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6 unusual facts about Trevor Watts


Maggie Nicols

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.

Peter Pyke

Pyke was the third most popular candidate following Kerry Shine and Trevor Watts.

Spontaneous Music Ensemble

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.

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)

Trevor Watts

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.

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.


Keith Beal

In his time at Ogun, Beal recorded and/or produced some 50 records by such artists as Trevor Watts, Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, Elton Dean,Harry Becket, John Surman and Keith Tippett.


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