TEB book outtakes - part 3: the great Mel Davis.

Here's the third part of the outtakes from my book on the TEB dedicated to the great late Mel Davis. He played the cello on "Alchemy" in 1969 and he was a great musician in the avant-garde British jazz scene most of all with the People Band (read a piece about him on this Archive here).

These pictures were given to me by film-maker/musician Mike Figgis who played with Davis and the People Band in the Sixties and who's making a docu-film on him (read here).

This is another chance to remember Mel for all his great music and ideas about improvisational music. A real giant!

                           The great late Mel Davis in the last few days of his life.

                               Mel Davis on cello with Mike Friggs in the Sixties.

no©2020 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Film maker Mike Figgis is making a film on the late Mel Davis.

Film maker and musician Mike Figgis is making a film on the late Mel Davis and his connection with the People Band...
A former member of the People Band (he played trumpet, flugelhorn and Spanish guitar), Mike Figgis has become an internationally known Hollywood film director, making films as "Stormy Monday", "Miss Julie" and "Cold Creek Manor", or documentary films as "The Battle of Hastings" and "Somebody Up There likes me".
He composes his own film soundtracks, involving lot of People Band musicians in them. 

He kindly sent me this photo of Mel portrayed in his last days. 

Pages on the great Mel Davis on this Archive:
https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2013/12/bad-news-for-christmas-mel-davis.html
https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/01/electric-raga-guitarist-interview-with.html
https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2019/02/steve-pank-about-alchemy-days.html
https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/01/electric-raga-guitarist-interview-with_09.html

no©2020 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Steve Pank about the "Alchemy" days...

Some weeks ago I asked Carolyn and Steve to tell me something more about the "Alchemy" sessions for the Esoteric CD booklet I was writing. This is what Steve, former promoter and driver of the band, wrote me:

Steve Pank

"The first Third Ear Band was trio, with Ben Cartland, [viola] Paul Minns [oboe] and Glen [hand drums]. Ben Cartland played in a raga style using his G string as the drone. This piece originally called the G Raga, later was called the Ghetto Raga. By the time the group signed with Blackhill Agency, it was a quartet with Richard Coff added on violin. They were the house band at weekly sessions at All Saints Hall, They also played a regular Saturday night residency at the Covent Garden Arts lab. On 18th December 1968 they played in the Royal Albert Hall for the Arts Lab organised ‘Alchemical Wedding’ . The recording sessions for Alchemy were in March and April of 1969.The mood at the recording sessions was - that this was what we have been building up to from the live performances, It was a completion as well as a beginning. 

The People Band in the Sixties

"By the end of 1968, Ben had left and been replaced by Mel Davis For the album the band really needed a cellist, and Mel arrived at the right time. Mel Davis’ previous experience was with playing piano with the free jazz and performance art group, ‘The People Band’, and he had taken up cello. In terms of technique, he was not a great player but with his experience in free jazz and in musical education, he as able to add bass drones and riffs which extended the range of mood of the pieces. He was an influential member of the band, and his work is evident on the album.

"On the track ‘Dragon lines’ Mel plays the Slide Pipes which I remember looked like a set of ‘Hoover tubes’, but they sound like a dragon’s breath! The track was recorded in one take, and when he dropped part of the instrument, he let out a whoop as he picked it up. Paul Minns had studied the oboe and the harpsichord, and his experience of playing baroque music, influenced his style. Paul is the only player who has been able to make the oboe sound like that.
 

TEB in 1968: (L-R) Minns, Cartland, Sweeney, Coff.

"At the time the album was recorded. Paul had a part time job doing layout for a publisher. The first band that Glen was in was in the 1950s, He was the drummer in a skiffle group called the Anacondas, who although they never recorded, were well known and successful. After that, Glen moved into playing jazz. His first attempt at forming a band was a free jazz and poetry group called Sounds Nova. It was though this group that Glen met saxophone player Dave Tomlin. Like Mel, Dave Tomlin had extended his playing to performance art, which is combining music with acting. Dave and Glen once mounted the bandstand in Kensington Gardens and then started to play. Their show was the confrontation with the park keeper! 

Steve Pank

"After Dave left the Mike Taylor Quartet, he was squatting in the basement of the London Free School and on Saturday mornings he would march down Portobello Road playing his tenor saxophone followed by a crowd of kids. After being cautioned and harassed by the police, he thought, maybe it is the saxophone that is causing the problem, and so he decided to take up the violin instead He composed a number of folk style tunes, Glen asked for him to be brought to the studio toward the end of the recording sessions. That is when he recorded Lark Rise.
Richard Coff came from Miami but had studied classical violin in Boston. He had won a distinction for his composition. He was interested in Minimalism, a style of modern composition based on simple repeated motifs, This influence is reflected in the piece ‘Mosaic’
The esoteric images projected by the band reflected Glen’s interest in natural philosophy. He would describe the drone as an Om, and the drumbeat as the heartbeat. He had been to Egypt and seen the pyramids and temples. Glen’s approach was to go with whatever was happening If he needed a musician, and someone came along who wanted to play and who sounded good, he would invite them to play in their own way. The scene was starting to wake up to world music. The influence of Celtic, Indian, free, contemporary, all came together and expressed as an emotional force that became ‘Alchemy’."

no©2019 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Something about/around the Ear Band in the Net...

