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2LP
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HJR 205LP
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2021 restock. Continuing their ongoing series of reissues of music by Derek Bailey, Honest Jon's Records present a first vinyl reissue of Aida, originally released on the guitarist's own Incus label in 1980. Expanded for this release, the present version of this masterwork adds two hitherto unreleased gems recorded solo for Charles Fox's Radio 3 program Jazz in Britain, in the same few months of 1980 as the stunning original performances. The phrase "in the moment" is often bandied about with reference to free improvisation, and indeed there's no better way to describe Derek Bailey's playing. The acoustic guitar is notoriously lacking in natural reverberation -- notes barely hang in the air for a couple of seconds before they disappear -- which explains the almost non-stop flow of new material in these stellar performances. Bailey knew from one split-second to the next exactly where to find the same pitch on different strings, either as a stopped tone or a ringing harmonic, and there's never a note out of place. "He who kisses the joy as it flies," in the words of William Blake, "lives in eternity's sunrise" -- and this music is forever in the moment, constantly active but never gabby, kissing the joy. One of the special pleasures of the BBC set is the guitarist's own laconic commentary, a deliciously deadpan description of what he's doing while he's doing it. "I like to think of it -- as a kind of music" -- and the interaction between words and music is a particular delight. "You may have noticed a certain lack of variety," he quips, while unleashing a furiously complex volley. Is it a coincidence that the final seconds recall the famous cycling fifths of the coda to Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight"? Surely not; Bailey, like Monk, was a note man par excellence; they're both still alive and well in eternity's sunrise.
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LP
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HJR 203LP
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2023 restock; Honest Jon's Records present a reissue of Derek Bailey's Lot 74, originally released by Incus in 1974. Recorded at a private house in West London, the side-long title track is a masterwork: a twenty-two-minute, starkly personal, freely expressive, itchily searching re-casting of orders of rhythm and sound into a new, quicksilver kind of affective and musical polyphony. Never mind the guitarist's championing of "non-idiomatic improvisation", the poet Peter Riley gets the ball rolling in his identification of the various hauntings of Bailey's playing at this time: "mandolins & balalaikas strumming in the distance, George Forby's banjo, Leadbelly's steel 12-string, koto, lute, classical guitar... and others quite outside the field of the plucked string." The five pieces on side two were recorded back home in Hackney around the same time -- with the exception of "Improvisation 104(b)", from the year before (and issued by Incus in its TAPS series of mini reel-to-reel tapes) -- opening with ventriloquized guitar feedback, and taking in some cod banter about colleagues like Mervyn Parker, Siegfried Brotzmann, and Harry Bentink. Crucial.
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2LP
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HJR 200LP
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2022 restock. Honest Jon's Records present Solo Guitar Volume 1, a reissue of Derek Bailey's Solo Guitar release on Incus in 1971, with additional tracks included on previous reissues and a performance at York University in 1972. Kicking off a series of collaborations between Honest Jon's Records and Incus: three double-LPs of the legendary free-improvising guitarist Derek Bailey, solo and in duos with Anthony Braxton (HJR 201LP) and Han Bennink (HJR 202LP), augmenting the original releases with marvelous, previously unissued music. Recorded in 1971, Solo Guitar Volume 1 was Bailey's first solo album. Its cover is an iconic montage of photos taken in the guitar shop where he worked. He and the photographer piled up the instruments whilst the proprietor was at lunch, with Bailey promptly sacked on his return. The LP was issued in two versions over the years -- Incus 2 and 2R -- with different groupings of free improvisations paired with Bailey's performances of notated pieces by his friends Misha Mengelberg, Gavin Bryars, and Willem Breuker. All this music is here, plus a superb solo performance at York University in 1972, a welcome shock at the end of an evening of notated music. It's a striking demonstration of the way Bailey rewrote the language of the guitar with endless inventiveness, intelligence, and wit. As throughout the series, the recordings are newly transferred from tape at Abbey Road, and remastered by Rashad Becker. The records are manufactured by Pallas.
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CD
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INCUS 051CD
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"Derek Bailey with: Julian Kytasty (bandura/flute), Roger Turner (percussion), Alan Wilkinson (baritone sax, voice)."
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