AMM (group)
Encyclopedia
AMM are an important British
free improvisation
group, founded in London
, England
in 1965.
AMM have never been well known to the general public, but have been incredibly influential on the field of improvised music. AMM have been called "legendary" and "groundbreaking.", and are notable as perhaps the first musical group deliberately to try to make music not related to any established musical genre: as Michael Nyman
wrote, "AMM seem to have worked without the benefit or hindrance of any kind of prepared external discipline."
Most of their recordings have been released on Matchless Recordings, run by founder member and percussionist Eddie Prévost
.
In a 2001 interview, founding member Keith Rowe
was asked if "AMM" was an abbreviation
; he replied, "The letters AMM stand for something, but as you probably know it's a secret!"
on guitar
, Lou Gare
on saxophone
(born Lesley Gare, in 1939) and Eddie Prévost
on drums
. Rowe and Gare were members of Mike Westbrook
's band; Prévost and Gare were also in a hard bop
jazz
quintet
. The three men shared a common interest in exploring music beyond the boundaries of conventional jazz, as part of a larger movement that helped spawn Europe
an free jazz
and free improvisation
.
The seeds of AMM were planted in 1965. They initially had no name, and were not really a group in the conventional sense, simply a weekend experimental workshop session at the Royal College of Art
in London, centered on Gare, Rowe, and Prevost. Members of the group have come and gone over the years, but Rowe and Prévost have been present for most recordings and performances; the latter has been the only constant in the nearly four decades of AMM music.
Musicians were free to join in, but such collaborations were often short-lived if the contributions were lacking the proper spirit: notable jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy
sat in with the group but was quickly asked to stop playing. Observers were welcome, provided they were silent and didn't disturb the proceedings. American saxophonist Ornette Coleman
was asked to leave after he continually talked during one performance; Beatles member Paul McCartney
once sat quietly through an early AMM session. When asked how he liked the music he said they went on too long.
Eventually, the group settled on a lineup of Prevost, Rowe, Gare, bassist Lawrence Sheaff and pianist/cellist Cornelius Cardew
, and, in early 1966, were calling themselves AMM. However, some early performances were billed as the "Cornelius Cardew Quintet", a mistake which both irked and amused the musicians. After a few paying performances, Cardew bought two amplifiers so the other instruments could compete with the volume of Rowe's guitar. In addition to amplifying their instruments, Cardew and Gare would apply contact microphones to various common objects to amplify the sounds made by, for example, rubbing a glass jar or striking a coffee tin.
No AMM performance is ever planned; each is unique and spontaneous. The musicians vowed never to rehearse and never to discuss what they had played. The musicians tend to avoid any conventional melody
, harmony
or rhythm
, and seek out an ensemble sound that often obscures any individual's role. It is often difficult to discern which musical instrument
is making which specific sound on an AMM recording, due in part to liberal use of various extended technique
s on their instruments.
AMM released their first recording, AMMusic 1966, on Elektra Records UK in 1966. It had some initial similarities to free jazz
, due in part to Gare's saxophone. One critic has written, however, that the resemblance was rather slight: "the overall sound of the group, even in 1966, was so different, so idiosyncratic, that it's not at all surprising that both new jazz
and contemporary classical audiences were baffled, if not horrified." Percussionist Christopher Hobbs
(born in 1950 and a student of Cardew) also played with AMM in the late 1960s.
The next AMM material to see release were the important The Crypt sessions from 12 June 1968. Though the debut is regarded as a landmark recording, The Crypt was arguably even more important in establishing the droning, long-form music that would come to characterize AMM. Further "out" and even less conventional than earlier material, one critic has written of it that "an eerie sensation inevitably accompanies each listen to the raw streams of electric noise channeled on AMM's second album and early masterpiece, The Crypt. To ears informed by the twenty-first century, it's the uncanny feeling of listening to three-and-a-half decades of experimental music history as delivered in a chillingly prescient sort of reverse premonition... It's a little unnerving that the only records that seem to accurately describe the brave new soundworld harnessed on The Crypt came into being well after its creation."
The Crypt sessions have been issued many times, twice in the 1980s as a double LP, and it is still available (with extra material, billed as "The Complete Sessions") on a double CD from Matchless Recordings. The Crypt continues to inspire adventurous listeners; in the liner notes to the 1992 double CD, Prévost writes, "Despite being (arguably) the most 'difficult' material on Matchless, The Crypt has been a mainstay for the label. It obviously pays not to underestimate the audience. Its continued success has enabled us to release other works. So we felt committed, obliged almost, to keep it available... this music has proved itself not to be ephemeral."
