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Trevor Watts

Born in York, England; composer/arranger/alto & sop saxes/piano/percussion. Trevor Watts' family moved to Halifax in Yorkshire when he was 6 months old, and that is where he was brought up.

Trevor is a completely self taught musician, and his early inspirations came from his fathers love of Jazz, and the large collection of 78's that his father brought back after living in Canada and visiting the States on many occasions in the 1920's.

Trevor had to do his National Service in the RAF, and joined the RAF band in 1959. It was there he met John Stevens and Paul Rutherford amongst others and formed the musical association that was to become the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Amalgam in the early 60's. These groups radically changed the face of European style Jazz and improvised music, and opened up the way for others. Shortly before the formation of the SME in 1965, Trevor had gained some experience playing at the Marquee Club in London with the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson, Long John Baldry and Rod Stewart amongst others. The SME although starting as a collective, gradually was taken over by John Stevens, so Trevor used his group Amalgam to further his own more personal style of music.

Amalgam incorporated many different elements within the music. These elements were mainly introduced by the different types of musicians within the group. Trevor always believing that it didn't matter what "style" a person played, but that if the desire was there to play together, a way could be found. This resulted in wrong labels being placed on the group at certain times in the 70's like "Jazz Rock" for instance, but as Watts never acknowledges verbal cliches to describe a music, it certainly was never an attempt at "Jazz Rock". In the same way, the the Moire Music Drum Orchestra wasn't an attempt at "Afro Jazz". These projects were a way of creating a situation whereby musicians of different persuasions could function together without radically changing the way they each individually played. Some of those who passed through Amalagam were such as Barry Guy, Harry Miller, John Stevens, Stan Tracey, Paul Rutherford and others. But the most significant period for that group was between around 1974 and 1979. That was the group of Keith Rowe (guitar), Colin McKenzie (Bass Gtr), Liam Genockey (Drums) and Trevor Watts (alto & sop saxes). This quartet worked long and hard on the music (Impetus: Wipe Out).

Trevor also had a very important duo with drummer Liam Genockey for many years, but unfortunately they never recorded.

Watts was a member of the Louis Moholo Group that toured with American tenor saxist Frank Wright, and also on other occasions. Stan Tracey's Open Circle (with John Stevens & Danny Thompson), also Stan's Tentacles group. Splinters with Stan, John, Kenny Wheeler, Tubby Hayes, Phil Seaman, Jeff Clyne. London Jazz Composers Orchestra from its inception in 1972. Bobby Bradford Quartet (Bobby was the original trumpeter with Ornette Coleman) amongst others, and Watts has played with Steve Lacy, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, Denardo Coleman, poet Jayne Cortez and violinist Peter Knight of Steeleye Span outside of his own groups.

When Trevor moved to Hastings in 1980 he began taking more of an interest in composition. He then formed the first 10 piece Moire Music Group in order to play these compositions. The first performances were in 1982 at the Roundhouse in London, and Bracknell Jazz Festival, and caused quite a stir at the time. Original members included Lol Coxhill, Veryan Weston, Nana Tsiboe, Mamadi Kamara, Liam Genockey and Larry Stabbins amongst others. Larry went on to form the group Working Week. To keep his improvising side going Trevor formed the original Trevor Watts Drum Orchestra at the same time (1982), which included Nana Tsiboe and Mamadi Kamara on African Percussion, Liam Genockey, Ernest Mothle from S Africa on bass as well as Peter Knight (Violin) and Watts. It was always Trevors desire to include the African rhythmic element within the improvised musical form, and it was this group that first achieved that.

Moire Music eventually became a 14 piece in 1984 and included singers Phil MInton, Maggie Nichols and S African Pinise Saul. That group lasted until 1988 when Trevor changed direction a little and formed the Moire Music that included singer Lianne Carroll, tenorist Simon Pickard, Veryan Weston & others.

