An unplugged but very intense set from a hot and summery Wednesday afternoon, recorded in the basement of Sound 323 in London, 2001.
“Fell and Bailey goad each other into some of the most impassioned playing I've heard from either artist. The opening is explosive, with sonic shards and fragments flying across the sound stage, the two instruments at times indistinguishable in the sound mass. The later part of the track yields some respite, with arco bass and gentle atonal guitar lines - 'insect music' maybe - but the overall tenor is muscular and intense. The antagonists show no signs of flagging in their search for new instrumental sonorities - at one point I could have sworn there was a dog yelping in there." - Andy Hamilton THE WIRE
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Derek Bailey / acoustic guitar
Simon H. Fell / double bass
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Tracklisting:
1. Pre-Tea 1 - 14:07
2. Pre-Tea 2 - 12:31
3. Post-Tea 1 - 20:48
4. Post-Tea 2 - 12:57
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Recorded by Tim Fletcher on 15th August, 2001 at Sound 323, London.
Available as a 320k MP3 or 16bit FLAC download.
Derek Bailey was one of the most influential and adventurous experimental guitarists to come from England (Sheffield), evolving out of the trad-jazz scene of the fifties into the avant/jazz scene in '60s London. By the late sixties he was a member of the Joseph Holbrooke Trio, Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Music Improvisation Company which later became the amorphous Company under his leadership. These groups were at the birth and center of the British free-jazz scene. In the early seventies, Derek Bailey and Evan Parker started their own record label called Incus Records - one of the first artist-run labels.
Although Derek played with members of the British free/jazz scene, he also forged relationships with a number of European players like Han Bennink & Peter Brötzmann, Japanese free players like Abe Kaoru, Toshinori Kondo, as well as American improvisers like Anthony Braxton, George Lewis and John Zorn to name a few.
Derek organized an annual festival called Company Week in the 80's & 90's, which brought together a unique group of international improvisers from varied backgrounds.
"He was a man who repelled pretension, refused to be shoehorned into comfortable categories, and played amazing guitar." - John Butcher
"I do not subscribe to the idea that free improvisation began or ends with any individual. This only suggests that somehow the music Derek made was so individualistic that it failed to communicate anything beyond personal expression." - Eddie Prevost
Simon Fell has spent much of the past 20 years trying to refine various syntheses of composition, improvisation and jazz. In 1989, he was awarded an Arts Council Jazz Bursary to complete the composition Compilation II for 9 musicians and electronics; a recording was released in 1990. Fell was awarded a composer's research and development bursary by the Arts Council in 1993 to compose Compilation III, a large-scale work for concert pianist, free jazz trio, rock guitarist, jazz orchestra, electronics and tape; a recording of a revised version for 42 musicians appeared in 1998. He has also received commissions from, among others, Eastern Arts, The Termite Club, Leeds University, Haverhill Town Council and Yorkshire & Humberside Arts. His compositions for London Improvisers Orchestra include Papers, Happy Families, Köln Klang, Ellington 100 (Strayhorn 85) and Three Mondrians; recent works for SFQ include Thirteen Rectangles, Six Bells Pieces and ...the old style...
