FASCINATION - DEREK BAILEY

I have about 150 albums by Derek Bailey.
I first heard of him in 1995. I think, quietly, his music changed my life.
By 1966, the 36 year old one-time session musician had abandoned tunes altogether to invent a totally new language for the guitar. Derek’s music was based entirely on improvisation and operated outside any pre-existing idiom.
He literally reinvented the instrument.
Derek played with tap-dancers, and poets, and Japanese progressive rock bands, and anyone who sparked his imagination. I met him once, but we communicated mainly by e-mail and letter.
He lived in a little house in Hackney, before finally moving to Barcelona where he was given freedom of the city.

Despite being one of the genuine musical geniuses of the 20th century, Derek was never remotely patronising, describing the most out-there ideas in a bluff Yorkshire burr, and even at its most abstract and opaque, his music resonates with humour and love. Derek’s partner asked me to speak at his funeral last year.
Derek and I had swapped stand-up comedy tapes.
I knew he liked Chic Murray, so I did his routine about going to the doctors.

What can I say? It was a privilege