like having that glass of lager after a gruelling time in the desert!

[grahambop]

Yeah love that film! I watched it again about a year ago.

[Rob MacKillop]

Om, it was your performance that inspired me to get to work on it. And I agree with everything you say in all these posts. Neatomic too.

[grahambop]

By the way, here’s some interesting info. on Derek Bailey’s guitars.

Derek Bailey's Instruments

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

By the way, here’s some interesting info. on Derek Bailey’s guitars.

Derek Bailey's Instruments

Just wondering: did he work the untrimmed strings in as an effect in his playing or did he just not own wire snips?

[christianm77]

I wish someone had recorded that band he did with Buckethead

[omphalopsychos]

I wish someone had recorded that band he did with Buckethead

At least his quartet with Pat Metheny was pressed. You can find it on Spotify.


It was also quite a revelation how utterly clueless Pat Metheny is about the guitar. Hearing him plonk his way through this record convinced me that his more successful output was the consequence of miraculous coincidence. How he managed consistently to land on so many right notes on those other records is beyond me.

[christianm77]

Don't forget I came from Brighton. There were a lot of alternate poets, artists, musicians, storytellers, comedians, performance artists and writers. I knew them personally and liked them a lot. They were great fun, but it doesn't mean I was necessarily a fan of everything they did. Which was fine and no problem at all. I don't expect they liked my stuff much either

I love Brighton, but I always find a much more parochial and conservative place than it thinks itself.

[christianm77]

At least his quartet with Pat Metheny was pressed. You can find it on Spotify.


It was also quite a revelation utterly clueless Pat Metheny is about the guitar. Hearing him plonk his way through this record convinced me that his more successful output was the consequence of miraculous coincidence. How he managed consistently to land on so many right notes on those other records is beyond me.

Haha, a mystery for sure ;-)

I remember talking to free music enthusiasts who properly hate Metheny's playing on that record.

Song X works well, I think, because PM was intimately familiar with Ornette's language. But Ornette was definitely playing jazz, DB makes it quite clear in his book 'Improvisation' he sought an escape from jazz.

The thing about Buckethead is that he'd playing at DB's 'Company' get togethers for some time. Along with people like Mike Patton, John Zorn and Bill Laswell there's a bit of a rock/free improv crossover. (We think of Zorn as a jazzer now obviously, but that wasn't always so clear cut... He almost ended up producing Sepultura, for instance....)

Anyway, DB's utopian ideas of music meant that he crossed over with so many scenes and areas in an extremely eclectic way that seems unlikely given his essentially modernist, stylistically constrained and completely uncompromising approach to art.

In the end, the European approach to free music in someways remains completely separate to jazz, and this is I think in large part to DB's philosophy.

[christianm77]

Yes, he paid his dues. He even played for Morecambe and Wise (which will mean a lot for British readers of a certain age).

Would it be fair to say he played the wrong notes but not necessarily in the wrong order? ;-)

BTW my dad improvised with Derek Bailey back at the City Lit in the 70s. And he doesn't actually play an instrument...

[grahambop]

If you want to get really surreal, this page has a link to Derek playing the theme tune for ‘Desert Island Discs’:

Derek Baileys Gibson ES 175 - Page 6

[ragman1]

I love Brighton, but I always find a much more parochial and conservative place than it thinks itself.

Blimey! Really? I can't say that was my experience in about 40 years there. I'm sure that side existed but the only time I rubbed shoulders with it was during the Festival, and I don't mean the Fringe.

I mean, there are three uni's, including the art college, all the pub venues, the dive clubs like the Fez bar, the street stuff, Gay Pride, dedicated jazz venues, and god knows what else. Even some of the churches put on surrealist performance art, and I don't mean the usual services (just my little joke).

I can't honestly say I bumped into a lot of parochial conservatism myself, I would have run a mile :-)

BTW my dad improvised with Derek Bailey back at the City Lit in the 70s. And he doesn't actually play an instrument...

Now, that, Christian, was bloody hilarious!

[ragman1]

If you want to get really surreal, this page has a link to Derek playing the theme tune for ‘Desert Island Discs’:

Derek Baileys Gibson ES 175 - Page 6

Well, that wasn't weirdo plinking :-)