One lunchtime in late 1976, Derek Bailey and Steve Lacy performed a duet at the University of Strathclyde's Staff Club. That performance was the informal counterpart to their more "official" evening performance as Company at Glasgow Film Theatre.
Although the GFT hosted several performances around that time (others ranging from the recording of an album by avant-rock band Chou Pahrot to a performance by Howard Riley, Barry Guy and Tony Oxley), a cinema is uncongenial for music: the distancing of the audience necessary for cinema conspires against the intimacy needed for music. This was particularly so for Lacy and Bailey's saxophone and guitar duet.
The less formal pie-and-a-pint performance at the University Staff Club was much better in that respect. The day was bright for Glasgow, if cold, with light streaming into the club's bar space. Bailey and Lacy constructed their performance around a long exploration of one of Lacy's characteristic legato melodies, over Bailey's sustained harmonics. Pausing after half an hour or so, they then embarked on a couple of more agitated and open pieces, before Bailey played a short guitar solo piece.
Although Lacy could be heard in larger group settings, particularly in those cultivated with the long-term group at his jazz club in Paris, he thrived in the personal interplay of duo settings (thinking too of his duet with Mal Waldron, for example on Slam Records' "Lets Call This... Esteem") and these qualities could be felt in the very different setting of this lunchtime performance with Bailey.
