Trevor Watts

by Joslyn Layne
British saxophonist Trevor Watts has been associated with the British free jazz and improvised music scene since the mid-'60s. He is perhaps best known for his involvement in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and in other projects with drummer John Stevens. While this work filled the first two decades of his career, he has focused more on his Moiré Music projects since the 1980s.
Watts was raised in Halifax and joined the Royal Air Force when he was old enough. From the late '50s until the early '60s, he was stationed in Germany, and it was during this time that he first met, and began making music with, trombonist Paul Rutherford and Stevens. Once he left the air force, Watts helped found the New Jazz Orchestra, which occasionally backed up rock musicians as well as bluesmen such as Sonny Boy Williamson. The mid-'60s brought a quintet with Stevens and Rutherford, which renamed itself the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (SME) when London's Little Theatre Club opened its doors in 1966. The improvisation-based SME went through many incarnations, some of which didn't include Watts. It was during one of these periods that he formed Amalgam with bassist Barry Guy. In early 1968, Watts was back in the SME fold, and this time he and Stevens remained the core of a rotating cast for the next eight years. During this time, Watts also played with Guy and other top British improvisers in the London Jazz Composers Orchestra as well as in other groups with Stevens, such as the rock-oriented group Away.
Although Trevor Watts is usually associated with abstract and free music, the '80s and '90s found him leading a number of groups (under the Moiré Music moniker) that focus more on composition and world rhythms. These Moiré Music groups -- which have ranged from a 14-piece band to a drum orchestra to a trio -- have recorded for the ECM label and Watts' own Arc label. In 1999, Watts reuniting with violinist Peter Knight (of Steeleye Span), who had once played in Moiré Music, for a series of duo shows.
Over the years, Trevor Watts has toured all over the world, from the Americas to New Zealand. He has run workshops, received numerous grants and commissions for his music, and has collaborated with a number of other widely respected jazz musicians, including Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy, Don Cherry and Jayne Cortez.