In 1990 Trevor gave up the Moire music group as a compositional entity, and merged the names of the two groups into one Moire Music Drum Orchestra. Included in that group were 4 African drummers, bass guitar, drums and his saxophones. Initially in 1990 the group had a 6 week tour of Canada, USA, Venezuela and Mexico, and it was on that tour that the music was shaped and honed. The Moire Drum Orchestra lasted until about 1998 and in that time toured all over the World including Colombia, Venezuela, Caribbean Islands, Burma (Twice), India, Singapore Arts Festival, Malaysia, USA, Canada, Azores Islands, S Africa, Botswana and Lesotho amongst others places. It was during the original tour in 1990 that Watts and group met and played with members of the Teatro Negro de Barlovento, black performance group from Venezuela. It was Watts' idea to join the two together and see what happens. So the British Council sent Watts to Venezuela in 1991 to study the music of Barlovento and make arrangements for some concerts in Europe. This happened in 1992 and became a 35 piece group of singers, dancers, actors and instrumentalists. They performed at the Saalfelden Festival in Austria and Crawley Festival in England as well as 2 very successful nights at London's Jazz Cafe. Watts and Drum Orchestra returned to Venzuela in 1995 for a reciprocal tour over there, playing in Caracas as well as other cities. The group was named "Una Sola Voz" after the title of the Moire Music recording on ARC called "With One Voice".

Subsequently the Drum Orchestra is no more, but Moire Music have been performing in various sizes as a Trio, Quartet and Quintet, and also visited many countries such as Sudan, Cameroon, New Zealand, Australia, USA, Canada, Jamaica (including playing for the Prime Minister), Trinidad, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Bolivia amongst many other countries as a smaller unit.

Some major festivals they have performed at are Womad (UK), Glastonbury, Berlin Jazz Festival, Chicago World Music Festival, Khartoum Festival, Penang Festival, Sarawak Festival, Wangaratta Jazz Festival (Australia), Vancouver Jazz Festival (twice), Ottawa Jazz Festival, San Francisco Jazz Festival, Washington DC Jazz Festival (twice), Cervantino Festival, Mexico and Monterey Jazz Festival in California amongst many others. Currently (2002), as well as Moire Music Watts now has formed a new group that is more closely associated with the compositional side of the original Moire Music project. It is called Trevor Watts and the Celebration Band and is a new 8 piece ensemble (4 saxes/guitar/bass guitar/percussion/drums), and again is causing quite a stir. The band recorded a new CD on Watts own ARC label called Trevor Watts and the Celebration Band (ARC 010) and is now playing many concerts and festivals.

Watts also has a new improvising duo with his long term associate, pianist Veryan Weston, and a new CD with Weston on the Emanem label called "6 Dialogues".

Trevor is part of a new group that was formed in Mexico and has just recorded a double album over there. That project is run by Mexican musician Gibran Cervantes who has built his own instrument made out of many Berimbaus wired together ( a magnificent structure and interesting sound), also in the group is Cyro Baptista, Brazilian percussionist with John Zorn and Wynton Marsalis, Tino, a percussionist from Cuba and Francisco Bringas from Mexico who plays tablas amongst other things. Show less

Trevor Watts' Original Drum Orchestra: The Art Is In The Rhythm Volume 2

Read "The Art Is In The Rhythm Volume 2" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
July 13, 2023

A co-founder of London's pioneering Spontaneous Music Ensemble with drummer John Stevens in the mid 1960s, saxophonist Trevor Watts has straddled an unusually wide spectrum of genres. With SME he explored an area of free jazz which, in deliberate contrast to contemporary American adventurers such as Ornette Coleman or members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, wholly rejected melody and rhythm. At the other end of the spectrum Watts has been involved in jazz rock.

Album Review

Splinters: Inclusivity

Read "Inclusivity" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
December 3, 2021

Archive label Jazz In Britain comes up with another winner. Inclusivity is a 3 x CD collection of the complete performances of Splinters, an all-star 1972 septet comprising three hard boppers, two radical experimentalists and two in-betweeners. They were tenor saxophonist and flautist Tubby Hayes, alto saxophonist Trevor Watts, trumpeter and flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler, pianist Stan Tracey, bassist Jeff Clyne and drummers Phil Seamen and John Stevens. The band assembled for just two London gigs five months apart. It made ...

Album Review

Karl Evangelista: Apura!

by John Sharpe
August 7, 2020

One sure-fire way for up-and-coming musicians to get attention is to convene an all star combo. Though Bay Area-based Filipino-American guitarist (and sometime AAJ scribe) Karl Evangelista follows that route on his fourth album Apura! he makes surprising but astute choices of bandmates by enlisting the services of legendary South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo and the British pair of veteran saxophonist Trevor Watts and rising star pianist Alexander Hawkins. As Evangelista explains in the liner notes, the music of early ...

