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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).

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3
Album Review

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


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.

7
Album Review

Splinters: Inclusivity

Read "Inclusivity" reviewed by Chris May


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 ...

7
Album Review

Karl Evangelista: Apura!

Read "Apura!" reviewed by John Sharpe


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

Read "Brda Contemporary Music Festival 2017" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


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


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


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


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 ...

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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci

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 ...

1

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci

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 ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci

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 ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci

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 ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci

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 ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci

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 ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci

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 ...

1

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci

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 ...

3

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci

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 ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trevor Watts

Source: Michael Ricci

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 ...

Photos

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Art Is In The...

Jazz In Britain
2023

buy

Inclusivity

Jazz In Britain
2021

buy

Apura!

Astral Spirits
2020

buy

Edle Einfalt

Double Moon Records
2015

buy

Dialogues In Two...

BlueSoundScape Music
2012

buy

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