Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation

by Ben Watson

This outstanding 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 record-session 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.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Declan · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is such a pity that Watson was far more concerned with his political views and personal story than with writing a convincing and comprehensive account of the life and music of the wonderful guitarist Derek Bailey. There was no attempt to interview musicians such as Evan Parker or Barry Guy who played with Bailey for many years, at crucial periods in his development as a player ( a term he always liked). Also his wives barely exist; we learn far more about Watson's tedious teenage crush on an American girl than we do about any woman in Bailey's life.There is also far too much time spend on pointless descriptions of concerts that were recorded and are, therefore, available for the reader to listen to. There aren't many opportunities to get a biography of such a marginal musical figure as Bailey published so it is a particularly frustrating that Watson made such a mess of this one.

[Joe Richards · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fascinating subject presented in a flawed, unbalanced and opinionated manner. Opening with engaging coverage of the early years of Bailey's life and environment, with plenty of insightful and typically brash interviews from the iconoclastic guitarist, the book decays into an over-inflated analysis of the musicians that surrounded him, endless and futile comparisons to Frank Zappa and a series of weighted performance and record reviews from the hand of an egocentric and self-satisfied author.

This is perhaps an overly harsh reflection of a clearly well-researched chronological take on the importance and development of a brilliant and unique musician. I think I just found the po-faced and frequently judgmental palette of the author to be unattractive; admittedly, by its own merits, free improvisation inevitably succumbs to the nature of its higher artistic format, but that doesn't justify such a frequently black-and-white analysis.

The author frequently forgets that such abstract sounds as described - particularly that of the musicians that are not held in as high regard as the central subject - are totally open to individual interpretation, and one listeners' trash might be another listeners' treasure. Approach with caution; Bailey's own book on Improvisation is significantly more penetrable and welcoming.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

The weird guy who wrote this bk is obsessed w/Frank Zappa and Marxist theory. He somehow manages to fit many references to both into a book about Derek Bailey and the story of free improv. The Zappa in particular is not at all germane to the subject matter. But at least it only shows up every other page.
He gives us very interesting biographical info about Bailey up until roughly his early 20s, and then pretty much abandons it. There's no real biographical detail about the rest of Bailey's life other than the music he's involved in.
Peculiar bk but is def. worth reading. Makes very strong, eloquent arguments w/r/t the value of free improvisation as a means of musical activity.

[Ames · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the book was brilliant. Charting Bailey's development into a revolutionary of music almost entirely through interview transcripts rather than narrative. Bailey is a cantankerous, working class british curmudgeon (read: HILARIOUS), and letting him speak for himself is brilliant. Somewhere about half way through the book it switched to reviews of material and shows. Although Watson did a good job of it, and even defended this shift adequately, it still lost steam and therefore interest. Towards the end Bailey's voice returned and the book picked back up.

Watson takes an interesting stance, willfully inserting his own interpretation of events and material, a stance he freely admits Bailey does not share. His work especially (less so his life) are in the world to be discussed and as such, he no longer has the final say in matters. Obviously a s taunch Marxist (and more annoyingly, a sad Frank Zappa fan), Watson freely imbues moments and records with context, meaning and context.

He must be commended though on his ability to make a record of happening of the most abstract and unruly music imaginable quantifiable and tangible. By noting the skills involved and deployed as well as the clash / cooperation of the personalities involved it turns each meeting into an epic narrative that gives form to the previously formless.

In all very glad I sloughed through that middle bit as it was enlightening (as long as you took Watson himself with a grain of salt).

[Herb · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a deeply flawed book. Ben Watson apparently spent a lot of time interviewing Derek Bailey, but seems to have decided that he didn't also need to talk much with other key figures in the Free Improvising scene. The result is extremely uneven.

The early sections about Bailey's early life are good, but once the book gets into the rise and development of free improvisation, not so much. Watson covers much of Bailey's later career only by including reviews of performances.

By not seeking out equally deep corroborating and contrasting interviews with Bailey's peers, Watson has written a depressingly shallow book that ultimately does a disservice to very great musician and to the history of an important contemporary musical style.

