Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation
by Ben Watson
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Description
This brilliant biography of the cult guitar player will likely cause you to abandon everything you thought you knew about jazz improvisation, post-punk and the avant-garde. Derek Bailey was at the top of his profession as a dance band and recordsession guitarist when, in the early 1960s, he began playing an uncompromisingly abstract form of music. Today his anti-idiom of "Free Improvisation" has become the lingua franca of the "avant" scene, with Pat Metheny, John Zorn, David Sylvian and show more Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore among his admirers. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is a deeply flawed book. Ben Watson apparently spent a lot of time interviewing Derek Bailey, but seems to have decided that he didn't also need to talk much with other key figures in the Free Improvising scene. The result is extremely uneven.
The early sections about Bailey's early life are good, but once the book gets into the rise and development of free improvisation, not so much. Watson covers much of Bailey's later career only by including reviews of performances.
By not seeking out equally deep corroborating and contrasting interviews with Bailey's peers, Watson has written a depressingly shallow book that ultimately does a disservice to very great musician and to the history of an important contemporary musical style.
The early sections about Bailey's early life are good, but once the book gets into the rise and development of free improvisation, not so much. Watson covers much of Bailey's later career only by including reviews of performances.
By not seeking out equally deep corroborating and contrasting interviews with Bailey's peers, Watson has written a depressingly shallow book that ultimately does a disservice to very great musician and to the history of an important contemporary musical style.
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Author Information
28+ Works 470 Members
Ben Watson is a writer, editor, food and farm activist, and the author of several books, including Acts of God: The Old Farmer's Almanac Unpredictable Guide to Weather and Natural Disasters and Taylor's Guide to Heirloom Vegetables. He is also coauthor of Passport to Gardening and The Slow Food Guide to New York City. Watson lives in New Hampshire.
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- Members
- 48
- Popularity
- 622,980
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.25)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