Composer Cornelius Cardew
joined AMM in 1966, performing on piano
and cello
. He worked with AMM intermittently until he abandoned his earlier experimental music in the late 1970s (Cardew died in an unsolved auto accident in 1981). Composer Christian Wolff
performed with AMM in 1968. Cardew and Rowe became committed to socialism
and to Maoism
, and thought that AMM's music should reflect their sociopolitical outlook. Prévost accuses the pair of "cultural bullying", and there was tension in the group, resulting in some AMM performances being made by alternating duos: Rowe and Cardew, Prévost and Gare.
-like era, with Gare's sputtering, squawking saxophone (unique but showing the influence of John Gilmore
and Albert Ayler
) brought to the fore, although Prévost has stated the music was "decidedly non-jazz."
Rowe rejoined in the mid-1970s, and shortly thereafter, Gare departed, leaving a Rowe-Prévost duo for a period.
— previously an occasional AMM collaborator — joined in about 1980. His shimmering Feldmanesque
playing brought a measure of conventionality to AMM (relatively speaking); unlike Rowe or Prévost, Tilbury's instrument was nearly always recognizable in conventional terms. This version of AMM generally explored quieter, more meditative sounds, perhaps having more in common with minimalism
-- though they could generate a cacophonous racket when so inclined. Of this period, one critic has noted that "their ability, after more than 35 years as a functioning unit, to avoid routines and ruts while retaining an unmistakable "AMM-ness" is astonishing." Perhaps the most notable shift was in Rowe's approach: his playing grew increasingly subtle, and was often described in painter
ly terms, as though he were offering a canvas
for the other musicians to color.
Later collaborators have included saxophonist Evan Parker
, cellist Rohan de Saram, and clarinetist Ian Mitchell. Christian Wolff also returned as a collaborator for a concert at the Conway Hall in London in 2001. Prévost has reported that of all their collaborators, Parker and Wolff best grasped the AMM aesthetic.
But since about 2000, Rowe's increasing involvement with what has become known as "electroacoustic improvisation
" ("eai" for short), especially under the aegis of Jon Abbey's Erstwhile Records
, meant that more of his musical activities began to take place outside AMM. Rowe has reported that he felt somewhat limited having been almost exclusively a Matchless Records artist, and that he wanted to explore music outside of AMM. Tension between Rowe and Prévost was exacerbated by the appearance of Prévost's second book of essays, Minute Particulars, which contained some disparaging comments about Rowe, who then left the group. In his review of Prévost's book, Walter Horn notes that while Prévost offers often scathing opinions of many people, Rowe is singled out for multiple barbs, and "one can hardly fail to wonder whether there's something of a personal nature lurking behind the barrage of what are superficially theoretical complaints."
The trio's last performance with Rowe is documented on the 2005 double-CD Apogee. The set is shared with another of the electronic improvisational ensembles that emerged during the 1960s: Musica Elettronica Viva
(MEV). The first CD is a studio recording in a joint session in England on April 30, 2004 featuring MEV's Alvin Curran
, Richard Teitelbaum
and Frederic Rzewski
with Prévost-Rowe-Tilbury. This is the first occasion that the two ensembles have performed together, but not the first time they have shared a split release: each outfit filled a side of the LP Live Electronic Music Improvised, released on a US label in 1968 (AMM's side features excerpts from The Crypt sessions; MEV's side is an excerpt from their magnum opus "Spacecraft."). The second CD consists of the performances that each group gave at a festival held in London
on 1 May 2004.
Prévost and Tilbury continue to record and perform as AMM. They performed in London during December, 2004, with Sachiko M
joining as a guest, at the 2005 LMC Festival of Experimental Music, with David Jackman
as a guest, and at a festival of experimental music in Belgium in February 2006. They also released a duo CD as AMM, Norwich, during 2005, and in 2009, the CD Trinity with guest John Butcher
.
In 2010 the core duo of Eddie Prevost
and John Tilbury
along with John Butcher
, Christian Wolff
and Ute Kangiesser released a CD called "Sounding Music" (the first simply tagged as AMM after 2005's Norwich) containing the concert performed at "Freedom of the City" festival, Conway Hall, London on 3 May 2009.
