TEB French broadcast: the unseen cuts.

Here's a sequence of cuts from the broadcast that INAMediaPro hasn't included on the TEB concert available at INAfr.

The musicians (Kevin Ayers & the Whole World, Bridget St. John, the TEB and Edgar Broughton Band) come into the concert hall at the inn of Olympia Theatre in Paris (France).

                                                                         Paul Minns and Ursula Smith

                                                   Glen Sweeney, Bridget St. John and Richard Coff

                              Richard Coff and Edgar Broughton

                                                                                       Paul Minns on left

                                        Glen Sweeney on right

                                                               Bridget St. John and Richard Coff

                                                                         Kevin Ayers' concert starts

Inside the TV programme, after the Beatles playing "Let it Be" (from the original movie) and an excerpt from the Kevin Ayers' set on stage, just before TEB's "Hyde Park Raga", there's a short sequence in the backstage with the bands relaxing and smoking together...

                                                         Coff explaining Glen how to roll a cigarette (?!)

 

no©2012 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)     

At last here's the wonderful, tremendous 1970 TEB TV broadcast!

As announced in the last days, here's the link at INAfr to watch the best TEB broadcast existing!

Thanks Gérard Sayag ("It was a pleasure to modestly contribute to bring this musical piece to the ears of all the fans", he writes me...) all the TEB fans can watch now the Band at the zenith of its playing, with a wonderful Paul Minns on oboe and the strings players (Richard Coff on violin and Ursula Smith on cello) using all the ways to play their instruments (pizzicato, bow, arpeggio...).
Two tracks only ("Hyde Park Raga" and a not-so-easy-track to identify - maybe a rendition of "Mosaic" or a part of "Abelard & Heloise", the band would have recorded two months later in Germany...) but very intense and exemplar of the rare, magic interplay of the four musicians.

Richard Coff introducing "Hyde Park Raga".

The Band on stage at Olympia.

A visual masterpiece, totally unexpected!

The concrete proof that there are probably other recordings somewhere around from the golden era of the group...

Just some clarifications: the TEB broadcast is around 17:30 long, not the 31:27 as cut by Ina fr (infact after the band you'll see the great Bridget St. John play her acoustic guitar...). 
Then, contrary to what I've understood, INAfr asks you to buy  the video on DVD format (at around € 12,00) or download (at € 2.99).

Anyway enjoy this extraordinary TV broadcast at:
http://www.ina.fr/recherche/recherche?search=third+ear+band&vue=Video
Any comments on this gem, especially in review format, will be welcomed here!

Glen Sweeney smoking in the dressing-room just after the concert.

no©2012 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)     

An interview with Muz Murray, the first mystic 'gardener'.

Muz Murray has been a real protagonist of London underground scene, founder of the famous "Gandalf's Garden", a psychedelic mystic magazine edited in 1968 and 1969 (six issues printed) and thought, as he says, for "offering hope and a positive lifestyle to the lost and lonely".

Later, become Ramana Baba, he has been tripping all around the world, painting, writing books, recording music, making conferences about Mantra Yoga, Mystical Awakening, Massage and Meditation.

He has got a very intriguing Web site at http://www.mantra-yoga.com/index.htm full of  infos and stuffs (as the complete collection of "Gandalf's Garden" issues on CD-R format). 
I've contacted him for having an interview about his memories on the Third Ear Band (but, as he writes, "I will do my best, but I am not sure I can add much to what you already know..."), a band he loved and  interviewed in 1968 for his magazine (read at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/GGThird.html), writing probably the very first review of "Alchemy" on "Gandalf's Garden" # 5.

Why did you decide to dedicate an interview (one of the first ever...) to the Third Ear Band?

"I wanted express what was the feeling of the non-commercial music on the Scene at the time. And as soon as I saw the name ‘The Third Ear Band’ I knew this was something that would fit nicely in "Gandalf’s Garden" magazine. So I got in touch with Glen right away and we got on very well together. After hearing the music I wasn't disappointed and we became firm friends".

What kind of relations you had with the band and the Ladbroke Grove scene?

