Forumistas favourite recorded free improv

[john poole]

Here's Keith Tippet freeing things up just a little bit for King Crimson....(maybe a bit of thread creep here).

http://youtu.be/97Ydq-NU2Iw

As performed with Keith Tippett on "Top of the Pops" in 1970.

[will vine]

I used to spend more time years ago listening to what I thought of as unstructured music and this thread has taken me back, so, thanks Chris. I was remembering how the Third Ear Band used to open those free Hyde Park concerts in the late sixties/early seventies and I looked them up on Youtube because I remembered the idea that they used to freely improvise around a drone. This thing that I'm posting here seems much more structured than that (and so definitely is thread creep), and sounds quite lovely - a bit like Terry Riley's Rainbow in Curved Air. Ah!............what times they were.

http://youtu.be/oWNKH7B5mSs

[Adam Blake]

Nice to hear "Cat Food" again! Old Fripp gave as good as he got to Tippett in the guitar solo. Incredible to think that got in the charts (albeit very lowly placed).

My old sitar teacher, Lyn Dobson, used to play at free improv workshops with other musical renegades and refugees from the fringes of British jazz and he used to invite me down to listen. That was when I realised that free improv is actually great fun if you are doing it yourself. Inspired by this I put together a free improv collective of my own, named Jacket Xerxophon and his Eggz Legz. We would set up all the gear, set the tape recorder running, take loads of drugs and, um, play. Then we would get the tapes home and listen to them whilst rolling around on the floor laughing at the noises we had made. We never did a single gig and, strangely enough, the tapes rarely got listened to a second time.

As you quite rightly say, Will: Ah...........what times they were.

[Jude]

Sorry to resurrect this thread but it seemed an appropriate place to say that my old friend and bandmate (for a while in Dyble, Coxhill and the Miller Brothers- a strange collaboration if ever there was one!), Lol Coxhill, is very seriously ill and has been in hospital in intensive care for the last six months.

Info and story here :
http://efi.group.shef.ac.uk/SupportforLolCoxhill.pdf

He was a delightfully strange but wonderfully inspirational person to play with. I don't know if he will ever play again, but there is always a hope...

[Rob Hall]

I'm sorry to hear this Jude. I met Lol through friends when I was a young art student, and he made quite an impact. It sounds like he's being treated very poorly, which is shocking.

[Adam Blake]

I am so sorry to hear that. In any civilised society he would be a national treasure, with wealthy patrons queuing up to take care of his medical bills. But this is England....

[will vine]

Well, yes again, thanks for letting us know Jude. I had been wondering how things were with him in the way that you do when people disappear from the scene. For an eccentric he spent surprising amount of time hereabouts in Welwyn Garden City. Great bloke. I owe him a few quid for all the fun.

[gary booth]

Sad to hear - the world needs people like Lol Coxhill.

Well, yes again, thanks for letting us know Jude. I had been wondering how things were with him in the way that you do when people disappear from the scene. For an eccentric he spent surprising amount of time hereabouts in Welwyn Garden City. Great bloke. I owe him a few quid for all the fun.

He was based in WGC at Digswell House as ' artist in residence.' in the 70's . For 5 minutes I was rehearsing with a band in this period and needing a drummer we went to Digswell House to try out Lol's son, Simon [if memory serves] What I do remember clearly is despite telling him we wanted to do Soul & RnB he proceeded to thrash the life out of the kit as soon as he could.

[Adam Blake]

My favourite memory of Lol is seeing him sitting in with The Skatalites at The George Robey in Finsbury Park in the early 90s. He played alto and soprano saxophones. He played the ensemble parts impeccably but when it came time for him to solo he was completely 'out there'. At that time The Skatalites still consisted of mainly the old crew and the smiles on their faces at the crazy white baldhead were priceless to behold. He obviously went way back with them, probably to the early 60s, as he seemed to know their repertoire inside out.

[Jude]

I did a short tour of the Netherlands and one or two Uni gigs with Lol, Steve and Phil Miller and a drummer and bass player, (can't remember who as they varied depending who was available, all pretty special though).

It was a very weird mixture of music, some totally improvised, one or two from my past and one or two oddities. I have one souvenir of the band, one set list, which, written in Lol's fair hand, consisted of:
1. Piano Solo
2 Penguin Dust (our alternative name and title song)
3) To a Really Baffled Garden
3a) Liar
3b) Avuelto Aba Ho <--- spit or hoick
5) Lol solo
6) Yes No
7) Stout Hearted Men
8) Intro to 3 blind Mice
9) Broken Date Balle
10 Free at Rarse
11) One Sure Thing

Fascinating to listen to, wonderful to be part of, baffling in the extreme