Cardew/Gare/Prévost/Rowe/Sheaff - LP Elektra UK 256
re-released as a CD together with additional material in 1990 - ReRMegacorp
compilation including: AMM Cardew/Gare/Prévost/Rowe/Sheaff
United Dairies UD12
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
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
Prévost/Rowe
ECM/JAPO 60031 Re-released as a CD in 1991
Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
Matchless Recordings MRLP06
re-released as a CD with additional material in 1994 MRCD06
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
de Saram/Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
Matchless Recordings MRLP13
re-released as a CD with additional material in 1994 MRCD05
Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury plus Mitchell/Coxhill/Lorraine/Pederson/Phillips
Matchless Recordings MRCD16
Gare/Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
Matchless Recordings MRCD20
Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
Matchless Recordings MRCD23
de Saram/Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
Virgin Records ABMT 4 (UK)
one track on a double CD compilation
Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
Matchless Recordings MRCD30
Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
Modern Music (P.S.F. Records) Japan. PSFD-80
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
Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
recorded at free radICCals Festival, Glasgow 4 May 2000
Matchless Recordings MRCD44
Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
recorded at Musique Action festival, Vendouvre-lesNancy, France on 24 May 2001
Matchless recordings MRCD46
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
MEV (Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum)
,and AMM (Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
double CD. First CD contains sextet recordings made on 30 April 2004. Second CD contain separate performance by MEV and AMM made at Freedom of the City Festival on 1 May 2004
Prévost and Tilbury
recorded at a concert given at The School of Music, University of East Anglia on 14 February 2005
Prévost and Tilbury with guest John Butcher
recorded at Trinity College of Music in Greenwich on 13 January 2008
Prévost and Tilbury with John Butcher (saxophone), Christian Wolff (piano) and Ute Kanngiesser (cello)
recorded at a concert given at the "Freedom of the City" festival, Conway Hall, Lonodn on Sunday 3 May 2009
Prévost and Tilbury
recorded at the Jasielski Dom Kultury Centre in Poland on 15 May 2010
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
free improvisation
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
group, founded in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1965.
AMM have never been well known to the general public, but have been incredibly influential on the field of improvised music. AMM have been called "legendary" and "groundbreaking.", and are notable as perhaps the first musical group deliberately to try to make music not related to any established musical genre: as Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...
wrote, "AMM seem to have worked without the benefit or hindrance of any kind of prepared external discipline."
Most of their recordings have been released on Matchless Recordings, run by founder member and percussionist Eddie Prévost
Eddie Prévost
Edwin Prévost is an English drummer and percussionist.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...
.
In a 2001 interview, founding member Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
was asked if "AMM" was an abbreviation
Abbreviation
An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase...
; he replied, "The letters AMM stand for something, but as you probably know it's a secret!"
1960s
AMM was initially composed of Keith RoweKeith Rowe
Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
on guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, Lou Gare
Lou Gare
Lou Gare is an English free-jazz saxophonist born in Rugby, Warwickshire, perhaps best known for his works with the improvised music ensemble AMM and playing with musicians such as Eddie Prévost, Mike Westbrook, Cornelius Cardew, Keith Rowe and Sam Richards...
on saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
(born Lesley Gare, in 1939) and Eddie Prévost
Eddie Prévost
Edwin Prévost is an English drummer and percussionist.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...
on drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
. Rowe and Gare were members of Mike Westbrook
Mike Westbrook
Michael John David 'Mike' Westbrook is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces.-Early work:Mike Westbrook grew up in Torquay...
's band; Prévost and Gare were also in a hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
quintet
Quintet
A quintet is a group containing five members.It is commonly associated with musical groups, such as a string quintet, or a group of five singers, but can be applied to any situation where five similar or related objects are considered a single unit....
. The three men shared a common interest in exploring music beyond the boundaries of conventional jazz, as part of a larger movement that helped spawn Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
and free improvisation
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
.
The seeds of AMM were planted in 1965. They initially had no name, and were not really a group in the conventional sense, simply a weekend experimental workshop session at the Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
in London, centered on Gare, Rowe, and Prevost. Members of the group have come and gone over the years, but Rowe and Prévost have been present for most recordings and performances; the latter has been the only constant in the nearly four decades of AMM music.
Musicians were free to join in, but such collaborations were often short-lived if the contributions were lacking the proper spirit: notable jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy , born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone....
sat in with the group but was quickly asked to stop playing. Observers were welcome, provided they were silent and didn't disturb the proceedings. American saxophonist Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
was asked to leave after he continually talked during one performance; Beatles member Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
once sat quietly through an early AMM session. When asked how he liked the music he said they went on too long.
Eventually, the group settled on a lineup of Prevost, Rowe, Gare, bassist Lawrence Sheaff and pianist/cellist Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...
