doubt anyone ever expected Derek Bailey to tackle a set of popular melodies. The improvisational guitar genius has been known for a lot of things during his long and remarkably varied career, but melody has rarely been one of them. “Atonal,” “discordant,” and “challenging” are words that come up often in discussions of his music. That’s why Ballads is such an intriguing and surprising concept. There is inevitably a strong curiosity when approaching this album: has Bailey gone conventional?


Of course, within hardly 30 seconds, it becomes clear that the answer to that question is an emphatic “no.” Bailey’s familiar jagged playing is in full effect as he picks his way carefully around these famous melodies, often rendering them nearly unrecognizable as he works snippets of melody into his rambling progressions of well-spaced notes.


Each of these songs is characterized by Bailey’s clear, precise acoustic guitar—each note chimes beautifully as he wanders his way into the heart of the song he’s covering. In most cases, the heart is all he keeps, surrounding it with gorgeous, evocative improvisatory phrases which contain hints of the core melody filtered through Bailey’s own personality and eccentricities.


The opening three songs—“Laura,” “What’s New,” and “When Your Lover Has Gone”—provide an understated introduction to Ballads. All three melodies are subtle and sweet, providing a forum for some of Bailey’s more restrained, delicate playing. The notes here are clearly separated, and the use of empty space is remarkable. In the spaces between notes, the echoing remains of the last phrase vibrate lightly, before being overdriven by the next gorgeous tone. The 7-minute “Stella By Starlight” starts similarly, but slowly builds to allow wilder explorations as Bailey flings out fast progressions of notes, his emotional intensity increasing with the urgency of the piece. The crystal-clear recording reveals each sound of fingers on the strings, and the occasional tap as Bailey, in his fervor, hits the guitar body as well.


“Stella” sets the pace for much of the rest of the album, as the guitar improvisations become increasingly frantic and passionate. On his brief rendition of “My Buddy,” the guitarist wrangles with his instrument to create dense pileups, the impossibly fast runs leading into a similarly complex reading of “Gone With the Wind.” In all these cases, the source melodies are barely recognizable within the framework of the improvisations. Bailey rarely attempts to duplicate the exact sound of the original compositions; instead, he seems to internalize some crucial feeling or emotion evoked by the piece, then plays around the melody with that feeling in mind. Despite this free approach, never once do these pieces verge on aimless noodling or wankery; each note seems carefully deliberated and adds to the cumulative effect of each song. The result is, invariably, both astonishing in emotional impact and enlightening in terms of the original song and Bailey’s own style. This is an essential album in Bailey’s massive catalog—a work of beauty, depth, and incredible ingenuity.