The Squid's Ear Magazine


Bailey, Derek / Andrea Centazzo: Drops [VINYL] (Ictus)

Originally released in 1977 during an extremely creative period for both UK free improvising guitarist Derek Bailey and Italian percussionist Andrea Centazzo, this 3rd album on the Ictus label finds both players defining each of these extraordinary improvisations through instrumental timbres, dynamics and metronome speeds chosen to suit each piece.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Derek Bailey-electric guitar, acoustic guitar

Andrea Centazzo- percussion, cymbal, gong, kalimba, steel drums, whistle,


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Edition of 250 copies.

UPC: 769791979666

Label: Ictus
Catalog ID: ICTUSRE 002LP
Squidco Product Code: 31344

Format: LP
Condition: Sale (New)
Released: 2022
Country: Italy
Packaging: LP
Recorded at Centazzo Studio, in Moruzzo, Italy, on April 3rd and 4th, 1977. Originally released in 1977 on the Italian label Ictus on vinyl LP as catalog code ICTUS 003.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"In the history of free improvised music, there has been arguably no greater advocate for the idiom's power and potential than the English guitarist Derek Bailey. Fiercely principled, between his emergence during the 1960s and his death in 2005, he cut a wide path, positioning this music at the height of creativity, transpiring in real time, and a means through which people from diverse backgrounds could come together, express, and commune. For Bailey, "playing is about playing with other people... Improvisation is a process that gets relationships sorted out."

Among many great examples of this within Bailey's sprawling discography, a stand out is his 1977 duo LP Drops -- originally issued as the third album on Ictus -- recorded with the Italian percussionist/drummer Andrea Centazzo. Capturing the guitarist during one of his most prolific and creatively visionary periods -- overflowing with explosive clarity, dialogic energy, and imagination -- he clearly found a perfect foil in Centazzo, who recalls of the sessions: "The kaleidoscopic quality of Drops was created by this restraint of performing limits, i.e. the choice of instrumental timbres, dynamics and metronome speeds to suit each piece. We explored some aspects of our improvisational art, gleaned the best elements from our baggage of music memories and exposed them clearly and confidently."

Comprising nine individual improvisations, Drops encounters each of its players at their best, finding a strange middle ground between the intuitive logics of their instruments; Bailey's tones taking on decidedly percussive approaches, while Centazzo's fractured polyrhythms and beats often veer toward the presence of a notable tonality. Remarkably expressive and diverse in the approach of each piece, Drops presents creative interplay at its most striking and challenging, rethinking the terms of musicality and collaboration every step of the way. Flurries of rattle back and forth, sculpting barbed and pointillistic landscapes of texture, stripped of reference and precedent, and abstract as real time organized sound comes."-Ictus


Edition of 250 copies.

Artist Biographies

"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."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Bailey_(guitarist))
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"In an artistic career that spans over twentyfive years, Andrea Centazzo has given more than 1000 concerts and live performances in Europe and the United States, as well as having appeared and performed on numerous radio and television broadcasts. He has recorded over 60 LP's and CD's, and has authored 350 compositions and eight musicology books. His musical endeavors and creative expression range from the sublime to the passionate, from lyric opera to orchestral symphony and solo percussion. He has performed in momentous festivals as soloist of his own compositions or as conductor of symphonic orchestras. Centazzo is a pioneer of contemporary percussion. In the early years, he performed with some of the greatest avant-garde soloists and composers, including J. Zorn, S. Bussotti, S. Lacy, D. Cherry, A. Mangellsdorf, E. Parker, etc. Deservedly, Centazzo has received a number of prestigious music and video Awards (Premio Speciale della Critica Discografica Italiana, USA Downbeat Poll, International Video Festival Tokyo, Prix Arcanal of French Culture, etc.) A doctoral graduate in musicology, he has taught seminars and workshops in Europe and the USA. Since 1983, Centazzo has been dedicated to creating multi-media experiences. This expansion began with an exhibition of his scores rendered as painted ideograms, and evolved into video performances combining both live performance with video images. These efforts culminated in his directing award-winning videos and films. As a soundtrack composer, he unites traditional instrumentation with current technological advances in musical expression through sampling machines and computers. These efforts give a new perspective to the fusion of sound and image through his theatre, television, video, CD rom, and feature film scores. The music of A.C. captures and expresses the rhythm and pulse of life by synthesizing the mystery of Oriental percussive vibrations with the timbral harmonic understanding of contemporary music and the soul of jazz and rock post-culture. A.C. continues to contribute his unique artistic vision to the evolution of contemporary culture."

-Andrea Centazzo Website (http://andreacentazzo.com/bio.html)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. Drop One 2:40

2. Recapitulation, Reiteration and Rabbits 2:53

3. How Long Has This Been Going On? 4:26

4. Drop Two 4:20

SIDE B



1. Tutti Cantabile 5:30

2. Drop Three 2:54

3. Drop Four 2:45

4. Sing, Sing, Sing, Sing, Sing 5:36

5. Jim Never Seems to Send Me Pretty Flowers 7:56

Related Categories of Interest:


Vinyl Recordings
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Bailey, Derek
Guitarists, &c.
Percussion & Drums
Percussion & Drums
Duo Recordings
Jazz Reissues

Search for other titles on the label:
Ictus.


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