Creativity Quote by Derek Bailey

“Solo concerts are murder” lands like a noir punchline, but in Derek Bailey’s mouth it’s also a manifesto in disguise. Bailey wasn’t a conventional bandleader; he was a key architect of British free improvisation, a scene built on friction, listening, and real-time negotiation. So when he calls solo performance “murder,” he’s naming the particular violence of being forced to generate an entire social ecosystem alone: no one to surprise you, rescue you, contradict you, or metabolize a mistake into a new direction.

The phrasing matters. “Murder” isn’t “hard” or “challenging”; it’s morally charged, excessive, faintly comic. Bailey turns the romantic myth of the solitary virtuoso inside out. The subtext is anti-heroic: the audience expects mastery and coherence, but the music he cared about thrives on risk and interdependence. A solo set can feel like self-policing, an endurance test where “freedom” becomes a cage because every decision has nowhere to go but back into your own hands.

“I find” and “I don’t like” keep it human and stubbornly ungrand. No lofty theory, no apology. It reads like a musician refusing the prestige economy that prizes the lone genius, while admitting a practical truth: improvisation is a contact sport. Bailey’s discomfort isn’t stage fright; it’s ideological. He’s telling you the point was never to be alone.