Eddie Prévost

Eddie Prévost playing at Avanto Festival, Helsinki, 2007.

Edwin Prévost (born June 22, 1942 in Hitchin) is an English drummer and percussionist.

An important figure in the history of free improvisation, Prévost began as a jazz drummer before branching out into entirely improvised music. He was a co-founder of the group AMM, and remains its only constant member. Prévost has worked with several prominent jazz musicians, including saxophonist Lou Gare.

In 1965, along with tenor saxophonist Lou Gare, bassist Lawrence Sheaff and guitarist Keith Rowe, Prévost made a radical break with jazz, a music that had inspired these English musicians but couldn’t accommodate their rapidly expanding aesthetic concerns. Their dedicated inquiry into the terms of spontaneous creativity led them to reinvent music as a dialogue with the world beyond the limits of conventional musical discourse. They formed AMM, soon to be joined by distinguished composer Cornelius Cardew, an improvisation ensemble that has exerted influence internationally across a wide range of kinds of music, from contemporary composition to psychedelic rock, ambient soundscapes and industrial noise. During the late 1960s AMM occasionally played on the same bill as Pink Floyd. In 1968 American composer Christian Wolff spent his year in London as a member of AMM.

In the course of AMM’s rigorous scrutiny of music’s internal and external relations and of sound itself, Prévost revised his understanding of the nature and potential of percussion. He bowed cymbals, used drums as resonant amplifying ‘sound boxes’, incorporated ‘found objects’ into a growing battery of percussive elements that now includes gongs and a huge stringed contra-bass drum. He examined the very grain of the material at hand.

At the same time Prévost has remained at home with the jazz drum kit and those conventional techniques associated with it. Jazz has had a distinct referential role within several groups Prévost has been involved with, from The Eddie Prévost Band of the late 1970s with Geoff Hawkins on tenor, bassist Marcio Mattos and trumpeter Gerry Gold; to his trio which began in the 1990s with Tom Chant and John Edwards and to a recent ensemble with saxophonist Alan Wilkinson and bassist Joe Williamson.

Prévost still performs regularly with AMM (which currently consists of pianist John Tilbury and himself). The vital dynamic of all Prévost’s work is creative response to a specific context. His varied and ongoing discoveries within AMM, and his refinement of that group’s meta-musical philosophy, extend into his solo playing and into other diverse alignments, such as 9!, Sakada (with the live electronics and computers of Mattin and Rosy Parlane) or the trio with Jim O’Rourke and Takehisa Kosugi that accompanied Merce Cunningham’s dance company in 1998.

Prévost’s life as a musician has encompassed encounters with an extraordinary range of instrumentalists including Evan Parker, Barry Guy, Paul Rutherford, Tony Moore, Christian Wolff, Marilyn Crispell, Shiku Yanu, Veryan Weston, Howard Riley, Max Eastley, Phillip Wachsman, Akemi Kuniyoshi, John Edwards, Tom Chant, Dave Jackman’s ‘Organum’, Yoshikazu Iwamoto, and Derek Bailey. As well as improvising and playing free jazz Prévost has performed challenging experimental compositions, especially those of his former associate Cornelius Cardew. Prévost has also subsequently collaborated with other rock-oriented groups, including GOD, Main and Sonic Boom’s ‘Experimental Audio Research.’ He has created music for experimental filmmakers — most notably Malcolm LeGrice, Vlasto Sudar and Gina Tornatore. He has played in most European countries including Russia, Lithuania and Turkey, in the USA, Canada and Japan and has convened workshops in Europe and America as well as in the UK.

In addition to making music Prévost lectures, writes, edits and publishes. His writings about the aesthetic priority of improvisation have appeared in numerous arts and music magazines e.g. Marina d’Art (Spain), Influenza (Denmark), Bad Alchemy (Germany), British Journal of Music Education (UK), Contact (UK), The Wire (UK) and Contemporary Music Review (UK). His keynote address to the 1999 Colloquium (part of the Guelph Jazz Festival) was reprinted in ‘The Other Side of Nowhere — jazz, improvisation, and communities in dialogue’ Ed. Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble, Wesleyan UP, 2004. From his home in Essex he runs the estimable imprint Matchless Recordings and its print offshoot Copula, which has published Prévost’s own books, Minute Particulars and No Sound Is Innocent, and recently issued an invaluable collection of essays, articles and statements by Cornelius Cardew. He has also been an active member of several organizations established to promote improvisation and creative music-making.