, and, in early 1966, were calling themselves AMM. However, some early performances were billed as the "Cornelius Cardew Quintet", a mistake which both irked and amused the musicians. After a few paying performances, Cardew bought two amplifiers so the other instruments could compete with the volume of Rowe's guitar. In addition to amplifying their instruments, Cardew and Gare would apply contact microphones to various common objects to amplify the sounds made by, for example, rubbing a glass jar or striking a coffee tin.
No AMM performance is ever planned; each is unique and spontaneous. The musicians vowed never to rehearse and never to discuss what they had played. The musicians tend to avoid any conventional melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
, harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
or rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
, and seek out an ensemble sound that often obscures any individual's role. It is often difficult to discern which musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
is making which specific sound on an AMM recording, due in part to liberal use of various extended technique
Extended technique
Extended techniques are performance techniques used in music to describe unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional techniques of singing, or of playing musical instruments to obtain unusual sounds or instrumental timbres....
s on their instruments.
AMM released their first recording, AMMusic 1966, on Elektra Records UK in 1966. It had some initial similarities to free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
, due in part to Gare's saxophone. One critic has written, however, that the resemblance was rather slight: "the overall sound of the group, even in 1966, was so different, so idiosyncratic, that it's not at all surprising that both new jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and contemporary classical audiences were baffled, if not horrified." Percussionist Christopher Hobbs
Christopher Hobbs
Christopher Hobbs is an English experimental composer, best known as a pioneer of British Systems music.-Life and career:...
(born in 1950 and a student of Cardew) also played with AMM in the late 1960s.
The next AMM material to see release were the important The Crypt sessions from 12 June 1968. Though the debut is regarded as a landmark recording, The Crypt was arguably even more important in establishing the droning, long-form music that would come to characterize AMM. Further "out" and even less conventional than earlier material, one critic has written of it that "an eerie sensation inevitably accompanies each listen to the raw streams of electric noise channeled on AMM's second album and early masterpiece, The Crypt. To ears informed by the twenty-first century, it's the uncanny feeling of listening to three-and-a-half decades of experimental music history as delivered in a chillingly prescient sort of reverse premonition... It's a little unnerving that the only records that seem to accurately describe the brave new soundworld harnessed on The Crypt came into being well after its creation."
The Crypt sessions have been issued many times, twice in the 1980s as a double LP, and it is still available (with extra material, billed as "The Complete Sessions") on a double CD from Matchless Recordings. The Crypt continues to inspire adventurous listeners; in the liner notes to the 1992 double CD, Prévost writes, "Despite being (arguably) the most 'difficult' material on Matchless, The Crypt has been a mainstay for the label. It obviously pays not to underestimate the audience. Its continued success has enabled us to release other works. So we felt committed, obliged almost, to keep it available... this music has proved itself not to be ephemeral."
Composer Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...
joined AMM in 1966, performing on piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
and cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
. He worked with AMM intermittently until he abandoned his earlier experimental music in the late 1970s (Cardew died in an unsolved auto accident in 1981). Composer Christian Wolff
Christian Wolff (composer)
Christian G. Wolff is an American composer of experimental classical music.-Biography:Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S...
performed with AMM in 1968. Cardew and Rowe became committed to socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and to Maoism
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
, and thought that AMM's music should reflect their sociopolitical outlook. Prévost accuses the pair of "cultural bullying", and there was tension in the group, resulting in some AMM performances being made by alternating duos: Rowe and Cardew, Prévost and Gare.
1970s
This personal and political tension culminated with a long period (about 1972 to 1976) when AMM was rarely active, and then usually as a Prévost-Gare duo. This was arguably AMM's most jazzJazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
-like era, with Gare's sputtering, squawking saxophone (unique but showing the influence of John Gilmore
John Gilmore (musician)
John Gilmore was an American jazz tenor saxophone player best-known for his long tenure as a member of Sun Ra's Arkestra...
and Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer.Ayler was among the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s; critic John Litweiler wrote that "never before or since has there been such naked aggression in jazz" He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved...
) brought to the fore, although Prévost has stated the music was "decidedly non-jazz."
Rowe rejoined in the mid-1970s, and shortly thereafter, Gare departed, leaving a Rowe-Prévost duo for a period.
1980s and 1990s
Pianist John TilburyJohn Tilbury
John Tilbury is a British pianist. He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Morton Feldman's music, and since 1980 has been a member of the free improvisation group AMM.- Early life and education :...