[Grig O' · Rating 3 out of 5]

As others have noted, there are 4 types of content in this book... in order of readability:

1. Long interviews with Derek Bailey himself, a lively chap with a mature perspective on music and improvisation that's both principled and practice-based;
2. Quotes from Bailey's peers, curated by Watson to form an insightful if incomplete picture;
3. A whole lot of concert and record reviews, which is after all Watson's bread and butter;
4. Shoehorning of Marx and Zappa into each and every page of the goddamn book.

Now, if some Marxist perspective is always welcome (although Watson's approach is self-consciously polemical and the confrontational tone gets tedious quick), unless you're a big Zappa fan you probably won't appreciate all the forced parallels - Bailey himself didn't like Zappa, but apparently he reluctantly humoured Watson's excesses. Hence, the author seems to say, so should we.

Still, Watson's expertise of the field is remarkable (especially for the pre-youtube era) and there's a whole lot of interesting springboards to be bookmarked and pursued. As long as we're clear that this isn't _the_ Story, or even _a_ Story, but _his_ Story of Free Improvisation, we'll be fine.

[Steev Hise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. It's much more than a biography, it's also a polemic on music, the music industry, capitalism, art, and popular culture. Anyone interested in free improv should read it, but also anyone interested in alternatives to the corporate monolith of commercial music would find it worth while to at least check it out.

That said I think the book is a bit too long. There's extensive appendices which I think some of the main text should have been moved to, because there's a lot that I would consider "optional". This is especially true of the long chapter about Bailey's Company Weeks, in which the author exhaustively details every night of every Company week from like 1977 to 1993 or whenever they stopped. It's somewhat interesting to get this deep dive into all these improvisors, but it was just long exhausting slog to get through it all.

But anyway, Ben Watson is a great critic and writer, a superfan and a true radical, and I am motivated to look for some of his other books.

[RA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ben Watson's bio of the iconic Derek Bailey, the pioneer of free-improve music, especially free-improv guitar. Lots of detail about numerous "concerts," "gigs," venues, presentation, etc. Plenty of Derek's own voice, and the voices of those who have played and worked with him.

A somewhat Marxist analysis of music, and the "business' of music; but with some self-critical comments added in, at times. This is a must for those interested in any time of "free" music (playing and/or listening), as it traces some of the lineage, individual, groups, etc. who have populated this strange universe of sound-making.

One of the real assets of this book is the historical listing of CDs and DVDs available. I was totally energized by this, and hope to move forward with my own necessary and inherent free-improv guitar.

[Chris Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

I mentioned in passing on twitter that I was reading this and some rando felt the need to share their very negative goodreads review. I thought that was weird. The book itself was passable. Derek was an engaging interviewee and the parts where he was talking were never less than interesting. I’ve always found Ben Watson’s writing fairly exhausting and unfortunately huge swathes of this book were *very* Ben Watson: I’m not unsympathetic to his Marxist/Marxist-adjacent views but it’s simply not what I wanted from this book. Also constantly insinuating that Bitches Brew and everything else John McLaughlin worked on was commercial/sell-out territory is just shit and wrong and nerrrr so there. I’m now waiting to see if the aforementioned twitter rando finds this and tells me off; he seemed very angry about this book for some reason.

[Stewart Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

"As an Adornite..." Some people are put off by Watson's unapologetic Marxist analysis, but his arguments are sophisticated and well worth engaging with. I'm less stringent in my approach, but Watson's critique of liberal arts discourse is highly pertinent. Certainly there are moments where my eyebrows were raised, but it's a stimulating read and often very funny.
This isn't a straightforward biography, but the long interview with Bailey is a wonderful read, and while Watson's detailed accounts of Bailey's festivals and recordings can be a bit much all at once, they're full of colourful descriptions and insight.

[Tiny Red Dragons Radio · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking for a formal biography of the great Derek Bailey this isn't it. However, if you are interested in Free Improvisation and the many theories and critiques that surround it this book will do wonders for you. I was particularly excited by the dizzying amount of details that went into the chapter on Bailey's "Company Weeks," yearly gatherings of musicians interested in free improvisation which lasted from 1977-1994. Through reading this book I discovered dozens of musicians that I have to dig deeper into, and that made my whole week.