For nine years, Prévost has convened a weekly workshop on Friday nights in London. This has attracted over 300 musicians representing some 20 or more nationalities.

“Definition of self can only occur within voluntary limitations of activity and expression. To prevent these limitations from solidifying into self-deceiving patterns of conceit, they have to be placed with confident uncertainty into the extra-personal life of community, the musical collective but also other communities.” EP, No Sound Is Innocent COPULA 1995

Bibliography

• No Sound is Innocent, Copula, 1995 ISBN 0-9525492-0-4

• Minute Particulars, Copula, 2004 ISBN 0-9525492-1-2

• Cornelius Cardew Reader (ed. Edwin Prévost) Copula, 2006 ISBN 0-9525492-2-0

Discography with AMM

1966 AMMMUSIC -1966 Cardew/Gare/Prévost/Rowe/Sheaff - LP Elektra UK 256 re-released as a CD together with additional material in 1990 - ReRMegacorp

1967 AMM Commonwealth Institute - 20th April 1967 compilation including: AMM Cardew/Gare/Prévost/Rowe/Sheaff United Dairies UD12

1969 LIVE ELECTRONIC MUSIC IMPROVISED Cardew/Gare/Hobbs/Prévost/Rowe one side AMM/one side MEV - LP Mainstream MS 5002 THE CRYPT - 12TH JUNE 1968 Cardew/Gare/Hobbs/Prévost/Rowe double LP boxed set - Matchless Recordings MRLP05 re-released as a double CD The Complete Session with extra material in 1994 MRDCD05

1973 AT THE ROUNDHOUSE Gare/Prévost Incus EP1 complete session remastered and released as a CD - Anomalous Records ICES 001 TO HEAR AND BACK AGAIN Gare/Prévost Matchless Recordings LP MRLP03 re-released as a CD with additional material in 1994 MRCD03

1979 IT HAD BEEN AN ORDINARY ENOUGH DAY IN PUEBLO, COLORADO Prévost/Rowe ECM/JAPO 60031 Re-released as a CD in 1991

1983 GENERATIVE THEMES Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury Matchless Recordings MRLP06 re-released as a CD with additional material in 1994 MRCD06

1984 COMBINE + LAMINATES Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury Pogus Productions LP P201-4 re-released as a CD in 01995 together with a version of TREATISE’82 from the same concert in Chicago Matchless Recordings MRCD26

1987 THE INEXHAUSTIBLE DOCUMENT de Saram/Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury Matchless Recordings MRLP13 re-released as a CD with additional material in 1994 MRCD05

1988 IRMA -an opera by Tom Phillips Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury plus Mitchell/Coxhill/Lorraine/Pederson/Phillips Matchless Recordings MRCD16

1990 THE NAMELESS UNCARVED BLOCK Gare/Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury Matchless Recordings MRCD20

1992 NEWFOUNDLAND Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury Matchless Recordings MRCD23

1993 Vandoevre AMBIENT ISOLATIONISM de Saram/Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury Virgin Records ABMT 4 (UK) one track on a double CD compilation

1994 LIVE IN ALLENTOWN USA Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury Matchless Recordings MRCD30

1995 FROM A STRANGE PLACE Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury Modern Music (P.S.F. Records) Japan. PSFD-80

1969/1982/1994 LAMINAL a retrospective three CD set 1. The Aarhus Sequences recorded in Denmark, 1969 Cardew/Gare/Hobbs/Prévost/Rowe 2. The Great Hall recorded at Goldsmiths’ College, London 1982 Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury 3. Contextual recorded in New York, 1994 Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury. Matchless Recordings MRCD31 (pub. 1996) BEFORE DRIVING TO THE CHAPEL WE TOOK COFFEE WITH RICK AND JENNIFER REED Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury recording of concert in Houston Texas 1996 Matchless Recordings MRCD35

2000 TUNES WITHOUT MEASURE OR END Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury recorded at free radICCals Festival, Glasgow 4th May 2000 Matchless Recordings MRCD44

