The Squid's Ear Magazine


Otherways & Free Space: Life Amid the Artefacts (Emanem)

Two releases in one, Otherways was a 2nd generation free improvising group from London performing in '73; and Free Space was a group assembled in '73 by John Stevens with Trevor Watts, John Russell, &c.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



John Stevens-cornet, voice

Trevor Watts-soprano saxophone

Herman Hauge-alto saxophone

John Russell-electric guitar

Nigel Coombes-violin

Ron Herman-doublebass

Marc Meggido-doublebass

Dave Solomon-percussion

Simon Mortimer-piano


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




The first sound sample is Free Space; samples 2-4 are Otherways.

UPC: 5030243501427

Label: Emanem
Catalog ID: 5014
Squidco Product Code: 14085

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2011
Country: Great Britain
Packaging: Cardstock 3 page foldover
Recorded by Martin Davidson in London on July 1st, 1973 and by Herman Hauge, in London, 1973.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"The bulk of this CD features Otherways, a 'second generation' London group that has not appeared on record before. This delayed publication, combined with the general lack of recognition of the musicians involved, does not prepare one for the excellent music they made together, distinctly different from other groups of the period. Herman Hauge (alto saxophone), Marc Meggido (double Bass) And Dave Solomon (Percussion) Are Heard In Two 1973 Quartets, One With Nigel Coombes (violin) the other with Simon Mortimer (piano). There are also some saxophone/percussion duets from 1984. The remaining 15 minutes feature another previously unissued group from 1973, Free Space, which was assembled by JOHN STEVENS to explore medium-sized improvisation. The other participants are Trevor Watts, Herman Hauge, John Russell, Nigel Coombes, Ron Herman, Marc Meggido and Dave Solomon."-Emanem


The first sound sample is Free Space; samples 2-4 are Otherways.

Artist Biographies

"John William Stevens (10 June 1940 in Brentford, Middlesex - 13 September 1994 in Ealing, west London) was an English drummer. He was one of the most significant figures in early free improvisation, and a founding member of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (SME).

Stevens was born in Brentford, the son of a tap dancer. He used to listen to jazz as a child, but was initially more interested in drawing and painting (media through which he also expressed himself throughout his life). He studied at the Ealing Art College and then started work in a design studio, but left at 19 to join the Royal Air Force. He studied the drums at the Royal Air Force School of Music in Uxbridge, and while there met Trevor Watts and Paul Rutherford, two musicians who became close collaborators.

In the mid-1960s Stevens began to play in London jazz groups alongside musicians like Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott, and in 1965 he fronted a septet. Influenced by the free jazz he was hearing coming out of the United States by players like Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, his style began to move away from fairly traditional be-bop to something more experimental.

In 1966 SME was formed with Watts and Rutherford and the group moved into the Little Theatre Club at Garrick Yard, St. Martin's Lane, London to develop their new music. In 1967 their first album, Challenge, was released. Stevens then became interested in the music of Anton Webern, and the SME began to play generally very quiet music. Stevens also became interested in non-Western musics.

The SME went on to make a large number of records with an ever changing line-up and an ever changing number of members, but Stevens was always there, at the centre of the group's activity. He also played in a number of other groups, drumming in Watts' group Amalgam and later forming bands like Freebop and Fast Colour, for example, but the SME remained at the centre of his activities.

In the latter part of 1967 Evan Parker joined the SME and worked closely with Stevens in the group, eventually becoming one of the longest standing members. He later summed up Stevens' approach to improvising in two basic maxims: if you can't hear another musician, then you're too loud; and there is no point in group improvisation if what you are playing doesn't relate to what other members of the group are playing.

Stevens also devised a number of basic starting points for improvisation. These were not "compositions" as such, but rather a means of getting improvisational activity started, which could then go off in any direction. One of these was the so-called "Click Piece" which essentially asked for each player to repeatedly play a note as short as possible.