(This review originally appeared on my personal account: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/9... )

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking for a formal biography of the great Derek Bailey this isn't it. However, if you are interested in Free Improvisation and the many theories and critiques that surround it this book will do wonders for you. I was particularly excited by the dizzying amount of details that went into the chapter on Bailey's "Company Weeks," yearly gatherings of musicians interested in free improvisation which lasted from 1977-1994. Through reading this book I discovered dozens of musicians that I have to dig deeper into, and that made my whole week.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tough read. More like a three-star for enjoyability, but given a fourth star if you engage in Youtube-enhanced reading. This book is a gateway to a truly fascinating style of music that's almost impossible to encounter by happenstance.

Also, the author's reviews of performances he attended are like what Jack Kerouac was (unsuccessfully) going for when he attempted to describe jazz in 'On the Road,' lacking the musical vocabulary to convincingly articulate what the music was doing.

[Alexa Tanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are many, many issues with this book, yet at the same time it contains valuable and interesting information for fans of Bailey and free improv in general. First of all the structure of the book is very tiresome - predictably beginning with Bailey's childhood then slogging its way through a review of every Company Week concert that took place, which simply isn't interesting to read - imagine reading pages upon pages of concert reviews, from the same reviewer, all in a row?

Secondly the style and opinion of the author are extremely overbearing. I appreciate that his opinions are strong, and they are indeed interesting at times, but his conversational tone and resistance to explaining his terms or critical context makes things rather unenjoyable. He also comes off at times as petty, snobby and intentionally dismissive. These are not the qualities of a good music critic.

Finally, this book is poorly edited. I wonder how much power the editor had over his writing, or whether it was actually edited at all. His critical opinions and analysis and interspersed quite randomly in the middle of concert reviews, and he quotes at massive length, making this at times more of a collection of interviews that is very inconsistent to read. Also, 'Adornoite' and 'Avantist' are not words, and apparently the author does not know how to complete lists within sentences - to name just several writing issues here.

HOWEVER, at the same time, there are some great moments of Marxist music analysis that do present novel ways of interpreting free improv that you may not have considered before. I don't agree with him, but his comparison between the American minimalists (the transcendent composers) and the improvisers (direct and materialist) is worth thinking about. Futhermore, you will learn about the wider universe of the genre through the likes of Chick Corea, John Zorn, and even Buckethead along the way, which is great for fans of this kind of music.

Sadly this book won't appeal to anyone other than hardcore Bailey or improv fans, as it is not a 'user friendly book', not taking any pains to introduce the field to newcomers. It could almost be three stars as there are decent moments, but I can't seriously say I'd get friends to read this.

[David Keffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most reviews of this book, I point out that there are two parts. The first part is a biography of Bailey, with lots of quotes. It is a wonderful read. Bailey's personality comes through and the book is delightful and very funny. The second half of the book is composed of concert reviews and was pretty boring. I ended up skimming portions of it. But who cares? The book is worth its purchase price just for the first biography part. Derek Bailey was an incredibly important figure in the development of musical improvisation on the cultural margin in the second half of the twentieth century and this book, flawed though it may be, is the only book that provides insight into Bailey.

It is true that, especially in the second half of the book, the author abandons the meticulous care that he used to treat the Bailey biography portion of the book and indulges in some rather superficial dismissals of other musicians. If this annoys you, then tear the book in half and only keep the first part.

I studied this book as part of my preparation for teaching a class at the University of Tennessee, "The Golden Age of Non-Idiomatic Improvisation". I found the Bailey quotes in it to be incredibly inspiring.

On a last note, the Poison Pie Publishing House has recently released a novel, "The Sutra of Reverse Possession: a novel of non-idiomatic improvisation", which drew inspiration from the biography portion of this book. More information on the "The Sutra of Reverse Possession" can be found here.