2001 FINE Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury recorded at Musique Action festival, Vendouvre-lesNancy, France on 24th May 2001 Matchless recordings MRCD46

2002 AMM & Formanex Eddie Prévost, Keith Rowe, John White, John Tilbury, Laurent Dailleau, Anthony Taillard, Christophe Havard, Julien Ottavi, Emmanuel Leduc. A version of Cornelius Cardew’s Treatise recorded at Musique Action Festival, Nancy, France June 2002 fibrr records 006

2004 APOGEE MEV (Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski , Richard Teitelbaum) ,and AMM (Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury double CD. First CD contains sextet recordings made on 30th April 2004. Second CD contain separate performance by MEV and AMM made at Freedom of the City Festival on 1st May 2004

2005 NORWICH Prévost and Tilbury recorded at a concert given at The School of Music, University of East Anglia on 14th February 2005

Other recordings

1969 SILVER PYRAMID Music Now Ensemble performing Eddie Prévost’s text/visual piece Silver Pyramid including Lou Gare, Cornelius Cardew, Eddie Prévost Keith Rowe and others many of who becmae part of The Scratch Orchestra. Recorded at the Roundhuse in London on 4th May 1968 as part of a Music Now festival. Released as a CD in 2001 Matchless Recordings MRCD40

1976 NOW-HERE-THIS-THEN Eddie Prévost Band Gold/Hawkins/Mattos/Prévost Spotlite SPJ 505

1977 LIVE VOLS 1 & 2 Eddie Prévost Band Gold/Hawkins/Mattos/Prévost Matchless Recordings MRLP1 & 2 re-released on a single CD in 1993 MRCD01/02

1983 CONTINUUM Eddie Prévost Quartet Mattos/Prévost/Stabbins/Weston Matchless Recordings MRLP07 new CD version MRCD07 released in 1999 with additional material from 1985 HANDSCAPES Akemi Kunishoshi-Kuhn Trio Akemi Kuniyoshi-Kuhn piano/Marcio Mattos double bass/Eddie Prévost drums

1984 SUPERSESSION Guy/Parker/Prévost/Rowe Matchless Recordings MRCD17

1985 MILLER’S TALES Steve Miller Trio Steve Miller piano/Tony Moore double bass/Eddie Prévost drums meets Lol Coxhill Matchless Recordings MRDLP09 RESOUNDINGS Peter McPhail saxophones/flute/Tony Moore double bass/Eddie Prévost drums Matchless Recordings MRLP08 new CD version MRCD08 released in 2000 with additional material from 1986 FLAYED/CRUX Prévost/Organum Silent Records SR8704 re-released as a CD in 1995 by Matchless Recordings MRCD27

1989 PREMONITIONS free jazz quartet Harrison Smith saxophones,b.cla./fl./ Paul Rutherford trombone Tony Moore cello/Eddie Prévost drums Matchless Recordings MRCD18.

1990 GOD God Pathological PPP106 SPHYX Organum: Chrisyoph Heemann, David Jackman, Jim O’Roirke, Eddie Prévost, Dinah Jane Rowe Robot Records RR -30 1990/92 THIRD DAY STRAIGHT MADE PUBLIC Jim O’Rourke guitar /Eddie Prévost percussion Complacency CPCD9302

1992 BEYOND THE PALE E(xperimental) A(udio) R(esearch) Sonic Boom/Kevin Martin/Kevin Shields/Eddie Prévost Big Cat Records ABB96CD

1993/95 PHENOMEMA 256 E(xperimental) A(udio) R(esearch Sonic Boom/Eddie Prévost/Kevin Martin/Tom Prentice/Scott riley/Peter Bain/Alf Hardy Space Age Recordings Orbit 005LP

1994 BAND ON THE WALL Marilyn Crispell piano / Eddie Prévost drums Matchless Recordings MRCD25 ALPHA LEMUR ECHO TWO Jim O’Rourke, Eddie Prévost, Michael Prime Mycophile SPOR 05

