EDDIE PRÉVOST BAND – Live Volume 1 (LP-1978)

Label: Matchless Recordings – MR 01

Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: UK / Released: 1978

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded live of a concert at the Cambridge College of Art and Technoloy on May 19, 1977.

Mastered By – George Peckham

Recorded By – Pete Nesbit

Concert Organized By – Jane and Roger Giddings

Published By – Matching Music Publishing Co. Ltd.

A - The Fireman's Act .............................................................. 18:00

B - Green King ......................................................................... 25:02

Musicians:

Eddie Prévost – drums, percussion

Geoff Hawkins – tenor saxophone

Gerry Gold – trumpet, flugelhorn

Marcio Mattos – double bass

This is the first of a two volume, recordings of a concert at the Cambridge College of Art and Technoloy on May 19, 1977. ["Live - Volume 2" (Matchless Recordings - MR 02)]

Aside from working with the influential avant-garde ensemble AMM, percussionist Eddie Prevost led some highly challenging British free jazz groups in the '70s. These sessions from 1977 showcase a project featuring Geoff Hawkins on saxophone, Gerry Gold on trumpet, and the phenomenal talents of Marcio Mattos on bass. With Prevost's always inventive and high-energy drumming holding it all together, the quartet explores the tradition of free jazz with the astute wit of classical musicians. The excellent recording and sequencing of the pieces make this LP a compelling collection of avant garde jazz...

...Prévost's jazz origins are still quite clearly audible on 'Live', the album which inaugurated his own Matchless label, and one on which he delivers, as a obstretrician might, one of the best recordings of this period of British free jazz.

Gold and Hawkins make a marvellous partnership, ranging from austere fury to jovial reave-ups which occasionally recall the more experimental Mingus's workshop bands. Gold in particular has a clear, emphatic signature, idiosyncratic enough to make one wonder why he hasn't recorded more often.

Prévost is one of the most articulate exponents of the music. He is author of a book called 'No Sound is Innocent' in which he argues the existence of an aesthetic in which music is inseparable from the realm of ideas and soclal exchanges. The quartet might seem conventioanlly distant from what he has done with AMM and other groups, but it dies illuminate how generously he opens himself to situations in which hierarchis collapse. There is no 'front line' here, no 'rhythm section.' It is the equivalent of total football, everyone contributing at every level...

If you find it, buy this album!