A live recording of 'non idiomatic' Derek Bailey's first gig for several years in his home town. In August 2004 at the invitation of the formidable musical partners Mick Beck and Paul Hession, Derek Bailey returned to his geographical roots, Sheffield, for a couple of gigs there, and in Leeds. Bailey now lives most of the time in Barcelona, and sometimes likes to get away from the heat of its summer. His trip to Yorkshire met this criterion. Sheffield's meteorological response was dramatic - cold, and so much rain that it necessitated buckets under a few drips. Possible onomatopoeic resonances from the openings of tracks two and three can be detected. Fortunately, the Red Deer pub was just round the corner. Bailey's mainly reflective performance is complemented by Hession's rhythmically grounded but always creative manipulations of a more or less conventional drum kit, and Beck's energising explorations with the unusual mediaeval bassoon, along with authoritative tenor sax, and various inquisitive whistles. The three tracks, only slightly edited from an excellent recording by Chris Trent, present the majority of the concert, which was supported by Sheffield's Other Music and staged in the hall of Sheffield Royal Society of the Blind (a public venue used for a variety of musical occasions).
Despite the rain, and the stageing of the gig in the holiday season, there was a
good audience, whose responses we wish to acknowledge but not to include on
the disc.
POSTSCRIPT December 2005
Sad to lose Derek Bailey - Mick Beck comments (reprinted from JazzTalk interview).
It was sad news, tinged with relief that Derek Bailey was released from the closing stages of motor-neurone disease, to hear of his death on Xmas Eve 2005. Many will acknowledge his musical genius and originality in the coming months.
I recall my first encounter with his playing back in the early 1970s (Iskra 1903 I think) as a member of the audience. At the interval Barry Guy must have seen I was quite shocked, and asked "What did you think of that then?" I don't know what I said, but my use of the word "encounter" cross-refers to elements of challenge, confrontation. I was not new to free jazz - idolized Dolphy and the exploratory Rollins, Bobby Hutchison to name but a few, but Derek was an order of magnitude different. His style was much more of a challenge to jazz itself, to tonality, the guitar, his audiences. The techniques and musical interventions, which he honed for so many years overtly and covertly shaped much of the free music that was generated in the latter part of the 20th century.
From 1980 I became involved in the free music scene as a player, and moved in the UK from London to Sheffield. For these two reasons, I got to know Derek, who also came from that town and would visit for musical and family reasons. We had several collaborations in the 1980s, then sporadic contact in the 1990s.
In the last 3 years or so, the drummer Paul Hession and I have been working as a duo, and with other musicians from the UK and other countries. We invited Derek to join us in 2004 for a couple of gigs in Sheffield and Leeds (Paul's home town), out of which emerged the CD "Meanwhile, back in Sheffield …". Performing with him then was just as much a challenge as 20 years before. I think he'd take that as a compliment. On the one hand I felt he would do his own thing almost in spite of whatever else was going on. But when stimulated to genuine interaction, the outputs could be very powerful - witness phrases like "raucous jostles", "passing hot coals from one to another" appearing in press reviews, and echoing my own strong personal reaction described above, one of my young musical colleagues who came to the Sheffield gig said "It was one of the most influential gigs I've ever been to" - the magic was still very much there. Paul and I were very pleased to play with him and generate the CD; his leaving the mortal coil sharpens those feelings.