Stevens played alongside a large number of prominent free improvisors in the SME, including Derek Bailey, Peter Kowald, Julie Tippetts and Robert Calvert, but from the mid-1970s, the make-up of the SME began to settle down to a regular group of Stevens, Nigel Coombes playing violin, and Roger Smith playing guitar. During the mid-1970s Stevens played regularly with guitarist and songwriter John Martyn as part of a trio that included bassist Danny Thompson. This line up can be heard on Martyn's 1976 recording Live at Leeds.

From 1983 Stevens was involved with Community Music (CM), an organisation through which he took his form of music making to youth clubs, mental health institutions and other unusual places. Notes taken during these sessions were later turned into a book for the Open University called Search and Reflect (1985). In the late 70s and early 80s John was a regular performer at the Bracknell Jazz Festival.

Aside from SME, Stevens also ran or helped to organise groups that were more jazz or jazz-rock based, such as Splinters, the John Stevens Dance Orchestra, Away, Freebop, Folkus, Fast Colour, PRS, and the John Stevens Quintet and Quartet. He also contributed significantly to Trevor Watts' group Amalgam and Frode Gjerstad's Detail, as well as collaborating with Bobby Bradford on several occasions.

The SME continued to play, the last time being in 1994 with a group including John Butcher. Stevens died later that year."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stevens_(drummer))
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Trevor Charles Watts (born 26 February 1939 in York) is an English jazz and free-improvising alto and soprano saxophonist. He is largely self-taught, having taken up the cornet at age 12 then switched to saxophone at 18. While stationed in Germany with the RAF (1958-63), he encountered the drummer John Stevens and trombonist Paul Rutherford. After being demobbed he returned to London. In 1965 he and Stevens formed the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, which became one of the crucibles of British free improvisation. Watts left the band to form his own group Amalgam in 1967, then returned to SME for another stretch that lasted until the mid-1970s. Another key association was with the bassist Barry Guy and his London Jazz Composers' Orchestra, an association that lasted from the band's inception in the 1970s up to its (permanent?) disbandment in the mid-1990s.

Though he was initially strongly identified with the avant-garde, Watts is a versatile musician who has worked in everything from straight jazz contexts to rock and blues. His own projects have come increasingly to focus on blending jazz and African music, notably the Moiré Music ensemble which he has led since 1982 in configurations ranging from large ensembles featuring multiple drummers to more intimate trios. He has only occasionally recorded in freer modes in recent years, notably the CD 6 Dialogues, a duet album with Veryan Weston (the pianist in earlier editions of Moiré Music). A solo album, World Sonic, appeared on Hi4Head Records in 2005.

Watts has toured the world over numerous times, run workshops, received grants and commissions, and he has collaborated with some of the great jazz musicians including Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy, Don Cherry and Jayne Cortez. As of 2011, he continues to travel and toured North American with Veryan Weston."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Watts)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"John Russell got his first guitar in 1965 while living in Kent and began to play in and around London from 1971 onwards. An early involvement with the emerging free improvisation scene (from 1972) followed, seeing him play in such places as The Little Theatre Club, Ronnie Scott's, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Musicians' Co-Op and the London Musicians' Collective. From 1974 his work extended into teaching, broadcasts (radio and television) and touring in the United Kingdom and, ever extensively, in other countries around the world . He has played with many of the world's leading improvisers and his work can be heard on over 50 CDs and albums. In 1981, he founded QUAQUA, a large bank of improvisers put together in different combinations for specific projects and, in 1991, he started MOPOMOSO which has become the UK's longest running concert series featuring mainly improvised music."

-John Russell Website (http://www.john-russell.co.uk/biography/)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Intermediate 15:22

2. Altitudes 10:33

3. Unarmoured 25:18

4. Gesture 5:37

5. Aranata 4:19

6. Lucid 10:25

7. Zeal 4:55

Related Categories of Interest:

EMANEM & psi

Improvised Music
Jazz
European Improv, Free Jazz & Related
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
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