The People Band + Guests - A Celebratory Tribute To Mel Davis
No Longer Available
The People Band return to Cafe OTO to celebrate the life and music of Mel Davis - an outstanding figure on the British improv scene - who left us on 28 October 2013.
Besides the People Band, Mel's spiritual home, the gig will feature many talented musicians and other special guests. For this concert The People Band is likely to include Terry Day, George Khan, Mike Figgis, Paul Jolly, Davey Payne, Charlie Hart, Adam Hart, Lyn Dobson and Tony Edwards.
Mike Figgis will also be screening a short film about the band on the night.
THE PEOPLE BAND
Founded in parrallel to AMM and the Continuous Music ensemble, The People Band established a reputation in the 60s for extending the boundaries of free music, and their album from that time, produced by Charlie Watts, is still a relevant and striking document of their anything goes approach to collective improvisation. Every People Band concert is a special event where you can expect trade-mark full-on unqualified improvisation, radical yet entertaining free-form music.
“Contextualize it how you will there’s nothing quite like a People Band gig. That profound inner glow is something rare.” - Julian Cowley, The WIRE
"Up until Julian Cowley's gripping expose in The Wire 220, The People Band were lost to the times. Their project of total musical freedom, of blurring the boundaries between audience and performer was apparently so effective that they had managed to duck conventional musical histories altogether.
But The People Band existed in a constant state of flux. The People Band's roots were similar to contemporary groups like AMM and The Spontaneous Music Ensemble. But their allegiance to jazz, or any formal working strategy, was brief. Eventually, they settled on an approach to improvisation that was all about expansion and never looking back, the only referents the pulse of blood and the movement of hands.
Much of the improvising takes its lead from stumpy percussive patterns that imply sub-Saharan rhythms, an approach that's closer to the communal music of The Sun Ra Arkestra or The No-Neck Blues Band than any continental collective. There's little use of heads or even repeating figures, except for the odd guitar phrase or bowed bass chord.
Despite the clandestine nature of their mission they set charges that are still sending out aftershocks, with British groups like The A-Band and Vibracathedral Orchestra working the same back roads, digging away at the consensus and forwarding the idea of art as a liberating, communal and non-specialist pursuit." - DAVID KEENAN - THE WIRE 2004
"a huge improvisational orchestra whose presence lumbers out of the speakers and fills the room with its unorthodox big band boom. The 11 tracks which make up this recording retain their powerful presence and playfulness, qualities that were perhaps too intimidating and perplexingly ahead of their time for many jazz (or rock) listeners to fully get to grips with in 1968. Over 30 years later and People Band's message to the people sounds just as revolutionary." - EDWIN POUNCEY - JAZZWISE 2004
From the sleeve notes to '1968' (re-issued by Emanem):
The People Band (originally known as the Continuous Music Ensemble) was founded around the same time as AMM and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. However, unlike those other two pioneering groups, it did not develop its own distinctive methodology and language. Its approach was more laissez faire - anything goes. So the music on this 1968 recording covers a wide spectrum, both looking back to free jazz and chamber music and forward to free improvisation and conductions.
To quote the notes on the original LP: "The music is free, but it is not really free jazz: the music supersedes all boundaries and limitations, and becomes a spiritual experience. This is a music whose very essence is communication, and one finds it very difficult to conceive of any art form which could be more total than this. But let us not get bogged down with philosophy; it's not philosophy that matters - just the sound - and this is a beautiful album."
In general the People Band considered that the word 'spontaneous' meant 'spontaneous', i.e., without boundaries, methodology or pre-imposed structure - a music that was 'arrived at' without spoken pre-conditions or methods. The People Band were, in fact, as a whole 'anarchic' towards any individual who did want to structure the proceedings. The conductions and various scores were only briefly entertained.
Around 1960, Russell Hardy, Terry Holman and Terry Day formed a trio (later sometimes augmented by Henry Lowther). This group was probably the first in London to perform free improvisation exclusively. It was also probably the first in which the drummer (Terry Day) reduced his volume using a small kit played with reduced sticks and knitting needles, in order not to drown out the generally quiet pianist.
The Russell Hardy Trio (as it was generally known) met up with the other musicians around 1965 when performing at the Starting Gate pub in north London. The merger of these two groups became the Continuous Music Ensemble whose founder members included the ten musicians on this recording.
Chance formed a strong element of People Band music. Also free jazz, Charles Ives, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Eric Satie, etc., and the classical backgrounds of individuals in the band formed elements of People Band music too. Eddie Edem provided the African flavour.
The People Band collaborated with the People Show - painters, poets, dancers, mime artists, eventists and installationists. The basis of the music was primarily improvisation, and the concept of music being continuous without beginning or end - one merely plugged into it.
