Derek Bailey/Evan Parker: Compatibles

This takes me back. It's part of why I wanted to do Music Arcades in the first place: to prompt myself to dig out the records that I haven't listened to for decades, for no good reason.

And it's especially improv jazz like this that tends to get left on my shelf. Not that I don't like it — both Bailey and Parker are more or less regulars on Jazz on 3, and I enjoy hearing them there. But without the 'push' of broadcast media, I rarely find myself thinking, "Hmmm, I fancy a bit of free form squawking and skronking to accompany my late night reading."

I think I got this record from Rare & Racy in the late eighties. That was my induction into improv, courtesy of the Sheffield scene. Derek Bailey was one of the founders of that scene, along with Gavin Bryars. He'd moved on long before I arrived in Sheffield, but I saw him play in the Mappin Gallery in about 1987, supported by the contemporary generation, Wire Assembly and Hornweb. Their regular home at that time was The Foot and Mouth Club, upstairs at the Hallamshire on West Street. This has now evolved into Notes & Sounds, now at the Red Deer (off West Street) having returned to Bailey and Briars old haunt, The Grapes, for a few years in the interim.

I also saw Evan Parker for the first time in 1987, at the Hallamshire. I remember him saying, "It's nice to play for an audience that listens so carefully". My anxiety stopped me enjoying this music: I thought the rest of the audience were hearing things that I was missing. In my experience of listening to Ornette, this is actually true. But I don't let it worry me quite so much now. The way to hear more in this music is not to try and educate your ears to analyse and catch references, but to put all experience aside and try to listen with completely naive ears, catch the pure sounds.

All About Jazz tells me this was Bailey and Parker's last recording together. Well, the night before last it accompanied my late reading very well.

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