— previously an occasional AMM collaborator — joined in about 1980. His shimmering Feldmanesque
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...
playing brought a measure of conventionality to AMM (relatively speaking); unlike Rowe or Prévost, Tilbury's instrument was nearly always recognizable in conventional terms. This version of AMM generally explored quieter, more meditative sounds, perhaps having more in common with minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
-- though they could generate a cacophonous racket when so inclined. Of this period, one critic has noted that "their ability, after more than 35 years as a functioning unit, to avoid routines and ruts while retaining an unmistakable "AMM-ness" is astonishing." Perhaps the most notable shift was in Rowe's approach: his playing grew increasingly subtle, and was often described in painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
ly terms, as though he were offering a canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
for the other musicians to color.
Later collaborators have included saxophonist Evan Parker
Evan Parker
Evan Shaw Parker is a British free-improvising saxophone player from the European free jazz scene.Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free jazz and free improvisation, and has pioneered or substantially expanded...
, cellist Rohan de Saram, and clarinetist Ian Mitchell. Christian Wolff also returned as a collaborator for a concert at the Conway Hall in London in 2001. Prévost has reported that of all their collaborators, Parker and Wolff best grasped the AMM aesthetic.
2000s
The Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury line-up remained stable for two decades, only occasionally augmented by guests. In the early 1990s, the trio made their first extensive tours, with a number of well-received appearances in Europe and North America.But since about 2000, Rowe's increasing involvement with what has become known as "electroacoustic improvisation
Electroacoustic improvisation
Electroacoustic improvisation is a style of music that incorporates aspects of both electroacoustic music and free improvisation.-Origins:Live electronics has been part of the sound art world since the 1930s with the early works of John Cage...
" ("eai" for short), especially under the aegis of Jon Abbey's Erstwhile Records
Erstwhile Records
Erstwhile Records is an independent record label devoted to free improvisation, particularly the electroacoustic variety. Erstwhile was founded by Jon Abbey in 1999, and his knowledgeable personality and tastes are closely identified with the label.Characteristic label artists include guitarist...
, meant that more of his musical activities began to take place outside AMM. Rowe has reported that he felt somewhat limited having been almost exclusively a Matchless Records artist, and that he wanted to explore music outside of AMM. Tension between Rowe and Prévost was exacerbated by the appearance of Prévost's second book of essays, Minute Particulars, which contained some disparaging comments about Rowe, who then left the group. In his review of Prévost's book, Walter Horn notes that while Prévost offers often scathing opinions of many people, Rowe is singled out for multiple barbs, and "one can hardly fail to wonder whether there's something of a personal nature lurking behind the barrage of what are superficially theoretical complaints."
The trio's last performance with Rowe is documented on the 2005 double-CD Apogee. The set is shared with another of the electronic improvisational ensembles that emerged during the 1960s: Musica Elettronica Viva
Musica Elettronica Viva
Musica Elettronica Viva is a live acoustic/electronic improvisational group formed in Rome, Italy, in 1966. Over the years, its members have included Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum, Frederic Rzewski, Allan Bryant, Carol Plantamura, Ivan Vandor, Steve Lacy, and Jon Phetteplace.They were early...
(MEV). The first CD is a studio recording in a joint session in England on April 30, 2004 featuring MEV's Alvin Curran
Alvin Curran
Composer Alvin Curran , is the co-founder, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of Musica Elettronica Viva, and a former student of Elliott Carter. Curran's music often makes use of electronics and environmental found sounds....
, Richard Teitelbaum
Richard Teitelbaum
Richard Teitelbaum is an American composer, keyboardist, and improvisor. Born in New York, he is a former student of Allen Forte, Mel Powell, and Luigi Nono. He is best known for his live electronic music and synthesizer performance. For example, he brought the first moog synthesizer to Europe...
and Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...
with Prévost-Rowe-Tilbury. This is the first occasion that the two ensembles have performed together, but not the first time they have shared a split release: each outfit filled a side of the LP Live Electronic Music Improvised, released on a US label in 1968 (AMM's side features excerpts from The Crypt sessions; MEV's side is an excerpt from their magnum opus "Spacecraft."). The second CD consists of the performances that each group gave at a festival held in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on 1 May 2004.
