There has never been a free improviser more free than the late , great English guitarist Derek Bailey . Though he was an active session musician at the beginning of his career in the early ‘ 50s , and quite adept at standard harmonic jazz techniques , Bailey ultimately abandoned all semblances of conventional guitar performance to develop his highly personal , and oftentimes confounding , playing style . This style was utterly without precedent or recognizable genre references , and sometimes left unwitting listeners wondering if the man even knew how to operate his instrument at all . Sophisticated music aficionados , however , found themselves in awe of Bailey ’ s boundless creativity and fearless exploration of the guitar ’ s many possible voices , including haunting feedback , pick scrapes , harmonics , percussive sounds , notes played behind the nut and below the bridge , jarring intervallic skips , and ethereal broken chordal shards , among other extended playing techniques . He was also a master of haunting and perfectly timed silence . The essential introductory Derek Bailey solo album is the aptly titled Solo Guitar from 1971 , which consists of four absolutely death-defying solo improv pieces , as well as three bold interpretations of compositions written by some of his
contemporaries in the European avantgarde scene . Solo Guitar will either blow your mind , drive you mad , or both , but you will not forget the first time you heard it . Unfortunately Derek Bailey died from ALS in 2005 at the age of 75 , but his influence lives on in modern guitar improvisers like Nels Cline and Marc Ribot , and in adventurous rockers like Thurston Moore ( who did an improv record with Bailey in 1997 ).
Derek Bailey Solo Guitar
There has never been a free improviser more free than the late , great English guitarist Derek Bailey . Though he was an active session musician at the beginning of his career in the early ‘ 50s , and quite adept at standard harmonic jazz techniques , Bailey ultimately abandoned all semblances of conventional guitar performance to develop his highly personal , and oftentimes confounding , playing style . This style was utterly without precedent or recognizable genre references , and sometimes left unwitting listeners wondering if the man even knew how to operate his instrument at all . Sophisticated music aficionados , however , found themselves in awe of Bailey ’ s boundless creativity and fearless exploration of the guitar ’ s many possible voices , including haunting feedback , pick scrapes , harmonics , percussive sounds , notes played behind the nut and below the bridge , jarring intervallic skips , and ethereal broken chordal shards , among other extended playing techniques . He was also a master of haunting and perfectly timed silence . The essential introductory Derek Bailey solo album is the aptly titled Solo Guitar from 1971 , which consists of four absolutely death-defying solo improv pieces , as well as three bold interpretations of compositions written by some of his
contemporaries in the European avantgarde scene . Solo Guitar will either blow your mind , drive you mad , or both , but you will not forget the first time you heard it . Unfortunately Derek Bailey died from ALS in 2005 at the age of 75 , but his influence lives on in modern guitar improvisers like Nels Cline and Marc Ribot , and in adventurous rockers like Thurston Moore ( who did an improv record with Bailey in 1997 ).
44 TONE TALK // 5 Solo Guitar Records that Will Change the Way You Play