Bailey meets with two percussionists from the South African jazz exodus in a London bar, starting with crowd sound as Bailey and the percussion weave their way into the sound, restrained yet multitimbral music with Bailey's unique approach to open improvisation and microtonal playing, a unique album from Bailey's vast catalog.
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Sample The Album:
Derek Bailey-electric guitar
Louis Moholo-Moholo-percussion,voice
Thebe Lipere-percussion, voice
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UPC: B00000JCZ4
Label: Incus
Catalog ID: CD09
Squidco Product Code: 4956
Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 1992
Country: UK
Packaging: Jewel Case
Recorded at the Vortex, in London, England, on September 25th, 1991 by Matt Saunders.
"Here are six improvised selections by this trio from 1991 at a bar in London. Bailey plays electric guitar, and Moholo and Lipere play percussion and use their voices. While the temptation top think of this session as a skronk-fest, it is, in essence, anything but. For the first five minutes you can hear the punters in the pub yucking it up with each other seemingly oblivious to what is happening on the stage -- such is Village Life -- which blends effortlessly with its meandering drums and percussion instruments under and through Bailey's haltingly tender playing. "Moropa" begins much the same way, with restraint showing its veins all over the place until the nine-minute mark, where spatial considerations and timbral terrains give way to a kind of faltering beat consciousness. The most beautiful pieces on the record are the 18-minute "Tune It," which is an exercise in restrained textured ambiance via microtones and shimmering timbres that would give Eno a run for his wallet, and "Beanery," which is a continuously revolving piece with Bailey turning his phrases over and over into the percussionists who are circling round each other. This is a wonderful -- if quiet -- gig, and it offers a different view on all three players, especially Moholo and Bailey."-Thom Jurek, All Music
Get additional information at All Music
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Derek Bailey "Derek Bailey (29 January 1930 - 25 December 2005) was an English avant-garde guitarist and leading figure in the free improvisation movement. Bailey was born in Sheffield, England. A third-generation musician, he began playing the guitar at the age of ten, initially studying music with his teacher and Sheffield City organist C. H. C. Biltcliffe, an experience that he did not enjoy, and guitar with his uncle George Wing and John Duarte. As an adult he worked as a guitarist and session musician in clubs, radio, dance hall bands, and so on, playing with many performers including Morecambe and Wise, Gracie Fields, Bob Monkhouse and Kathy Kirby, and on television programs such as Opportunity Knocks. Bailey's earliest foray into 'what could be called free improvised music' was in 1953 with two other guitarists in their shared flat in Glasgow. He 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" modal, harmonic 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 Composer's Orchestra and Iskra 1903, a trio with double-bass player Barry Guy and tromboneist 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[citation needed]. 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 instigate 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 '90s, edited and narrated by Bailey. Bailey died in London on Christmas Day, 2005. He had been suffering from motor neurone disease." ^ Hide Bio for Derek Bailey • Show Bio for Louis Moholo-Moholo "Louis Tebogo Moholo (born 10 March 1940), is a South African jazz drummer. Born in Cape Town, Moholo formed The Blue Notes with Chris McGregor, Johnny Dyani, Nikele Moyake, Mongezi Feza and Dudu Pukwana, and emigrated to Europe with them in 1964, eventually settling in London, where he formed part of a South African exile community that made an important contribution to British jazz. He was a member of the Brotherhood of Breath, a big band comprising several South African exiles and leading musicians of the British free jazz scene in the 1970s and is the founder of Viva la Black and The Dedication Orchestra. His first album under his own name, Spirits Rejoice on Ogun Records, is considered a classic example of the combination of British and South African players. In the early 1970s, Moholo was also a member of the afro-rock band Assagai. He has played with many musicians, including Derek Bailey, Steve Lacy, Evan Parker, Enrico Rava, Roswell Rudd, Irène Schweizer, Cecil Taylor, John Tchicai, Archie Shepp, Peter Brötzmann, Mike Osborne, Keith Tippett, Elton Dean and Harry Miller. Moholo returned to South Africa in September 2005, performing with George Lewis at the UNYAZI Festival of Electronic Music in Johannesburg. He now goes under the name Louis Moholo-Moholo because the name is more ethnically authentic. South African promoter Slow Life in March 2017 at the Olympia Bakery in Kalk Bay, Cape Town produced a show where Louis performed along with Mark Fransman, Reza Khota, Keenan Ahrends and Brydon Bolton." ^ Hide Bio for Louis Moholo-Moholo • Show Bio for Thebe Lipere Thebe Lipere is a South African percussionist, a member of Dube and Louis Moholo's Viva La Black. ^ Hide Bio for Thebe Lipere
4/17/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
4/17/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
4/17/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
Track Listing:
1. Village Life 11:33
2. Moropa 11:53
3. Tune It 18:05
4. Beanery 6:52
5. Leeto 7:25
6. Hamba Gahli 2:25
Improvised Music
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Guitarists, &c.
Bailey, Derek
Percussion & Drums
Incus
Bailey, Derek
Trio Recordings
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