Eddie Prévost

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 (double bassist) 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

see AMM

Other recordings

1969SILVER PYRAMIDMusic 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 2001Matchless Recordings MRCD40

1976NOW-HERE-THIS-THENEddie Prévost BandGold/Hawkins/Mattos/PrévostSpotlite SPJ 505

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

1983CONTINUUMEddie Prévost QuartetMattos/Prévost/Stabbins/WestonMatchless Recordings MRLP07new CD version MRCD07 released in 1999 with additional material from 1985HANDSCAPESAkemi Kunishoshi-Kuhn TrioAkemi Kuniyoshi-Kuhn piano/Marcio Mattos double bass/Eddie Prévost drums

1984SUPERSESSIONGuy/Parker/Prévost/RoweMatchless Recordings MRCD17

1985MILLER’S TALESSteve Miller TrioSteve Miller piano/Tony Moore double bass/Eddie Prévost drumsmeets Lol CoxhillMatchless Recordings MRDLP09RESOUNDINGSPeter McPhail saxophones/flute/Tony Moore double bass/Eddie Prévost drumsMatchless Recordings MRLP08new CD version MRCD08 released in 2000 with additional material from 1986FLAYED/CRUXPrévost/OrganumSilent Records SR8704re-released as a CD in 1995 by Matchless Recordings MRCD27

1989PREMONITIONSfree jazz quartetHarrison Smith saxophones,b.cla./fl./ Paul Rutherford tromboneTony Moore cello/Eddie Prévost drumsMatchless Recordings MRCD18.

1990GODGodPathological PPP106SPHYXOrganum: Chrisyoph Heemann, David Jackman, Jim O’Roirke, Eddie Prévost, Dinah Jane RoweRobot Records RR -301990/92THIRD DAY STRAIGHT MADE PUBLICJim O’Rourke guitar /Eddie Prévost percussionComplacency CPCD9302

1992BEYOND THE PALEE(xperimental) A(udio) R(esearch)Sonic Boom/Kevin Martin/Kevin Shields/Eddie PrévostBig Cat Records ABB96CD

1993/95PHENOMEMA 256E(xperimental) A(udio) R(esearchSonic Boom/Eddie Prévost/Kevin Martin/Tom Prentice/Scott riley/Peter Bain/Alf HardySpace Age RecordingsOrbit 005LP

1994BAND ON THE WALLMarilyn Crispell piano / Eddie Prévost drumsMatchless Recordings MRCD25ALPHA LEMUR ECHO TWOJim O’Rourke, Eddie Prévost, Michael PrimeMycophile SPOR 05

1996LOCI OF CHANGE - Sounds and SensibilitySolo percussionMatchless Recordings MRCD32

1997MILLENNIUM MUSIC - A Meta Musical PortraitE(xperimetal) A(udio) R(esearch)Kember/Prévost/Prentice/BainAtavistic ALP72CDMOST MATERIALLEvan Parker saxophones / Eddie Prévost percussionMatchless Recordings MRCD33 (double)TOUCH- The Weight, Measure and Feel of ThingsEddie Prévost TrioTom Chant soprano saxophone / John Edwards double bass / Eddie Prévost drumsMatchless Recordings MRCD34.EN.TROPO.LOGYSimon Picard tenor saxophone/John Wolf Brennan piano, prepared piano and electronics/Eddie Prévost drums and percussionFor 4 Ears CD1036 (released 2000)THE KONER EXPERIMENTExperimental Audio Research Sonc Boom, Kevin Martin, Eddie Prevost, Kevin Shields, Thomas Koner and Andy MellwigMille Plateaux 36

1998CONCERT, v.Eddie Prévost drums & Veryan Weston pianoMatchless Recordings MRCD37THE ISSUE AT HANDSuchYoshikazu Iwamoto shakuhachi/John Tilbury piano/ Eddie Prévost percussionMatchless Recordings MRCD38 (double)

2000OREDerek Bailey and Eddie PrévostArrival Records ARC001

2001 THE VIRTUE IN IFEddie Prévost Trio Tom Chant soprano saxophone / John Edwards double bass / Eddie Prévost drumsMatchless Recordings MRCD34.ALL ANGELS CONCERTSEddie 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 WastellSEVENTH OF MAY 2001a 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 TrioMRCD47MATERIAL CONSEQUENCESEddie Prevost solo .percussionMRCD48

2001/2002 CHRISTIAN WOLFF early piano musicJohn Tilbury, Christian Wolff, Eddie PrévostA 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

2002UNDISTILLEDSakada Mattin, Rosy Parlane, Eddie Prévostthree sets recorded at Audit, London Worm Rotterdam and Baggage reclaim, London in 2002MRCD49NONE (-T)9! Nathaniel Catchpole, Jamie Coleman, Alex James, Ross Lambert, John Lely, Marianthi Papalexandri, Eddie Prévost, Seymour WrightMRCD54FREEDOM OF THE CITYAnton Lukoszevieze and Eddie Prévostrecorded 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

2003SAKADARhodri Davies, Eddie Prévost, Mattin, Margarida Garcia, Mark Wastellrecorded at freedom of the city festival , London 3rd May 2003SAKADA: ASKATUTAXabier Erkizia, Mattin, Eddie Prévostrecorded at a concert given at Arteleku (Donostia-San Sebastián) Spain 22nd August 2003Therhizomelabel rech 14A BRIGHT NOWHEREConditions Nathaniel Catchpole, Jamie Coleman, John Edwards, Alex James, Eddie PrévostMRCD55THE BLACKBIRD’S WHISTLEEddie Prevost Trio Tom Chant, John Edwards, Eddie PrévostMRCD56IMPONDERABLE EVIDENCEEvan Parker and Eddie PrévostMRCD57

2004DISCRETE MOMENTSJohn Tilbury and Eddie PrévostMRCD58ACOUSTIC TRIOJohn Coxon, Eddie Prévost, Ashley WalesTreader tdr004

2005INTERWORKSJohn Butcher and Eddie PrévostMRCD66

2006ENTELECHYEddie Prévost tam-tam soloMRCD67SO ARE WE, SO ARE WEAlan Wilkinson baritone and alto saxophones. Eddie Prévost drumsMatchless Recordings MRCD68ALONG CAME JOEAlan Wilkinson baritone and alto saxophones, Joe Williamson double bass. Eddie Prévost drums.Matchless Recordings MRCD69