ponedjeljak, 18. studenoga 2013.

Derek Bailey - On the Edge: Improvisation In Music (1992)



Dokumentarac u 4 dijela o improvizaciji u muzici napravljen prema knjizi legendarnog gitarista Dereka Baileya.

What do Mozart, John Zorn and Gaelic psalm singers have to do with each other?

Programs in the Chanel 4 series, On the Edge, by Derek Bailey, about improvisation. Broadcast in 1992, On The Edge was a 4-part miniseries about improvisational music in all of its forms. Written by Bailey and based on his book 'Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music', the program admirably includes everything from traditional Korean music to French Catholic liturgical organ performance to downtown New York free jazz.
  1. Derek Bailey: On the Edge (Part 4)

  2. Derek Bailey: On the Edge (Part 3)

  3. Derek Bailey: On the Edge (Part 2)



On the Edge (Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice), 1992

On the Edge, Part 1
On the Edge, Part 2
On the Edge, Part 3
On the Edge, Part 4


Playing For Friends on 5th Street documentary (2004) Directed by Robert O'Haire

Bailey was born in Sheffield, England. A third generation musician, he began playing the guitar at the age of ten, going on to study music with Sheffield City organist C.H.C. Biltcliffe and guitar with George Wing and John Duarte. As an adult he found work as a guitarist and session musician in clubs, radio, dance hall bands, and so on, playing with many performers including Gracie Fields, Bob Monkhouse and Kathy Kirby, and on television programs such as Opportunity Knocks. Bailey was also part of a Sheffield based trio founded in 1963 with Tony Oxley and Gavin Bryars called 'Joseph Holbrooke' (named after the composer, whose work they never actually played). Although originally performing relatively 'conventional' jazz this group became increasingly free in direction.
Bailey moved to London in 1966, frequenting the Little Theatre Club run by drummer John Stevens. Here he met many other like-minded musicians, such as saxophonist Evan Parker, trumpet player Kenny Wheeler and double bass player Dave Holland. These players often collaborated under the umbrella name of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, recording the seminal album Karyobin for Island Records in 1968. In this year Bailey also formed the Music Improvisation Company with Parker, percussionist Jamie Muir and Hugh Davies on homemade electronics, a project that continued until 1971. He was also a member of the Jazz Composers Orchestra and Iskra 1903, a trio with double bass player Barry Guy and trombone player Paul Rutherford that was named after a newspaper published by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.
In 1970, Bailey founded the record label Incus with Tony Oxley, Evan Parker and Michael Walters. It proved influential as the first musician-owned independent label in the UK. Oxley and Walters left early on; Parker and Bailey continued as co-directors until the mid-1980s, when friction between the men led to Parker's departure. Bailey continued the label with his partner Karen Brookman until his death in 2005.
Along with a number of other musicians, Bailey was a co-founder of Musics magazine in 1975. This was described as "an impromental experivisation arts magazine" and circulated through a network of like-minded record shops, arguably becoming one of the most significant jazz publications of the second half of the 1970s, and instrumental in the foundation of the London Musicians Collective.
1976 saw Bailey form Company, an ever changing collection of like-minded improvisors, which at various times has included Anthony Braxton, Tristan Honsinger, Misha Mengelberg, Lol Coxhill, Fred Frith, Steve Beresford, Steve Lacy, Johnny Dyani, Leo Smith, Han Bennink, Eugene Chadbourne, Henry Kaiser, John Zorn, Buckethead and many others. Company Week, an annual week long free improvisational festival organised by Bailey, ran until 1994.
In 1980, he wrote the book Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice. This was adapted by UK's Channel 4 into a four part TV series in the early nineties, edited and narrated by Bailey.
Bailey died in London on Christmas Day, 2005. He had been suffering from motor neurone disease. -- Wikipedia 

What do Mozart, John Zorn and Gaelic psalm singers have to do with each other? Part one of a 1992 film explains.
OK, so it's an hour-long documentary on improvisation. But if you catch even the first few minutes, you'll be treated to this pearl from guitarist Derek Bailey:
In the lack of indigenous music, [the record store is] where [people] find their roots. And in music, whatever you're looking for — whether it's authenticity, or originality, or transcendentalism, or traditionalism — the best place to look is in a record store. But you won't find — or you'll rarely find — mention of improvisation. It's not a term which has become part of the record industry's promotional vocabulary.
In recent years, the negative stigma around "improvisation" has diminished, perhaps due in part to bands like , a polyglot of cosmic music, particularly flexing its improv roots . Jazz folks have been on this tip since day one, but I'm sure Bailey would be happy to know that his statement becomes less and less the case as people discover music with an expansive approach.
The above quotation comes from On the Edge, a four-part U.K. Channel 4 TV series based on Bailey's book, Improvisation. It wasn't a how-to on improvisation, but a look at its history and cultural importance.
Why On the Edge deserves the reissue treatment, after the jump.
I was reminded of the series , and re-watched my totally legal (ahem) copy of the long out-of-print program. Thankfully, for on-demand viewing, but I can't help but think On the Edge deserves the full DVD treatment.
While the series features music literally from around the world — Indian classical, Spanish flamenco, Egyptian gypsy music and American blues — jazz folks will undoubtedly be excited about the performances and interviews with drummer and educator and conductor and composer , which you can watch below.
What makes On the Edge so timeless is the notion that improvised music shares a community — everything from a Lebanese organist living in Paris (Naji Hakim, my personal favorite) to qawwali from the Sufis in New Delhi to Chicago trombone/video-manipulation via George Lewis — a cross-pollinated sonic world based on spontaneous interaction. - Lars Gotrich


Derek Bailey:




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