Derek Bailey (29 January 1930 – 25 December 2005) was an English avant-garde guitarist and leading figure in the free improvisation movement.

Bailey was born in Sheffield, England. A third generation musician, he began playing the guitar at the age of ten, going on to study music with Sheffield City organist C.H.C. Biltcliffe and guitar with George Wing and John Duarte. As an adult he found work as a guitarist and session musician in clubs, radio, dance hall bands, and so on, playing with many performers including Gracie Fields, Bob Monkhouse and Kathy Kirby, and on television programs such as Opportunity Knocks. Bailey was also part of a Sheffield based trio founded in 1963 with Tony Oxley and Gavin Bryars called 'Joseph Holbrooke' (named after the composer, whose work they never actually played). Although originally performing relatively 'conventional' jazz this group became increasingly free in direction.

Bailey moved to London in 1966, frequenting the Little Theatre Club run by drummer John Stevens. Here he met many other like-minded musicians, such as saxophonist Evan Parker, trumpet player Kenny Wheeler and double bass player Dave Holland. These players often collaborated under the umbrella name of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, recording the seminal album Karyobin for Island Records in 1968. In this year Bailey also formed the Music Improvisation Company with Parker, percussionist Jamie Muir and Hugh Davies on homemade electronics, a project that continued until 1971. He was also a member of the Jazz Composers Orchestra and Iskra 1903, a trio with double bass player Barry Guy and trombone player Paul Rutherford that was named after a newspaper published by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.

Derek Bailey may refer to:

Han Bennink (born 17 April 1942) is a Dutch jazz drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured his playing on clarinet, violin, banjo and piano.

Though perhaps best known as one of the pivotal figures in early European free jazz and free improvisation, Bennink has worked in essentially every school of jazz, and is described by critic Chris Kelsey as "one of the unfortunately rare musicians whose abilities and interests span jazz's entire spectrum." Known for often injecting slapstick and absurdist humor into his performances, Bennink has had especially fruitful long-term partnerships with pianist Misha Mengelberg and saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. Han is a brother of saxophonist Peter Bennink.

Bennink was born in Zaandam, the son of a classical percussionist. He played the drums and the clarinet during his teens.

Through the 1960s he drummed with a number of American musicians visiting the Netherlands, including Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, Sonny Rollins and Eric Dolphy (he can be heard on Dolphy's recording, Last Date (1964)).

Noël Akchoté (born 7 December 1968, Paris) is a French guitarist mainly active in the free improvisation, classical, experimental and free jazz.

Trained from the age of eight, he debuted as a guitarist in 1990. He collaborated with a wide variety of musicians among which Henri Texier, Louis Sclavis, Daniel Humair, Jacques Thollot, Sam Rivers but mostly with Derek Bailey, Eugene Chadbourne, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Tim Berne and George Lewis.

Later in his career he began contributing on albums of David Grubbs, Luc Ferrari, David Sylvian, J. G. Thirlwell (for his band Steroid Maximus), Max Nagl, Andrew Sharpley, Jean-François Pauvros, and the band Earth of Dylan Carlson.

He is the older brother of French electro artist SebastiAn.

Philippe Robert, Musiques expérimentales. Une anthologie transversale d’enregistrements emblématiques. Le Mot et le Reste/GRIM. 2007.

Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s. Among the array of instruments he plays are the flute; the sopranino, soprano, C-melody, F mezzo-soprano, E-flat alto, baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones; and the E-flat, B-flat, and contrabass clarinets.

Braxton studied philosophy at Roosevelt University. He has taught at Mills College and as of 2012 is Professor of Music at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, teaching music composition, music history, and improvisation.

Early in his career, Braxton led a trio with violinist Leroy Jenkins and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and was involved with The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the "AACM", founded in Chicago, Braxton's birthplace.

In 1968, Braxton recorded the double LP For Alto. There had been occasional unaccompanied saxophone recordings previously (notably Coleman Hawkins' "Picasso"), but For Alto was the first full-length album for unaccompanied saxophone. The album's songs were dedicated to Cecil Taylor and John Cage, among others. The album influenced other artists like Steve Lacy (soprano sax) and George Lewis (trombone), who would go on to record their own acclaimed solo albums.