Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation

by Ben Watson

Overview

This brilliant biography of the cult guitar player will likely cause you to abandon everything you thought you knew about jazz improvisation, post-punk and the avant-garde. Derek Bailey was at the top of his profession as a dance band and recordsession guitarist when, in the early 1960s, he began playing an uncompromisingly abstract form of music. Today his anti-idiom of "Free Improvisation" has become the lingua franca of the "avant" scene, with Pat Metheny, John Zorn, David Sylvian and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore among his admirers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781781681053
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	07/02/2013
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Ben Watson is a writer on music and culture. He is the author of numerous books including Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play, Art, Class & Cleavage and Adorno for Revolutionaries.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition vii

Introduction: On Freedom 1

1 Child and Teenager, 1930-1951 13

2 Working Guitarist, 1950-1963 33

3 Joseph Holbrooke Trio, 1963-1966 52

4 Soloism and Freedom, 1966-1977 112

5 Company Weeks, 1977-1994 205

6 Improv International 311

Conclusion: On Improvisation 374

Appendix 1 A Derek Bailey Discography 379

Appendix 2 An Incus Discography 401

Appendix 3 Derek Bailey's Complete Invisible Jukebox 412

Books Cited 442

Index 445

What People are Saying About This

Iain Sinclair

I am an enthusiast for the Watson method and I'm prepared to follow him, even to places where I wouldn't under other circumstances go ... I feel profoundly unqualified to promote a text about which I have no specialist knowledge, and for which I have no innate sympathy — being left with unfocused support for the ongoing ever-fecund Watson project. His attack, his singularity. His indecent decency.

Editorial Reviews

"The ideal biographer of Derek Bailey."—John Fordham, Guardian

"I am an enthusiast for the Watson method and I’m prepared to follow him, even to places where I wouldn’t under other circumstances go ... His attack, his singularity. His indecent decency."—Iain Sinclair

From the Publisher

I am an enthusiast for the Watson method and I'm prepared to follow him, even to places where I wouldn't under other circumstances go ... His attack, his singularity. His indecent decency.

Iain Sinclair

The ideal biographer of Derek Bailey.

John Fordham - Guardian

The ideal biographer of Derek Bailey.

Guardian - John Fordham

The ideal biographer of Derek Bailey.— John Fordham

Guardian