Live Review

Brda Contemporary Music Festival 2017

by Angelo Leonardi
October 5, 2017

Brda Contemporary Music Festival 2017 Smartno, Slovenia 14-16.09.2017 Nel suo appuntamento annuale a Šmartno, sulle colline del Collio sloveno poco oltre Gorizia, il “Brda Contemporary Music Festival" continua a presentare il meglio della musica improvvisata europea. Un piccolo ma significativo evento giunto alla settima edizione, che raccoglie un affezionato pubblico dalla Slovenia e dall'Italia, con qualche presenza centro-europea. Dal 14 al 16 settembre si sono alternati sul palco dell'Hisa Kulture artisti d'alto spessore ed ...

Album Review

Tré: Edle Einfalt

Read "Edle Einfalt" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
June 30, 2015

Trio dalle geometrie inusuali ma non per questo inaudite (pensiamo solo a un ipotetico, assolutamente realistico, Giuffre/Brookmeyer/Manne, le cui temperature fanno del resto capolino in episodi quali “Drachengedankenkampf," “Ninna nanna," per certi versi anche “Domino"), il tedesco Tré poggia le proprie fondamenta sulle larghe volute disegnate dal trombone di Thomas Lüthi, non fosse altro che per un fatto di mero volume sonoro (capita spesso, quando c'è di mezzo un trombone). L'approccio iniziale è corporeo, vitale, estroverso, anche ...

148

Album Review

Trevor Watts & Veryan Watson: 5 More Dialogues

Read "5 More Dialogues" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
September 27, 2011

Their conversations, garrulous and engaged in a monumental dissertation about life, emerge from out of a bottomless musical vortex. Such is the power and energy of 5 More Dialogues--the salvoes of arpeggios, from the hands of Veryan Weston, and the breathtaking glissandi, from the breath of Trevor Watts--that the gloom of nothingness into which the music pours that silence is not merely shattered, it is reborn, with angular echoes and ghostly whispers amid the melodious caterwauling of Weston's flying right ...

170

Album Review

Trevor Watts / Veryan Weston: 5 More Dialogues

Read "5 More Dialogues" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 8, 2011

5 More Dialogues is the successor to 6 Dialogues (Emanem, 2002) and offers more in the way of fascinating elaborations by longtime collaborators, pianist Veryan Weston and saxophonist Trevor Watts, both heralded artisans of the British progressive jazz and improvisational circuit. A mark of invention pervades throughout, as the duo fuses sublime persuasions, inverted theme-building jaunts, and mesmeric passages with fleeting melodies and rhythmical dynamics. Highlighted by a manifold approach to the program, the duo aligns a throng ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2023

All About Jazz is celebrating Trevor Watts' birthday today!

Born in York, England; composer/arranger/alto & sop saxophones/piano/percussion. Trevor Watts' family moved to Halifax in Yorkshire when he was 6 months old, and that is where he was brought up. Trevor is a completely self taught musician, and his early inspirations came from his fathers love of Jazz, and the large collection of 78's that his father brought back after living in Canada and visiting the States on many occasions in ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Trevor Watts' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Trevor Watts' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2020

All About Jazz is celebrating Trevor Watts' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2019

All About Jazz is celebrating Trevor Watts' birthday today!

Born in York, England; composer/arranger/alto & sop saxophones/piano/percussion. Trevor Watts\' family moved to Halifax in Yorkshire when he was 6 months old, and that is where he was brought up. Trevor is a completely self taught musician, and his early inspirations came from his fathers love of Jazz, and the large collection of 78\'s that his father brought back after living in Canada and visiting the States on many occasions in ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2018

All About Jazz is celebrating Trevor Watts' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2017

All About Jazz is celebrating Trevor Watts' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2016

All About Jazz is celebrating Trevor Watts' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2015

All About Jazz is celebrating Trevor Watts' birthday today! Born in York, England; composer/arranger/alto & sop saxophones/piano/percussion. Trevor Watts\' family moved to Halifax in Yorkshire when he was 6 months old, and that is where he was brought up. Trevor is a completely self taught musician, and his early inspirations came from his fathers love of Jazz, and the large collection of 78\'s that his father brought back after living in Canada and visiting the States on many occasions in ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2014

All About Jazz is celebrating Trevor Watts' birthday today!

Born in York, England; composer/arranger/alto & sop saxes/piano/percussion. Trevor Watts\' family moved to Halifax in Yorkshire when he was 6 months old, and that is where he was brought up. Trevor is a completely self taught musician, and his early inspirations came from his fathers love of Jazz, and the large collection of 78\'s that his father brought back after living in Canada and visiting the States on many occasions in ...
read more

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Trevor Watts

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