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All Music Guide:
British saxophonist Trevor Watts has been associated with the British free jazz and improvised music scene since the mid-'60s. He is perhaps best known for his involvement in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and in other projects with drummer John Stevens. While this work filled the first two decades of his career, he has focused more on his Moiré Music projects since the 1980s.
Watts was raised in Halifax and joined the Royal Air Force when he was old enough. From the late '50s until the early '60s, he was stationed in Germany, and it was during this time that he first met, and began making music with, trombonist Paul Rutherford and Stevens. Once he left the air force, Watts helped found the New Jazz Orchestra, which occasionally backed up rock musicians as well as bluesmen such as Sonny Boy Williamson. The mid-'60s brought a quintet with Stevens and Rutherford, which renamed itself the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (SME) when London's Little Theatre Club opened its doors in 1966. The improvisation-based SME went through many incarnations, some of which didn't include Watts. It was during one of these periods that he formed Amalgam with bassist Barry Guy. In early 1968, Watts was back in the SME fold, and this time he and Stevens remained the core of a rotating cast for the next eight years. During this time, Watts also played with Guy and other top British improvisers in the London Jazz Composers Orchestra as well as in other groups with Stevens, such as the rock-oriented group Away.
Although Trevor Watts is usually associated with abstract and free music, the '80s and '90s found him leading a number of groups (under the Moiré Music moniker) that focus more on composition and world rhythms. These Moiré Music groups -- which have ranged from a 14-piece band to a drum orchestra to a trio -- have recorded for the ECM label and Watts' own Arc label. In 1999, Watts reuniting with violinist Peter Knight (of Steeleye Span), who had once played in Moiré Music, for a series of duo shows.
Over the years, Trevor Watts has toured all over the world, from the Americas to New Zealand. He has run workshops, received numerous grants and commissions for his music, and has collaborated with a number of other widely respected jazz musicians, including Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy, Don Cherry and Jayne Cortez.
Wikipedia:
Trevor Charles Watts (born 26 February 1939 in York) is an English jazz and free-improvising alto and soprano saxophonist. He is largely self-taught, having taken up the cornet at age 12 then switched to saxophone at 18. While stationed in Germany with the RAF (1958–63), he encountered the drummer John Stevens and trombonist Paul Rutherford. After being demobbed he returned to London. In 1965 he and Stevens formed the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, which became one of the crucibles of British free improvisation. Watts left the band to form his own group Amalgam in 1967, then returned to SME for another stretch that lasted until the mid-1970s. Another key association was with the bassist Barry Guy and his London Jazz Composers' Orchestra, an association that lasted from the band's inception in the 1970s up to its (permanent?) disbandment in the mid-1990s.
Though he was initially strongly identified with the avant-garde, Watts is a versatile musician who has worked in everything from straight jazz contexts to rock and blues. His own projects have come increasingly to focus on blending jazz and African music, notably the Moiré Music ensemble which he has led since 1982 in configurations ranging from large ensembles featuring multiple drummers to more intimate trios. He has only occasionally recorded in freer modes in recent years, notably the CD 6 Dialogues, a duet album with Veryan Weston (the pianist in earlier editions of Moiré Music). A solo album, World Sonic, appeared on Hi4Head Records in 2005.
Watts has toured the world over numerous times, run workshops, received grants and commissions, and he has collaborated with some of the great jazz musicians including Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy, Don Cherry and Jayne Cortez. As of 2011, he continues to travel and will tour North American with Veryan Weston in the summer.
