Name: Pieces For Guitar
Brand: Derek Bailey

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Default:19

Supplier EU

Redeye

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Discogs ID

Limited edition

Colour

Format Music EU

Extended format

Extended format: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

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Download code: No

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Release date

2002-08-27

Format multiplier

Catalogue number

TZA7080

UPC / Barcode

702397708025

Artist

Derek Bailey

Label EU

Tzadik

Genre EU

Jazz

Tzadik is a US record label based in New York City, specializing in avant-garde and experimental music. Established in 1995 by composer and saxophonist John Zorn, Tzadik has become a prominent name in the industry. With Zorn as the executive producer of all Tzadik releases, the label operates as a not-for-profit cooperative.

With an extensive catalog numbering scheme, Tzadik offers a diverse range of musical experiences. From special editions to limited edition vinyls, their releases cater to various preferences. They also have dedicated series such as John Zorn's 50th Birthday Celebration Series and Radical Jewish Culture Series.

While CDs were initially manufactured at a Nimbus facility until 2000, later releases from 2000 onwards were produced by Failsafe Media. It's important to note that if a title was originally issued before 1999 but features Mould SID Code 41xx, it should be considered as a repress from 2000 or later.

Derek Bailey was one of the most influential and adventurous experimental guitarists to come from England. He evolved from the trad-jazz scene of the fifties into the avant/jazz scene in '60s London. As a member of various groups, including Joseph Holbrooke Trio, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and Music Improvisation Company (later known as Company), he played a pivotal role in shaping the British free-jazz scene. In the early seventies, Derek and Evan Parker started their own record label called Incus Records, one of the first artist-run outfits.

Throughout his career, Derek collaborated with renowned musicians from around the world. He formed relationships with European players like Han Bennink and Peter Brötzmann, Japanese free players such as Abe Kaoru and Toshinori Kondo, as well as American improvisers like Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, and John Zorn.

In addition to his musical contributions, Derek organized an annual festival called Company Week in the 80's & 90's. This festival brought together a unique group of international improvisers from diverse backgrounds.

Newest Listed Items

In 2003, two years before his unexpected death, Derek Bailey was asked by David Sylvian to provide a series of pieces of music over which Sylvian would then sing, for his Blemish album. His desire was to be stretched as a vocalist, hence his interest in working with Bailey, one of the most famous names in the field of musical improvisation. The result was seven pieces of guitar music that jar the listener (Play 2 is Bailey remarking on dropping his plectrum, talk about completist!), only one of which was actually used by Sylvian.They turned out to be Bailey's final recording, the end of a 40 year recording career which spanned many genres, from Jazz to Jungle. Fittingly it's just him and an acoustic guitar, strumming, slapping, banging, picking, sliding in and out of key in a glorious demonstration of what the instrument can do beyond the handful of chords most of us are used to hearing.I saw Derek Bailey only once, behaving like a slight, short, grey-haired rock god at All Tomorrow's Parties in 2001, one of his last performances but typical of the breadth of his ability. Despite the fact that I don't like Jazz, and the word 'improvisation' normally makes my blood run cold, I was blown away, and not just because the sound was deafening at times. Bailey's performance grabbed you by the throat and shook you, no two ways about it. It was brash, it was subtle, it tied your stomach up in knots."It's not exactly driving music," my partner commented after the first listen of To Play. And that's precisely the point. This is music that demands your attention, a form that some people like to call radical discontinuity. There's no rhythm to nod along to, the chorus won't be round anytime soon. It swoops and glides and clanks and scrapes along its own wild path.In fact it does everything possible to confound your expectations of what a guitar can sound like.Yet the more you listen, the more you appreciate the form of each piece, and come to understand why Bailey pauses at precisely THAT moment, why he lulls you there, then suddenly begins plucking sharp, hard notes.Bailey was known for being open to all sorts of ideas, hence his surprising range of collaborators. He expanded the guitar's vocabulary, played it whisper soft and thunderingly aggressively, tried different ways of amplification, experimented with feedback. The pieces on To Play are not, by his ranging standards, extreme at all. David Sylvian's production of the album is clean and crisp; he knows when not to meddle.The result is a raw and comparatively approachable recording which will hopefully open more people's eyes to why Derek Bailey is regarded as a god among guitarists.

Pieces For Guitar

Music EU