In early 2002 Derek Bailey astounded the free music community with his gorgeous album Ballads, a radical and steely interpretation of the standard repertoire. It became an instant classic, hit a dozen best-ten lists and remains his best selling cd of all time. The recordings here were made just weeks after the idea was first born at an intimate Christmas gathering in New York - and two months before the recording of Ballads. Here Derek is working out his personal approach to the standard song repertoire in longer takes, thinking out loud, discovering and honing his ideas in performance. More abstract and stream-of-consciousness than Ballads, Standards is a startling prequel to a modern music classic.