[Alastair Kemp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful and entertaining book on one of free improvisation's founding giants, some great interviews with the man himself as well as some interesting discussion fron Ben Watson on Bailey's life, early Joseph Holbrooke Trio and each of the Company Week gigs as well as Bailey's later solo ventures and countless collaborations. Overall Ben's writing provides an enjoyable and exhilarating ride through some of music's toughest terrain even if he does occasionally veer off into Trotskyist working class romanticism whilst simultaneously taking theoretically unsubstantiated pot shots at his leftist co-travellers in the forms of anarchism and post-structuralism. However, such groans aside, and they are mere groans at such laxadaisical dogmatic whimsy, it detracts little from the thrust of the book which is to document, and there is an archival quality to this book, interviews and reviews stitched together with leftist pub patter polemic, the work of an original troubadour. Well worth a read for fun, wry amusement and a rare historical overview into a rich but too often untapped musical seam.

[Devin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Derek Bailey deserves a better biography than this. The subject is compelling. The people he played with and the Company events that Bailey organized are fascinating. But the long tracts that passed for "analysis" did them no justice. By the end, it was only my curiosity about Bailey that kept me reading. Curiosity that was rewarded whenever there were direct quotes where the subject could speak for himself. I seriously doubt that Derek Bailey heard his own music through a prism of economic theory, but this author does. Improvisation is a difficult topic to speak to in prose, and Bailey is one of the few to have written an entire book on the topic. It's too bad this book lacked the spirit of what Bailey such a significant musical figure.

[Djll · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty generally acknowledged now (among the dozen or so musicians and critics I've talked to) as a controversial, rather personal assault on some key figures in the European free jazz scene -- polemical, with a lot of post-Marxist bloviating and very little analysis of what Bailey actually played or the scene he built or what it all means. And the second half is not much more than thinly-disguised rewrites of scene reports, much of which has nothing to do with Derek Bailey directly, but rather with settling scores. Very disappointing overall.

[Jake Cole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frustrating. The author seemed more interested in touting his own superiority for listening to Bailey than in developing an argument for Bailey's greatness. Picks up in the second half when Bailey's career found a stable platform (both in Company Weeks live settings and the label support of fan John Zorn), and Watson even allows himself to go into the music some more. Still, I sympathize with how hard it is to provide a textual summary of music at its most abstract and searching, but this still feels like a missed opportunity to really put forward Bailey's case.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has some flashes of real insight into the purpose and value of free improvisation, but is marred by an uneven structure, some really terrible prose attempting to describing concerts and recordings, and continual references to Frank Zappa, whom the author's previous book was about, but who has absolutely nothing to do with Derek Bailey or free improvisation. The hilarious full transcript of Bailey's 1998 "Invisible Jukebox" in Appendix 3 is a strong closer for those wishing to remember him in all his curmudgeonly, witty, idiosyncratic glory.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure that this book would be of much interest to anyone not already interested in the world of improvised music, but I found it really enjoyable. There were a few dead spots, for example the endless descriptions of approximately every piece from Company Week 1977-1994. Watson is very opinionated observer, who is likely to dismiss some very important contributors to the development on free improv, which can be annoying. He devotes little sub-chapters to various collaborators throughout the book, but somehow manages to leave Evan Parker and John Stevens off the list. Hmm.

[Taneli Viitahuhta · Rating 5 out of 5]

"As it is, this is a book which should be
required reading for anyone interested not only in
postwar music, but in the contemporary possibilities
and dilemmas of the avant-garde in general."
- David Cunningham

"Sanovat että Anna Karenina on pitkästyttävä kirja.
Pitkä, minä sanon, ei pitkästyttävä."
- Fantasmagorinen Töölön Mummo

[jacob-felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read half of this over 2 days while riding trains with the owner of the book. mostly interviews with bailey and contemporaries. really interesting. nothing too offensive from watson so far. maybe more in the 2nd half of the book? i'm going to read the rest as soon as i can pick up another copy.

[Roberto · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author rambles on and on for about 300 pages about how Marx, Situationist theories and Free Improv have something to do with Derek Bailey without really making a point. The rest 140 pages are OK.
Painful to read...

[Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can get a little too focused on describing particular concerts and records, but a phenomenal look into the history of the free improv movement through the life of Derek Bailey.