Prévost and Tilbury continue to record and perform as AMM. They performed in London during December, 2004, with Sachiko M
Sachiko M
Sachiko Matsubara, who usually records as Sachiko M, is a Japanese musician, but she considers herself to be a "non-musician".She was a member of Otomo Yoshihide's Ground Zero from 1994 to 1997, where she used a sampler. More recently, she has concentrated on music made from sine waves...
joining as a guest, at the 2005 LMC Festival of Experimental Music, with David Jackman
David Jackman
David Jackman is a British musician and visual artist with an extensive catalogue of drone works, mostly as the principal — and often sole — member of Organum....
as a guest, and at a festival of experimental music in Belgium in February 2006. They also released a duo CD as AMM, Norwich, during 2005, and in 2009, the CD Trinity with guest John Butcher
John Butcher (musician)
John Butcher is an English tenor and soprano saxophone player who has lived in London since the late 1970s. He began playing at the University of Surrey where he was studying physics...
.
In 2010 the core duo of Eddie Prevost
Eddie Prévost
Edwin Prévost is an English drummer and percussionist.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...
and John Tilbury
John Tilbury
John Tilbury is a British pianist. He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Morton Feldman's music, and since 1980 has been a member of the free improvisation group AMM.- Early life and education :...
along with John Butcher
John Butcher (musician)
John Butcher is an English tenor and soprano saxophone player who has lived in London since the late 1970s. He began playing at the University of Surrey where he was studying physics...
, Christian Wolff
Christian Wolff (composer)
Christian G. Wolff is an American composer of experimental classical music.-Biography:Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S...
and Ute Kangiesser released a CD called "Sounding Music" (the first simply tagged as AMM after 2005's Norwich) containing the concert performed at "Freedom of the City" festival, Conway Hall, London on 3 May 2009.
Current members
- Eddie PrévostEddie PrévostEdwin Prévost is an English drummer and percussionist.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...
- percussion (1965–present) - John TilburyJohn TilburyJohn Tilbury is a British pianist. He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Morton Feldman's music, and since 1980 has been a member of the free improvisation group AMM.- Early life and education :...
- piano (1980–present)
Former members
- Keith RoweKeith RoweKeith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
- guitar (1965–72, 1975–2004) - Lou GareLou GareLou Gare is an English free-jazz saxophonist born in Rugby, Warwickshire, perhaps best known for his works with the improvised music ensemble AMM and playing with musicians such as Eddie Prévost, Mike Westbrook, Cornelius Cardew, Keith Rowe and Sam Richards...
- saxophone (1965–76 and occasionally thereafter until c. 1992) - Cornelius CardewCornelius CardewCornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...
- piano, cello (1966–73) - Lawrence Sheaff - accordion, cello (1966–67)
- Christopher HobbsChristopher HobbsChristopher Hobbs is an English experimental composer, best known as a pioneer of British Systems music.-Life and career:...
- percussion (1968–71)
Discography
- 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 - 20 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
- 1993: 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 4 May 2000
Matchless Recordings MRCD44
- 2001: FINE
Prévost/Rowe/Tilbury
recorded at Musique Action festival, Vendouvre-lesNancy, France on 24 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 30 April 2004. Second CD contain separate performance by MEV and AMM made at Freedom of the City Festival on 1 May 2004
- 2005: NORWICH
Prévost and Tilbury
recorded at a concert given at The School of Music, University of East Anglia on 14 February 2005
- 2009: TRINITY
Prévost and Tilbury with guest John Butcher
recorded at Trinity College of Music in Greenwich on 13 January 2008
- 2010: SOUNDING MUSIC
Prévost and Tilbury with John Butcher (saxophone), Christian Wolff (piano) and Ute Kanngiesser (cello)
recorded at a concert given at the "Freedom of the City" festival, Conway Hall, Lonodn on Sunday 3 May 2009
- 2011: UNCOVERED CORRESPONDENCE - A POSTCARD FROM JASLO
Prévost and Tilbury
recorded at the Jasielski Dom Kultury Centre in Poland on 15 May 2010
Sources
- Philip Clark: The Wire Primers: A Guide To Modern Music AMM, pages 113-121; Verso, 2009; ISBN 978-1-84467-427-5
- Michael Nyman: Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (second edition); Cambridge University Press, 1999; ISBN 0-521-65383-5
- Edwin Prévost: No Sound Is Innocent: AMM and the Practice of Self-Invention—Meta-Musical Narratives, Essays Copula, 1995; ISBN 0-9525492-0-4
- Edwin Prévost: Minute Particulars: Meanings in Music Making in the Wake of Hierarchical Realignments and Other Essays Copula, 2004: ISBN 0-9525492-1-2
- John Tilbury: Cornelius Cardew: a life unfinished chapter 7 AMM 1965 - 71, Copula 2008