A biography for Derek Baileyhasn’t been written yet.
“Personally, I've found one of the more stimulating ways of playing in recent times has been to kind of move outside the free improvised area and work with people who are probably improvisers but they have a particular way of working.”
“I've always liked the effect of having somebody in there who hadn't the faintest idea what was going on.”
“Playing music is not really susceptible to theory much. Circumstances affect it so much.”
“Younger players in this music often turn out to be middle aged; it is not a young music.”
“I have always been attracted to the cottage industry side of this business.”
“In the absence of that, I am happy to play solo, but I don't think there is any comparison.”
“I think the blues is fine for blues players, but free blues has never made much sense to me.”
“I'm not much into current electronic stuff, what I think of as lounge electronics, mumbling electronics.”
“Nowadays, I really like playing in studios.”
“For me, Company is still the best way for me to work.”
“I think playing solo is a second rate activity, really. For me, playing is about playing with other people.”
“Solo concerts are murder, I find; I don't like doing them.”
“I like duos with percussionists. I like the songs that percussionists sing.”
“I am reactive.”
“In fact it's quite gratifying for me to see some of the people who really objected to this method of working now being quite so profligate in their use of it.”
“I wouldn't want to be ideological about it but I think of it as being the best way to approach this kind of playing. I don't think it works in other music, other kinds of playing.”
“For me, playing is about playing with other people.”
“Even if it is difficult playing with other people - sometimes it's great, sometimes it isn't, but that is kind of the point of it. It loses its point playing solo.”
“I don't research anything.”
“Personally, I've found that the kind of thing that I like is going into somebody else's area and not playing their music but doing whatever I do in their area.”