Biography All Music Guide Wikipedia
Group Members: Phil Manzanera and John Wetton, Sergio Diaz, Charles Hayward, Sergio Dias, Phil Manzanera
All Music Guide:
Quiet Sun originally formed around Dulwich College in 1970 as a four-piece progressive rock band featuring Phil Manzanera (guitar), Bill MacCormick (bass), Charles Hayward (drums), and Dave Jarrett (keyboards). The band name came from an article on sunspots and solar flares that MacCormick's brother Ian had been reading, called "The Year of the Quiet Sun." The group managed to score a rehearsal space from Warner Bros. and toured around the south of England gaining a small following, but were never signed. In 1971, Manzanera left to join Roxy Music, MacCormick joined Matching Mole, Jarrett went into teaching, and Hayward joined Gong. Three years later, Manzanera was riding high on Roxy Music and decided to reform Quiet Sun while spending the latter part of 1974 working on a solo album to be known as Diamond Head. Manzanera booked 12-hour studio days, recording his solo album for eight and Quiet Sun for four, resulting in Mainstream. The group mostly re-recorded the songs they had rehearsed back in 1970, though several songs from that time instead found their way onto Diamond Head, including "Frontera" (later re-recorded by Robert Wyatt as "Team Spirit" on Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard) and "Alma." Both albums formed the basis of much of 801's live shows, which featured Manzanera and MacCormick. Hayward left to form This Heat. For a while, after initial pressings of Mainstream went out of print, the CD of the album was only obtainable through an expensive Japanese import. In 1999 Mainstream was re-released on Manzanera's own label, while a number of the early, pre-Roxy Quiet Sun demos were released in 2000 on Manzanera's Rare One.
Wikipedia:
Quiet Sun were an English progressive rock/jazz fusion band from the Canterbury Scene consisting of Phil Manzanera (guitars), Bill MacCormick (bass), Dave Jarrett (keyboards) and Charles Hayward (drums).
History
Having originated from a Dulwich College band by the name of Pooh and the Ostrich Feather, Quiet Sun was formed in 1970 after MacCormick had made friends with Robert Wyatt, the son of a friend of his mother's. The band integrated jazz elements and sparkling keyboard sounds into their complex music - similar to Soft Machine - but Manzanera's energetic guitar made their music very different from the Softs' who had not been using any guitar (other than bass guitar) on their regular albums before the 1975 release of Bundles, and had used reeds as the main other melody instruments aside of keyboards.
Quiet Sun split up in 1972, Manzanera to Roxy Music, MacCormick to Matching Mole, Hayward to This Heat, and Jarrett began to teach mathematics.
In 1975, Manzanera booked a studio for 26 days to record his album Diamond Head and got Quiet Sun together again to record an album from their old composed material in the studio at the same time. This first and only album of theirs, with participation of Brian Eno and the late Ian MacCormick, titled Mainstream was critically acclaimed and became the New Musical Express' album of the month. One of Quiet Sun's songs appears on Robert Wyatt's Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, under the name "Team Spirit". Additionally, reworked versions of "Rongwrong" and "Mummy was an asteroid, Daddy was a small non-stick kitchen utensil" both appear on the album 801 Live (the latter is consolidated with a track from Diamond Head, "East of Echo", with the result titled "East of Asteroid").
