In this excellent volume, a revised edition of a book first published in 1980, Derek Bailey shows that he has a prose style that is as clear and easily comprehended as his guitar playing is unorthodox and unpredictable. He admits that ‘this is inevitably a selective look at improvisation through the wide world of music’. He acknowledges that it is too elusive a subject for analysis and precise description; yet he has, with the aid of fellow improvisers, provided a brilliant insight into the differences worldwide.
The mysteries of the Indian raga, the Spanish flamenco, the European baroques and organists of all eras are investigated and the dead hand of European classical music recognised for its self-absorbed, pompous attitudes and its obsession with its geniuses and their timeless masterpieces. In the Rock section, Bailey stresses the pre-eminent influence of the blues on rock improvisation and regrets that, with very few exceptions, these talents were surrendered to technology in the nineties.
Not surprisingly, Bailey’s jazz tastes exclude the neo-classicists but he applauds the uniqueness of Albert Ayler, Louis Armstrong, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Jack Teagarden and John Zorn. He warns of the dangers of sequacity, caused by seeing jazz as a series of schools, and quotes Steve Lacy on improvisational idealism.
Bailey tells of his work with the groups Joseph Holbrooke and Music Improvisation Company, admitting that ‘free music’ has an identity problem. He points out that it is not experimental and that its timelessness makes it anything but avant garde. Diversity is its most constant characteristic and he astutely points out that it predates any other music: ‘Mankind’s first musical performances had to be freely improvised.’ Improvisation is available to skilled instrumental beginners, children and non-musicians and Bailey explains how it makes its own form, while discussing how it is taught with teachers such as Gavin Bryars, John Stevens and Han Bennink.
Bailey’s book is an honest and endlessly intriguing treatise on his subject which all fair-minded jazz followers should read and digest. I suspect that, like the undersigned, they will return to it again and again.
Improvisation – Its Nature And Practice In Music, by Derek Bailey. The British Library National Sound Archive. 146 pp; £12.95. ISBN 0-7123-0506-8
