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Bailey,  Derek  (1930-2005), guitarist and musical theorist, was born on 29 January 1930 in Nether Edge Hospital, Sheffield, the only child of George Edward Bailey (d. 1965), barber, and his wife, Lily, nee Wing (d. 1996). His maternal grandfather, Percy Wing, played banjo and pub piano, his mother played piano, and his mother's younger brother, George, became an early musical influence, providing access to gramophone and radio and being one of the first musicians in Sheffield to play electric guitar.

Bailey attended Nether Edge grammar school from 1941 to 1946. An early thirst for the popular music of the day-jazz, swing, and big band-coupled with the lure of American cinema, was tempered by the strictures of school music lessons and regular trips to the Halle Orchestra, which in his later view acted as major disincentives to a potential life in music. From July 1950, after eighteen months in the navy on national service, he combined day jobs with paid musical work in pubs in Sheffield, Bradford, and Glasgow. From 1955 to 1968 he worked continuously across the UK and occasionally on the continent as a commercial musician, playing in pubs, jazz clubs, and restaurants, doing broadcasts, performing for American forces dances, in dance halls, and in variety shows such as the Morecambe and Wise Show in Blackpool, and doing some recording studio work. Many of these working situations offered opportunities for exploring and practising on the job, and Bailey used these to develop his interest in improvisation, serialism, and non-time playing. On 24 September 1956, at Sheffield register office, he married Doris Priest, a 31-year-old shorthand typist, and daughter of Arthur Guest, steelworks furnaceman.

Bailey first met the bass player Gavin Bryars and the percussionist Tony Oxley in 1963 in Chesterfield, and for the next three years, playing regularly at The Grapes pub on Trippett Lane in Sheffield, they moved away from conventional jazz and by 1965 were playing totally improvised pieces. An example of this period is 'Rehearsal Extract'. They used the name of Joseph Holbrooke, once described as the cockney Wagner, as 'a good cover for our activities'  (D. Bailey, Improvisation: its Nature and Practice in Music, 1992, 86). In a period of great activity and hectic travel Bailey's first marriage broke up and on 23 March 1964, at Manchester register office, he married Joan Burns, a 30-year-old secretary, and daughter of Thomas Burns, painter and decorator. His son, Simon, was born in 1966 and he separated from Burns the same year.

Moving to London in 1966, Bailey was well prepared to participate, over a period of time, with like-minded exploratory musicians based around John Stevens and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble: Evan Parker, Dave Holland, Trevor Watts, Paul Rutherford, Barry Guy, and Kenny Wheeler. The Music Improvisation Company (Parker, Bailey, Hugh Davies, Jamie Muir, and latterly Christine Jeffrey) appeared in 1969, by which time freely improvising musicians across Europe-including Peter Brotzmann, Alexander von Schlippenbach, and Peter Kowald from Germany, Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg from the Netherlands, Fred Van Hove from Belgium, and Irene Schweizer from Switzerland-had begun to play together in all manner of combinations.

Incus, one of the first musician-owned independent record labels in the UK, was formed in 1970 by Tony Oxley, Derek Bailey, and Evan Parker, with the initial finance coming from Michael Walters. Following the departure of Oxley and then Parker, Bailey took on the mantle of label owner, though from the mid-1980s it was run by his partner Karen Anne (daughter of William Brookman, company manager) from their home at 14 Downs Road, Hackney, London. The label's first release was The Topography of the Lungs (1970). Bailey's solo performances invariably proved popular with audiences (less so with Bailey himself, who preferred interaction with other musicians), and his first solo recording was released on Incus as Solo Guitar (1971). Another solo recording on the label, Lot 74 (1974), included the first of his 'chats', 'In Joke', poking fun at the po-faced free improvisation scene.

The idea of free improviser as organizer might seem to be a combination of opposites and yet only by managing their own affairs could such musicians hope to survive. Bailey took this several steps further by combining his philosophical approach to music-making-that things are most interesting before musicians get settled and a style develops-with organizing annual 'company weeks' for nearly twenty years. He chose the players and increasingly invited musicians from outside the improvising sphere. The first 'company' concert took place at the Purcell Room in 1976 and resulted in four LPs over the following months. The first 'company week' occurred in 1977 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the last 'company' event was in 2001 in New York city.

Bailey the theorist made his appearance known through the publication in 1980 of Improvisation: its Nature and Practice in Music. At the time, a well-researched monograph on this largely ignored musical development was unusual. Rather than seeing improvising as solely a form of jazz-the common (mis)understanding of the time-Bailey explored major idioms in which improvisation could form an integral part: Indian music, flamenco, baroque, organ music, rock, and jazz. It was particularly influential in introducing the term 'non-idiomatic improvisation', which has since been criticized, largely because in the intervening years there came to be a slightly broader understanding of what is entailed in playing freely improvised music and what it sounds like. The impact of the monograph was substantial, with a second edition following from the British Library in 1992, an American edition, and translations into Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Turkish. The second edition coincided with the appearance in February 1992 on Channel 4 television of On the Edge, a series of four 55 minute films written and narrated by Derek Bailey and produced and directed by Jeremy Marre.

By the early 1990s Bailey had become internationally recognized as a major contributor to the music, recording, theory, and promotion of free improvisation. Refusing to rest on his laurels, he undertook a series of encounters that were criticized for their lack of improvisational purity, but steadfastly followed his desire to explore unexpected playing situations. Many of these were encouraged and recorded by John Zorn and included Saisoro (1994) with the Ruins, Guitar, Drums 'n' Bass (1995) with DJ Ninj, and Mirakle (1999) with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Calvin Weston. Further eyebrows were raised when, in 2002, he released Ballads. He used early standards of popular songs to test out his recently purchased archtop Epiphone Emperor guitar over Christmas 2001; his practising was heard by Zorn and quickly recorded. A recording that no one was expecting from him, this represented an important point in his recorded legacy of over 200 LPs and CDs.

Bailey and Karen Brookman were married on 22 November 2000 and moved to Barcelona for two years in 2003. In the summer of 2004 he experienced problems in holding his plectrum; he adapted his playing technique and was eventually diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. He returned to London, and, after several tests, he was correctly diagnosed with motor neurone disease. He died at his home shortly before midnight on 24 December 2005. The funeral took place at the City of London crematorium and his ashes were scattered on Elizabeth Street, New York, by his wife. His son, Simon, also survived him.

Peter Stubley 

Sources  The Guardian (7 May 1976); (29 Dec 2005) + B. Watson, Derek Bailey and the story of free improvisation (2004) + The Independent (29 Dec 2005) + The Times (4 Jan 2006) + www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk,  accessed on 20 June 2008 + private information (2009) [Karen Bailey, wife; Simon Bailey, son] + personal knowledge (2009) + b. cert. + m. certs. + d. cert.
Archives  SOUND BL NSA, oral history of jazz in Britain, interview with B. Priestley, 15 July 1987, T9639-T9641 + BL NSA, 'Impressions', interview with B. Morton, 1994, H3617/3 + BL NSA, documentary recordings + BL NSA, performance recordings
Likenesses  obituary photographs · photographs, repro. in http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/ · photographs, 2001, Rex Features, London · Mephisto, photograph, 2001, Rex Features [see illus.]
Wealth at death  under £233,000: probate, 10 April 2006, CGPLA Eng. & Wales



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