Inspired both by American free jazz and by the radical, abstract music of AMM, as well as influences as diverse as Anton Webern and Samuel Beckett (two Stevens touchstones), the SME kept at least a measure of jazz in their sound, though this became less audible in the later "string" ensembles.
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The Spontaneous Music Ensemble (SME) was a loose collection of free improvising musicians convened beginning in the mid-1960s by the late South London-based jazz drummer/trumpeter John Stevens and alto and soprano saxophonist Trevor Watts.
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The Source - From and Towards (1971, Tangent Records) (recorded 18 November, 1970; featuring Trevor Watts, Ray Warleigh, Brian Smith, Ken (sic) Wheeler, Bob Norden, Chris Pyne, Mike Pyne, Ron Matthewson, Marcio Mattos, John Stevens)
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In 1968, she went to London and joined (as Maggie Nichols) an early improvisational group, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, with John Stevens, Trevor Watts, and Johnny Dyani, and the group performed that year at Berlin's then new avant-garde festival, Total Music Meeting.
He worked with Bryce Rohde from 1962–65, then moved to England, where he played with Tubby Hayes and worked in John Stevens's Spontaneous Music Ensemble.