Label: Incus – INCUS 26 Format: Vinyl, LP Country: UK Released: 1977 Genre: Jazz Style: Free Improvisation
Forth instalment to Derek Bailey's ever-evolving high court improv sessions under the Company banner on the Incus label on this 1977 release, together with soprano sax virtuoso Steve Lacy. These amorphous recording sessions aimed to draw together a range of musicians from diverse musical backgrounds, creating environments geared heavily towards improvisation and mutual music-making with no underlying preconceptions as to what the outcome might be. Bailey here, having turned his back on the conventionalities and rigidity of performance jazz, explores the atonality of his electric guitar, eking out every possible noise / timbre and pushing it to the boundaries of its creative limits whilst Lacy manoeuvres in between with his sax in the higher registers. Certainly can be quite jarring and difficult to adjust to these sparse improv affairs, but there's a level of musical generosity, intuition and sensitivity to these unscripted sessions that's tricky to find outside the genre. (NM / NM - top copy).
Tracklist A1 Once Upon A Time 12:09 A2 Abandoned 1 1:04 A3 Abandoned 2 5:16 B1 Step 1 3:26 B2 Step 2 2:25 B3 Happily Ever After 12:25
