Search - Derek Bailey :: Ballads: Derek Bailey

Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered!

04/28/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"No one saw this one coming! There have been a rash of fascinating solo-guitar albums of late, from the reissue of Clarence White's practice tapes to recent improvised outings by Fred Frith and Mark Ribot. None of those, however, are as revalatory as this. Fans of improvised music have long admired, loved even, Derek Bailey for his iron-fisted resolve -- his unyeilding, resolute devotion to amelodic, arrythmic explorations and to the lack of any repertoire. While such characteristics are indeed atypical, they are hardly amusical -- he has been showing us all along that sound and music are one in the same, and that one can communicate just as effectively without limiting the language to western musical confines.So, does this album of standard ballad faire function as an apology for decades of what some call anti-music? Hardly. What it does is illuminate, more than almost any other record of the dozens that Bailey has made, the powerful organic foundation of Bailey's concept. Rather than a series of straight interpretations, this plays like a suite, where lengthy bouts of harmonics, squeels, and silences interact with some of the most beautiful melodies of the past 7 or so decades. It's playful, warm, cantankerous, and -- yes -- a little sentimental. It's also wonderful, an example of improvisation's power to impart personality and charisma into pre-existing structures and Bailey's own genius of reinventing himself yet always sounding like Derek Bailey. Bravo."

An unexpected pleasure

N. Dorward | Toronto, ON Canada | 06/08/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Derek Bailey stares at the camera from the back of this album--if it weren't for the guitar you could mistake him for Samuel Beckett. A similar austerity & singlemindedness to Beckett's has always informed Bailey's music. His book on improvisation is pretty emphatic about his lack of interest in performing within preset structures. It's thus something of a mystery how John Zorn managed to get Derek to record this disc, but it turns out both to be the ultimate collector's item--any Bailey fan will probably have ordered this the moment it came out--and a surprisingly effective album.Bailey has always peppered his solo work with fragments of jazz standards--"Stella by Starlight" on _Domestic & Public Pieces_, "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" & 1930s swing guitar on _Drop Me Off at 96th_, "Imagination" on _Fairly Early With Postscripts_. The difference between this recording & those earlier discs is that there is to my ear no irony at all here: Bailey doesn't desecrate these tunes like Eugene Chadbourne or Billy Jenkins would. But neither is it a clutch of "readings" of these tunes in the accepted jazz manner. They are instead rather like landmarks or objets trouves within an extended solo performance. Bailey doesn't do the usual head-solos-head jazz thing: most tunes are stated exactly once (& sometimes only partially), & they are enfolded in a more or less continuous 41-minute improvisation. It's hard to exactly define the relation between the tunes & the improvisations: the improvisations aren't in any sense "upon" the tunes (upon their chords or melodies), but they somehow interlock very closely--I find myself listening quite closely, never quite sure if I'm hearing bits of the standard within the abstract sections or if I'm just imagining this. Defying expectations, the whole performance lacks any sense of arbitrary style-switching or discontinuity: it works as a whole, & as such says volumes about the vexed quesiton of the relation of jazz to European free improvisation.In short: do try. No novelty, it's actually a very fine album which provides much pleasure & food for thought. Shelve next to _string theory_, Bailey's remarkable feedback album, another recent surprise of his."

Not a sell-out

Robert E. Lloyd | Deerfield Beach, FL | 11/25/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I know what you're thinking: Derek Bailey doing standards? Has he sold out? Actually, no. At least, these don't resemble anyone else in jazz playing standards. Take the theme from Otto Preminger's classic film noir "Laura". When Derek plays it, you can sort of recognize the theme, but only for a flash, then he's off into another world of improvisation. The only reason I didn't give this a "5" is that, let's be honest, folks, you have to be in the right mood for Mr. Bailey. His work is certainly an achievement, though."