Hi, I'm Nathan from JazzGuitarLessons.net and you're listening to Album Deep Dives.
In this episode we will be discussing Derek Bailey’s 2002 recording “Ballads”. So fasten your seatbelts, cause you want to be prepared for what’s coming up next.
For anyone who is not familiar with Derek Bailey, I’ll read you a quote by him that might just summarize him in a nutshell:
[I] would claim to be a guitar player, that’s what I do. I’m not an artist. The art market has never appealed to me. Playing an instrument creatively - improvising - will include art, I suppose, but it goes well beyond the boundaries of art in many ways.
Bailey is a true improviser on so many levels. In fact his view of the guitar is not “a music making instrument” but rather a “sound making instrument”, and because of this, his approach to the guitar is truly unique. He was born in Sheffield, England in 1930. Both his father and grandfather were musicians, and he began to play guitar at age 10. He first started playing music professionally in the 50s, playing in several dance hall bands, radio shows, and in clubs. It was in the early 60s that he would move on to play free jazz. Bailey’s big jump into becoming an essential part of the European Free Jazz scene started in 1966, when he moved to London. Here, he made a number of important musical associations with names such as trumpet player and composer Kenny Wheeler, saxophonist Evan Parker, drummer John Stevens, and bassist Dave Holland. It is with this group of musicians that he would form his renowned group “The Spontaneous Music Ensemble”. Later on, he would meet drummer Tony Oxley, and they would start their own record label “Incus” together with Evan Parker in 1970. His experimentation with timbre, and his constant expansion of musical and technical boundaries, would make him an immensely influential figure in improvised music and art.
His 2002 record “Ballads” is a wonderfully strange surprise that came into being thanks to the imaginative mind of John Zorn, who pushed Derek into recording the album, and he is owner of the label that released the album: Tzadic Records. Bailey dedicated most of his life to free improv, where one of the main characteristics is that there is no defined form; so recording an album made up of jazz standard ballads, where form is of utmost importance, might seem paradoxical. In fact, I think it is a paradox, but that’s the beauty of this record. Derek Bailey managed to make both worlds work together. He treats each tune extremely freely, but its essence remains present. He uses form as a means to guide his playing, but never allowing it to take control. We can still hear his extremely wide palette of sounds giving different shades of colour to almost every note.
[music clip “Laura” 00:00 – 00:34]
The first tune of the record is Mercer and Raskin’s “Laura”. Derek gives us a clear example of what this record will be about. In this version, he only plays the melody of the tune, but he uses an incredible amount of different techniques to shape the melody in different ways. We just heard in the first 34 seconds of the tune how he played notes in the nut of the guitar, he played harmonics, strummed his guitar, and plucked his guitar. All of these with various degrees of force to expand even further the amount of different sounds he uses to shape this short excerpt of the melody. Let’s listen to yet another resource Derek loves to use, which is octave displacement. This technique might seem simple, but listen to just how different the tune can sound just by varying the register in which the different notes of the melody are played.
[music clip “Laura” 01:00 – 01:28]
On Swan’s “When Your Lover Has Gone” we hear a different approach from Bailey. In this tune, he doesn’t really play the entirety of the melody as it is written. Instead, he dissects the important motifs of the melody and lets them guide his improvisation. He still experiments extensively with timbre, and he uses this to create a very raw and emotionally charged interpretation. The lyrics of the song talk about how everything loses its magic when your lover has gone, and this sense of loss and anguish is translated into Derek Bailey’s playing. He uses a much more aggressive and jarring approach, especially by the end of the tune.