1996 LOCI OF CHANGE - Sounds and Sensibility Solo percussion Matchless Recordings MRCD32

1997 MILLENIUM MUSIC - A Meta Musical Portrait E(xperimetal) A(udio) R(esearch) Kember/Prévost/Prentice/Bain Atavistic ALP72CD MOST MATERIALL Evan Parker saxophones / Eddie Prévost percussion Matchless Recordings MRCD33 (double) TOUCH - The Weight, Measure and Feel of Things Eddie Prévost Trio Tom Chant soprano saxophone / John Edwards double bass / Eddie Prévost drums Matchless Recordings MRCD34. EN.TROPO.LOGY Simon Picard tenor saxophone/John Wolf Brennan piano, prepared piano and electronics/ Eddie Prévost drums and percussion For 4 Ears CD1036 (released 2000) THE KONER EXPERIMENT Experimental Audio Research Sonc Boom, Kevin Martin, Eddie Prevost, Kevin Shields, Thomas Koner and Andy Mellwig Mille Plateaux 36

1998 CONCERT, v. Eddie Prévost drums & Veryan Weston piano Matchless Recordings MRCD37 THE ISSUE AT HAND Such Yoshikazu Iwamoto shakuhachi/John Tilbury piano/ Eddie Prévost percussion Matchless Recordings MRCD38 (double)

2000 ORE Derek Bailey and Eddie Prévost Arrival Records ARC001

2001 THE VIRTUE IN IF Eddie Prévost Trio Tom Chant soprano saxophone / John Edwards double bass / Eddie Prévost drums Matchless Recordings MRCD34. ALL ANGELS CONCERTS Eddie Prévost solo percussion track on a double CD compilation of concerts held at ALL Angels church, London as part of an ongoing series organised by Rhodri Davies and Mark Wastell SEVENTH OF MAY 2001 a double CD that contains the performance of 7th May 2001 at freedom of the city festival, London on 7th May 2001. Contain an Eddie Prevost solo and the Eddie Prévost Trio MRCD47 MATERIAL CONSEQUENCES Eddie Prevost solo .percussion MRCD48

2001/2002 CHRISTIAN WOLFF early piano music John Tilbury, Christian Wolff, Eddie Prévost A double CD featuring the early piano music of Christian Wolff. Solo pieces by John Tilbury, two piano and four hands by John Tilbury and Christian Wolff plus a trio piece with Eddie Prévost on percussion. MRCD51

2002 UNDISTILLED Sakada Mattin, Rosy Parlane, Eddie Prévost three sets recorded at Audit, London Worm Rotterdam and Baggage reclaim, London in 2002 MRCD49 NONE (-T) 9! Nathaniel Catchpole, Jamie Coleman, Alex James, Ross Lambert, John Lely, Marianthi Papalexandri, Eddie Prévost, Seymour Wright MRCD54 FREEDOM OF THE CITY Anton Lukoszevieze and Eddie Prévost recorded and videoed at freedom of the city festival 2002. Published in a compilation DVD to accompany: Blocks of Consciousness and Unbroken Continuum, Edtiors Brian Marley and Mark Wastell, Sound 323, 2005

2003 SAKADA Rhodri Davies, Eddie Prévost, Mattin, Margarida Garcia, Mark Wastell recorded at freedom of the city festival , London 3rd May 2003 SAKADA ASKATUTA Xavier Erkizia, Mattin, Eddie Prévost recoreded at a concert given at Artteleku (Donosti) Spain 22nd August 2003 Therhizomelabel rech 14 A BRIGHT NOWHERE Conditions Nathaniel Catchpole, Jamie Coleman, John Edwards, Alex James, Eddie Prévost MRCD55 THE BLACKBIRD’S WHISTLE Eddie Prevost Trio Tom Chant, John Edwards, Eddie Prévost MRCD56 IMPONDERABLE EVIDENCE Evan Parker and Eddie Prévost MRCD57

2004 DISCRETE MOMENTS John Tilbury and Eddie Prévost MRCD58 ACOUSTIC TRIO John Coxon, Eddie Prévost, Ashley Wales Treader tdr004

2005 INTERWORKS John Butcher and Eddie Prévost MRCD66

2006 ENTELECHY Eddie Prévost tam-tam solo MRCD67 SO ARE WE, SO ARE WE Alan Wilkinson baritone and alto saxophones. Eddie Prévost drums Matchless Recordings MRCD68 ALONG CAME JOE Alan Wilkinson baritone and alto saxophones, Joe Williamson double bass. Eddie Prévost drums. Matchless Recordings MRCD69