22.08.1996

Exciting encounters

Phil Rudge reviews solo guitar improvisations 1975-1977 (Domestic and public, CD, Emanem 1995) and Improvisation: its nature and practice in music (The British Library, 1992, 2nd ed) by Derek Bailey

Derek Bailey’s book, Improvisation, is one of the few successful works of musical aesthetics - an area in which words are usually not nearly supple enough. Through analysis of diverse musical forms like flamenco, baroque and jazz he identifies the central role improvisation plays in music and the reasons why this is seldom recognised.

“[There are] widely accepted connotations which imply that improvisation is something without preparation and without consideration, a completely ad-hoc activity, frivolous and inconsequential, lacking in design and method”.

Derek Bailey is one of the best improvising musicians as well. He was one of the pioneers of free improvisation when it emerged as a cohesive movement in the early sixties, questioning musical language and synthesising radical developments in jazz, folk and classical music. His guitar playing combines advanced techniques with inspired resourcefulness and integrity. Domestic and public pieces is a collection of solo guitar improvisations of Bailey playing at home and at a concert in the ICA.

Listening to a recording of improvised music undoubtedly contains a compromise - part of the music’s lifeblood is in its antagonism towards commodity fetishism, its accent on use instead of exchange value. Improvised music wants you to be in its company whilst it is being made to celebrate the complex nature of production and reception within musical language, free from the control of the score and the composer.

Certainly listening to Derek Bailey on CD is nothing like as profound an experience as seeing him play live - some of these have been my most exciting musical encounters. Despite this, Domestic and public pieces is fascinating. Hearing Bailey read out a newspaper article about Unity Theatre burning down whilst improvising a guitar solo has a strange dignity, mixing media without false illusion or cheap commentary. You become aware that everything he plays is part of a musical process that develops on what has passed and anticipates the future - an incredibly ambitious project that balances as many musical contradictions as it can, not fearing failure or wallowing in success.

At 65 Derek Bailey has just released a collaboration of jungle music, the most dynamic and radical contemporary music. In his words, “The procedure of variation is one of the oldest and most persistent of performing principles, being present without interruption from the earliest known musics to the present day”.

Phil Rudge