[music clip “When Your Lover Has Gone” 06:50 – 07:24]
On the famous standard, “Stella by Starlight” written by Victor Young, Bailey takes the timbral and textural exploration to its limits. He briefly plays part of the melody both at the beginning and at the end of the tune, but the main dish is found in the remaining 12 minutes of his interpretation. He takes us in a fascinating journey filled with almost hypnotizing repetition. He especially makes use of octaves and unisons to make the difference in timbre stand out even more. He plays the same note, or pitch, in different parts of the guitar, using different techniques, or even just by changing the amount of force with which he produces the sound. This is one tune where he is extremely flexible with form, but it pays off once you realize you are released from this “timbral trance” and you hear the familiar melody at the very end.
[music clip “Stella by Starlight” 12:14 – 12:41]
“Gone With the Wind” by Magidson and Wrubel, and “Rockin’ Chair” by Hoagy Carmichael are approached in a similar way by Derek. He first states a good portion of the melody with a very melodic tone, to then suddenly go into a more aggressive and atonal section. In “Rockin’ Chair” Derek Bailey surprises us with even more different sounds that he can produce with the guitar. Until now, we have heard him play the strings of the guitar in several ways, but this is the first time that we can clearly hear for an extended period of time his use of the body of the guitar to produce more percussive sounds. He doesn’t use this to create a beat or anything like that. He simply uses this extended technique to complement the texture he is going for with a different layer of sound.
[music clip “Rockin’ Chair” 22:38 – 23:05]
On the famous standard “Body and Soul” Bailey decides to start the tune at the second half of the bridge, and he plays this and the last A section in a very straightforward way. It is such a beautiful surprise after the intensity of the previous improvisation on “Rockin’ Chair”. Our ears rest for a bit listening to the familiar melody, and Derek Bailey starts building an improvisation that at first has a defined rhythmic feel and melodicism, to later on challenge our ears once again with his infinite sonic palette. It’s a great journey, and Derek masterfully takes us by the hand to make the most out of it.
[music clip “Body and Soul” 24:22 – 24:59]
This push and pull between simplicity and familiarity, and more challenging and dissonant sounds is very evident in Baileys improv on Coots and Gillespie’s “You Go To My Head”. Once again, Derek starts the tune by stating parts of the melody, and he then goes off to improvise. During his improv, he goes back and forth between playing melodies and playing guitar sounds. This contrast is thoroughly enjoyable, especially because of how he controls the harmonic density. During his more dissonant sections, he plays a cacophony of sounds, and during his more melodic passages, he plays just one or two notes at most at the same time. The tune ends with him resting on a single octave, which states a powerful argument. Resting on an octave can be considered bland and uninteresting, but the way Bailey places it within his improvisation contextualizes this simple musical resource and transforms it into a beautiful and emotive resting place.
[music clip “You Go To My Head” 35:00 - 35:30]
Even though “Ballads” is a one of a kind album due to its particular juxtaposition of free improv within songs with a defined form, there is one more album by Derek Bailey similar to this that I would encourage you to check out. It’s called “Standards” and it was released in 2007. Although the release date is misleading, this album was actually recorded prior to “Ballads”. It is less of a formal record, and it contains Bailey’s early explorations with this new idea of combining both worlds into one record. Apart from these, I would recommend listening to his album “Aida” for more astounding solo work (keeping in mind that this is completely free improv). If you want to listen to Derek in a group format, I would recommend listening to his album with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble “Karyobin”. Finally, he wrote a book that was later made into a TV series for Channel 4 called “On The Edge”. This series is an extremely interesting work that talks about Derek Bailey’s vision and approach to improvisation.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Album Deep Dives. I hope that you enjoyed and were challenged by it, as I’m sure this was Derek Bailey's intent when he recorded this album. Sadly, Derek passed away on Christmas day 2005. It is truly inspiring to listen to such groundbreaking and creative work, and I’m sure this and more of his records will maintain their freshness and still be relevant as time continues on.
Once again, I’m Nathan from JazzGuitarLessons.net and I’ve been your host for this episode of Album Deep Dives. Be sure to catch more episodes like this as well as other premium jazz guitar content on learn.jazzguitarlessons.net. Until then, happy shedding.
