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Eddie Prevost

Drummer Eddie Prevost was born on June 22, 1942 in England. As a teenager he played drums in Skiffle and trad jazz bands before showing signs of the creative musician that was forming. After his initial exposure to his greatest influences Max Roach and Ed Blackwell, Prevost became fascinated with the endless possibilities of improvisation. He began incorporating all sorts of non-traditional percussion with his standard drum kit.

In 1965 he co-founded the English improv ensemble AMM with saxophonist Leslie Gare and guitarist Keith Rowe. He also began recording with free jazz musicians Evan Parker, Marilyn Crispell, and Paul Rutherford. In the '70s and '80s, Prevost led his own quartet and recorded with Supersession, Resoundings, and Free Jazz Quartet.

By 1990 he had formed the Masters of Disorientation with AMM alumni Gare and Rowe while also entering the techno/ambient realm, performing with GOD, Main, and EAR. When he isn't performing with any combination of these ensembles, Prevost conducts workshops, gives lectures, and writes about improv for several magazines. He also runs his record label, Matchless Records

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3
Album Review

Eddie Prévost: Collider – or, ‘whose drum is it, anyway?’

Read "Collider – or, ‘whose drum is it, anyway?’" reviewed by John Eyles


The festivities that accompanied drummer Eddie Prévost's eightieth birthday in 2022 (including four Saturday night concerts at London's Café Oto, each celebrating a different facet of his career) served to highlight the breadth and depth of his activities and talents, and to open some audience members' eyes to previously undiscovered aspects of him. Prévost's highest profile activities in recent years have been his membership of AMM (the influential free improvisation group he joined in 1965 and has remained a member ...

1
Album Review

Marilyn Crispell, Eddie Prévost, Harrison Smith: Concertoto

Read "Concertoto" reviewed by John Eyles


Recorded live at London's Café Oto, at a November 2012 concert that was the last of a short series of gigs in Austria and Britain, this CD plays for seventy-seven minutes, fitting as much of the concert onto a single disc as was possible. As Eddie Prévost says in his sleeve notes, it contains the most substantial parts of that memorable concert. Although not a regular or long-standing group, the stellar trio of drummer Prévost, pianist Marilyn Crispell and reeds ...

4
Multiple Reviews

Three Matchless Recordings

Read "Three Matchless Recordings" reviewed by John Eyles


Eddie Prévost has accumulated a range of achievements, any one of which would have guaranteed his place in the pantheon of improvised music. One of the founding members of AMM back in 1965, drummer Prévost is the only ever-present member of the iconic group. In November 1999, he first convened the hugely influential London workshop which (events permitting) has met to improvise every Friday evening since; the number of attendees has ranged from single figures to mid-twenties, with ...

7
Book Review

Duncan Heining: Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers, and Free Fusioneers - British Jazz, 1960-1975

Read "Duncan Heining: Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers, and Free Fusioneers - British Jazz, 1960-1975" reviewed by Mike Oppenheim


Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers, and Free Fusioneers: British Jazz, 1960-1975 Duncan Heining pp. 486 ISBN: 978-1-84553-405-9 Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2012 Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers, and Free Fusioneers: British Jazz, 1960-1975, by freelance writer Duncan Heining, is a significant addition to the jazz literature. Consisting of fourteen chapters and 450 pages of text, Trad Dads focuses on the unique circumstances surrounding British jazz in the 1960s and first half of the 1970s. Heining investigates ...

1,113
Interview

Eddie Prevost: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Read "Eddie Prevost: Looking Back, Looking Forward" reviewed by John Eyles


Drummer and percussionist Eddie Prévost was a founding member of the pioneering free-improvising group AMM, back in 1965, and has remained a member ever since. In the intervening years, AMM saw frequent personnel changes, from the early lineup of Prévost--saxophonist Lou Gare, guitarist Keith Rowe, pianist Cornelius Cardew, and cellist Lawrence Sheaff--through to the current duo of Prévost and pianist John Tilbury. Rowe left AMM in 2004 after a prolonged period of the group being a trio. Rowe gave his ...

221
Album Review

Seymour Wright / Eddie Prevost: Gamut

Read "Gamut" reviewed by Nic Jones


On Gamut, Seymour Wright is credited with alto sax and Eddie Prevost's percussive credit is roto toms. When it comes down to it however, those credits are mere points of reference as this is music purged of conventional technique, as if the duo has undergone a process of rigorous self-denial in order to find out what emerges as a result of it. Furthermore the five track titles are merely the letters of the single word title, as if any other ...

782
Interview

Eddie Prevost: Out On The Free

Read "Eddie Prevost: Out On The Free" reviewed by Nic Jones


Drummer and percussionist Eddie Prévost has spent a career devoted to the outer reaches of the music. In the forty-odd years he's been musically active he has been a key member of the free improvisation group AMM as well as a band leader in his own right, leading units dedicated to mining a musical seam closer to free jazz than free improvisation as such.

For part of that time he has also run Matchless Recording & ...

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154

Interview

Iconic Free Drummer/Amm Co-Founder Eddie Prevost Interviewed at AAJ

Iconic Free Drummer/Amm Co-Founder Eddie Prevost Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz

Drummer and percussionist Eddie Prvost was a founding member of the pioneering free-improvising group AMM, back in 1965, and has remained a member ever since. In the intervening years, AMM saw frequent personnel changes, from the early lineup of Prvost--saxophonist Lou Gare, guitarist Keith Rowe, pianist Cornelius Cardew, and cellist Lawrence Sheaff--through to the current duo of Prvost and pianist John Tilbury. Rowe left AMM in 2004 after a prolonged period of the group being a trio.

Rowe gave his ...

102

Interview

AMM Percussionist/Co-Founder Eddie Prevost Interviewed at AAJ

AMM Percussionist/Co-Founder Eddie Prevost Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz

Drummer and percussionist Eddie Prvost has spent a career devoted to the outer reaches of the music. In the forty-odd years he's been musically active he has been a key member of the free improvisation group AMM as well as a band leader in his own right, leading units dedicated to mining a musical seam closer to free jazz than free improvisation as such.

For part of that time he has also run Matchless Recording & Publishing, a company perhaps ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Collider – or,...

Matchless Recordings And Publishing
2022

buy

Concertoto

Matchless Recordings And Publishing
2020

buy

Gamut

Matchless Recordings And Publishing
2009

buy

So Are We, So Are We

Matchless Recordings And Publishing
2007

buy

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