Library Book
Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music
Derek Bailey's 1980 book, the first to treat improvisation across every musical tradition as a unified subject.
Published by Prentice-Hall in 1980 and revised and expanded by the British Library Sound Archive in 1992, Derek Bailey’s Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music was described on release as the first book to treat the nature of improvisation across all its forms as a single subject — Indian music, flamenco, baroque and organ music, rock, jazz, contemporary composition, and free improvisation — built substantially from Bailey’s own conversations with improvisers including John Zorn, Steve Lacy, Max Roach, and Evan Parker.