R.I.P Victor Bailey

[ilan]

https://twitter.com/BassPlayerNow/status/797105314415853573

[chromium]

Way too young. RIP

Killer player...

[Highlander]

rip...

Hmm... note to self... don't offer services to Weather Report or Allmans... not good for health...

[Dave W]

I saw that he had Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. Very nasty way to go. RIP.

Al Caiola, Leonard Cohen, and now Victor Bailey, all within the past couple of days.

[FlatEric]

Oh No!

I popped in here to post up something, mainly for Kenny and just see this.

What a sad loss - 56??? 

[gearHed289]

I saw that he had Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. Very nasty way to go. RIP.

Al Caiola, Leonard Cohen, and now Victor Bailey, all within the past couple of days.

Wow, that's rough. I have a sister who's suffered from CMT for years now. Her wrists and ankles are fried. She's 60 and has been walking with a cane for several years now because of it. I have to wonder if it impaired his playing. I never really followed Victor Baily, so I don't know what he's been up to in recent years.

[Dave W]

Tom, the article I saw said that it had severely affected his playing.

[Hörnisse]

R.I.P.    Bass Player featured him in a cover story March 2016.  The guy was incredibly talented.  A drummer at 10 and then started playing bass at 15 and was in Weather Report by age 20!  My favorite question/answer from that interview:

Q: When the blowing commenced, what was it like to follow Wayne and Joe?

A: It was a challenge from the start, because I was practicing bebop at the time, and Joe would say, "Don't play any bebop on my bandstand--Wayne and I already did that."  But the glaring difference was I had only been playing for six years, so I sounded like I was trying; they never sounded like they were trying.  Wayne was so brilliant.  I'll never forget, there's a song on Domino Theory called "Blue Sound--Note 3," a slow ballad in F minor.  Although it didn't make it onto the album that way, in rehearsals I would solo on it before Wayne; I'd play a million notes, everything under the sun.  One day after my solo he turned around and looked me right in the eyes and played three chromatic notes, A flat, A, and B flat.  Then he proceeded to play those three notes in so many different ways, with like a bar and a half between each phrase.  It was so profound, it completely wiped out what I had played!  He was basically telling me, you just played a whole bunchy of stuff, now check this out.  Those guys were at the level where they spoke through their instruments, while I was playing stuff I had worked out and practiced.

[uwe]

What a horrible way to go for someone whose hands must have meant everything to him.

[4stringer77]

The news was a shock to me. It didn't seem too long ago someone shared this video of him playing a Coltrane solo. It was filmed about two years ago. If he was ailing at the time, it wasn't very evident.

[Dave W]

The news was a shock to me. It didn't seem too long ago someone shared this video of him playing a Coltrane solo. It was filmed about two years ago. If he was ailing at the time, it wasn't very evident.

I can't find the article I referred to earlier, but it obviously was no secret. According to this article from a year ago, he was no longer able to perform.

Victor Bailey Faces Challenges; Stays Strong

And there was a fundraiser for him earlier this year.