"We had a good rapport with the group also. They came and played freely at our Magical Sunday Benefit Concert at Middle Earth in Covent Garden [May 19th, 1968], London, in order to help us to bring out the second issue of "Gandalf’s Garden", together with other up-and-coming unknowns like Marc Bolan and David Bowie.
I used to live in Pembroke Villas next to Ladbroke Grove, so Notting Hill Gate and Portobello Road and market was my scene".

Have you ever watch/listen to the TEB in a live concert? Any memories about it?

"As mentioned, they came and played for us. And we saw them in concert and were with them in private sessions too. It was a great pleasure because their music put us into a state of dreamlike meditation without any effort. And they also seemed to go into a trance as they played. It was not like that they played, but the music came through them".

What kind of mood do you think people 'breathed' at their concerts?

"I’m sure it had the same effect that it had on us. I saw that audiences went off into pleasant dreams and did not like to spoil it by clapping afterwards".

What do you think about their music and more at large about their peculiar cultural/artistic project?
"It was not so much ‘music’ as such but more of an artistic expression of deep 'feeling'. It was exactly what was needed to counteract some of the popular rubbish played at the time. And it catered for more of the mystically inclined supporters that we were cultivating through "Gandalf's Garden" magazine and our mystical Centre down along the scruffy end of King’s Road".

Do you think they was authentic or, someone thinks nowadays, Glen Sweeney was a sort of mystic trickster?

"Then someone thinks wrong. Glen and the other musicians were totally sincere as far as I am concerned. They had to be, in order to play the kind of non-commercial music that was not going to earn them a fortune on "Top of the Pops". Glen often came to mediate with us at the Garden".

 The Gardeners meditating with Glen Sweeney (with hat) an Carolyn Looker on far right  (© Gandalf's Garden).

Have you got in your archive (if you have one) some stuffs of the band (photos, music, video...) for the Ghetto Raga archive?
"Alas, we could not afford a camera in those days, and video did not exist. I don’t think I have anything other than the photo attached. If I can find anything else I will send it to you".

                                                                              Muz Murray today

This is the original Muz Murray's review of "Alchemy" published on "Gandalf's Gardens" # 5 (note the beautiful EMI-Harvest promo ad below):

 

no©2012 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)     

A new sensational retrieval: second part of the story of a rare 1970 TEB TV French broadcast hidden on the Web!!!

(Here's the second part of this new archaeological Web adventure  concerning the incredible retrival of a TEB rare broadcast - read the first part at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2012/08/a-new-sensational-retrieval-story-in.html)

Miracle of the Net, Gérard Sayag of Inafr is the kind man that has helped me to reach the goal.

It's been him, approving my reasons to make the TEB video available "for the sake of the culture", to let me register at InaMediaPro and let me search the TEB broadcast discovering that... actually a broadcast exist!

Presented as "The THIRD EAR BAND interprets a piece of music "not Westerner" (vaguely oriental) with violin and oriental wind instrument", it's a 17:30 recording of the TEB in the legendary fabulous quartet (Sweeney, Minns, Coff and Smith) playing on May 1970 at the inn of Olympia (Paris) instrumental tracks "Hyde Park Raga" (7:01) and (I think - because, you know, sometimes it's not so easy to recognize the TEB tunes...) "Mosaic" (8:00).

An extraordinary sequence of  digitized images of the four musicians playing on stage at the apice of their interplay.

You can see below some shots I've excerpted from the broadcast, aired on May 28th, 1970 in "Pop Deux" French TV programme with the title of "Club evolution":

Unfortunately the broadcast is not available for downloading or for buying, but Gérard Sayag has promised me that very soon it will be available for free to everyone at the Inafr site (http://www.ina.fr/): as soon as possible I'll publish the right link here.

As you will certify, it is the best video performance known of the TEB, an essential document for the right comprehension of its exclusive parable. 

Thank you very much to Spirito Bono for having picked up the existence of this rare broadcast and, above all, Inafr/InaMediaPro staff (expecially Gérard Sayag) for having made possible this unexpected dream!

So, dear inveterate TEB fans, stay tuned here at the Ghetto Raga Archive!

no©2012 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)