Surfing through the Internet I've found some little interesting things about the Thirds:

- this nice b/w poster printed by Blackhill Enterprises in 1970-71, posted by Michael Chapman (!) on the TEB Facebook's fans page at  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Third-Ear-Band/156660855584?sk=timeline&ref=page_internal

- an almost complete radio programme dedicated to the Thirds aired by Canadian CKCU on March, 8th 2015 (read here);

-  a review about a record by Danish band Frisk Frugt with presumed references to TEB's music (catch it here);

- an interview with Legendary Pink Dots' Edward Ka-Spel with a reference to Our Holy Band ("that reminds me of Third Ear Band (a long term favourite of mine)…") just here;

- a well-done tribute to Mel Davis by Sammy Sten at "Something Else!" Web site (read it here).

Waiting for the new two CDs of the Ear Men, TEB is still on the Net!

no©2015 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

"Alchemy", "the consummate essence of the 60s Zeitgeist". A short vision by Sean Breadin, a.k.a. Sedayne.

Folk shaman Sean Breadin, a.k.a. Sedayne, has  just sent me these few lines about "Alchemy", one of the our favourite albums ever...

"Hi Luca - Just wrote this on Sid Smith's call of for great 1969 albums on Facebook & got a few likes... Sometimes you get a clear vision of just what it is about the music you love that appeals to you so much, so here it is: 

Third Ear Band - Alchemy. 

Which somehow manages to catalyse an archetypal sound-magic by being utterly free of technological interference. It's one of those rare occasions when the mystical hype of the sleeve note (...a reflection of the universe as magic play illusion...dualities are discarded in favour of the Tao...each piece is as alike or unalike as trees, grass or crickets...) is matched / transcended utterly by the astonishing reality of the music, which lives and breathes in its timeless vinyl eternity. The elements are simple enough - Glen Sweeney pounding his shamanic bongo over which Paul Minns' oboe & Richard Coff's violin ascend as atonal modal larks along the ley lines that connect stone circles to the pyramids whilst Mel Davis' cello roots it all to the gnomic dark below. This LP is the consummate essence of the 60s Zeitgeist - a soundtrack to Michel's flying saucer vision of Ancient Albion that remains every bit as inspirational as "Bitches Brew". Witches Brew maybe?".

Any comments to this would be  greatly appreciated!

no©2014 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)  

Bad news for Christmas: Mel Davis, original founder of the People Band, died last November...

Mel Davis, the original founder of the People Band, friend of Glen Sweeney, Clive Kingsley and Lyn Dobson, died at the beginning of last November. His old musicians and friends played a moving funeral lament on November 6th at Woodlands Crematorium in Scunthorpe documented on YouTube at the page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8dgUAnyFRw&feature=youtu.be.

                                    The funeral lament for Mel Davis.

Excellent jazz & avantgarde pianist/multi-instrumentalist, Mel Davis played the cello in TEB's "Alchemy" (1969) being a real key figure in the British jazz, most of all for playing with The People Band.

The People Band in the Sixties

At the beginning of 2012 The People Band was reformed for some concerts. Reviewing a gig in London played in March of this year, Sammy Stein of "All About Jazz" wrote that "another wonderful moment was provided by Davis' piano solo, demonstrating why he is still one of the most respected players in the business".

And in an other occasion, analyzing The People Band's music: "Free jazz is what the People Band play and perhaps this is an odd term for music which is actually highly controlled by individual players and the right notes are played around a root chord – just not necessarily in the right order to form what we know as a ‘tune’. (...) Words used to describe The People Band’s playing include visceral, free wheeling, forceful and anarchic and all of these are true but what 

The People Band on stage in 2012.

makes a People Band performance special is that the musicians do not stick to the tune but rather, the music takes on a life of its own, invading the spirit and souls of performers and listeners alike. With the People Band, the audience are encouraged to take part should the muse take them. Instruments are swapped, players mingle with the crowd and the music takes the lead.

"With root chords to guide, the players come in or fall silent as the muse takes them. One moment blowing a complicated sax riff, the next tapping out a simple rhythm on a tambourine. Yet, all have an innate understanding of where the piece is going. Unfettered by convention of traditional rhythms, tempos or dynamics, the players are led by the spirit of jazz who joins them on stage, tempting, cajoling, pushing, getting them to overblow to get more notes, creating music of teeth crunching discords working alongside sublime and divine sweetness, yet all working together to explore every avenue of jazz – this is free form".

Music losts another great musician, a pure innovator, an experimental mind... a fundamental protagonist of the TEB's glorious story!

A Mel Davis Discography
Third Ear Band - "Alchemy" (LP/CD - Harvest 1969) Davis played the cello
The People Band - "The People Band" (LP/CD - Transatlantic, 1970)
Loverly - "Play World Wild Music" (CD - ITM REecords, 1988) Davis composed some tracks and played the piano
Various Artists - "Resonance Volume 8 Number 2 / Volume 9 Number 1: LMC…The First 25 Years" (CD - London Musicians' Collective 2000) compilation with a track played by Mummy
Various Artists  - "Not necesserily 'English Music'" (2CD - EMF, 2001) compilation with a track by The People Band
The People Band - "People Band 69/70" (CD - Emanen 2009) an anthology with unrealised tracks

Web sites

http://www.peopleband.co.uk/People_Band/Home.html

http://www.terryday.co.uk/
http://www.londonjazznews.com/2012/03/feature-people-band.html
http://www.charliehart.com/subpages/people.htm 

 no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)