20 July 2008

JOHN STEVENS - SPONTANEOUS MUSIC ENSEMBLE (aka ‘Oliv’) (MARMALADE, 1969)



A Friend ,who wants to remain anonymous has sent me this.

John Stevens – Spontaneous Music Ensemble (aka ‘Oliv’)
Kenny Wheeler (fh), Trevor Watts (as), Johnny Dyani (b), John Stevens (perc), Maggie Nicols (voc), Pepi Lemer (voc),
Carolann Nicholls (voc). Rec. by Eddie Offord at Advision Studio, London, February 7th, 1969.
Waiting for Giorgio 14’02 unissued
add Derek Bailey (g), Peter Lemer (p)
Waiting for Giorgio 22’50 –
Oliv I (Stevens/Nicols) 19’33 Marmalade 608008/Polydor 2384 009 (lp)
all out except Watts, Dyani, Stevens, Nicols
Oliv II (Stevens/Nicols) 16’02 Marmalade 608008/Polydor 2384 009 (lp)

This is almost folk like , very different to the pointilism derided as plink plonk scratch by detractors, which characterises most of their out put.

many thanks to the friend

enjoy!!
at

31 comments:

  1. SOTISE20 July 2008 at 13:01:00 CEST

    info not included in the file
    http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AFHSQJEE

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  2. Anonymous20 July 2008 at 20:50:00 CEST

    GREAT find. Thanks.
    -KADE

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  3. Nick21 July 2008 at 02:55:00 CEST

    thank you sotise, and thank you anonymous friend. I've always been curious to hear this.

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  4. Anonymous21 July 2008 at 04:39:00 CEST

    many thanks! just found this blog...haven't done any blog trawling since church no. 9 went down
    -duplo

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  5. Anonymous21 July 2008 at 20:54:00 CEST

    Thanks Sotise. I'm a little confused - you wrote, "Waiting for Giorgio 14’02 unissued", then "Waiting for Giorgio 22’50 –
    " blank! Is it included here?? I have this LP, but my ears are still "Waiting For Giorgio"!

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  6. gerireig22 July 2008 at 04:10:00 CEST

    What a line-up! Once again, your impeccible taste is showing. Thanks again.

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  7. SOTISE22 July 2008 at 12:52:00 CEST

    glmlr you'll unfortunately be waiting a long time for giorgio ..the track is not included here either.

    the info was taken from john stevens online sessionography.

    if anyone has either/or both takes of waiting for giorgio..please post!!

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  8. kinabalu24 July 2008 at 13:34:00 CEST

    Thanks for this one, sotise. This is certainly one I've been waiting to hear. It's chamber music-like, if one would like to put a word on it, and perhaps not directly categorisable as jazz (though it goes get jazzy once the full band kicks in).

    I picked up one John Stevens record called "Folkus - Life of Riley" which at least on the face of it would seem folkish, but on closer listening, is not really anything of the sort. This was an Affinity release from the first part of the 80s.

    The Giorgio shouldn't happen to be Giorgio Gomelsky (also known as the G in the BYG label)?

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  9. SOTISE25 July 2008 at 15:31:00 CEST

    yep kinabalu, thats our george.
    folkus- life of riley sounds tantalizing, i never really explored stevens output much outside of sme..
    it would make a fine future post perhaps eh....

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  10. Anonymous27 July 2008 at 14:32:00 CEST

    Kinabalu: No, that's not right. The G in BYG was Jean Georgakarakos.

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  11. kinabalu27 July 2008 at 16:44:00 CEST

    sotise,

    well, that's exactly what I've done - explore the non-SME part of John Stevens - assuming that the hounds would be after the SME - and by and large disregard whatever else he's done - hence making it easier to pick up good itmes on the second-hand market. And the Folkus is just one case in point.

    glmr,

    thanks for that correction. I haven't been able to make any clear connection of Gomelsky with BYG except through Daevid Allen and Gong - and he was involved with Magma later on, but were they on BYG at all? And I believe BYG started before Gomelsky left for France (for good - having had enough of the "perfidious Albions" by then).

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  12. Anonymous27 July 2008 at 19:13:00 CEST

    I understand there's no Magma in the BYG Actuel catalogue, S.

    For the record, BYG stands for Jacques Bisceglia, Jean-Luc Young & Jean Georgakarakos, who established the label.

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  13. Anonymous26 August 2008 at 16:32:00 CEST

    incomprehensibly, I missed this and was just doing some web lookup on John Stevens and came back to it

    thankyou, thankyou!

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  14. mike14 February 2009 at 01:18:00 CET

    kinabalu, any chance you could post that Folkus - Life of Riley? It would be appreciated by all here!

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  15. Rev. Dr. Moller. MDMA, THC and BAR.21 July 2009 at 12:05:00 CEST

    Thanks very much for sharing this.

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  16. matt w19 November 2009 at 04:46:00 CET

    More belated thanks for posting this!

    I'm just listening to the beginning and trying to think what it reminded me of -- it's Henry Threadgill's "In Touch" and his other work with Sentienla Toy. A very haunting vocal sound.

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  17. Benoît18 April 2012 at 18:28:00 CEST

    A very very late comer on this, but would it be possible to imagine having this re-upped? The line up is quite mouthwatering, and I'd love to hear this SME in a folk context. (Moreover, the cover is beautiful, which doesn't spoil anything, does it?)
    Thanks anyway: this blog is a beauty!

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  18. kinabalu20 April 2012 at 00:39:00 CEST

    Sure thing!

    rapidshare

    oron

    And there's a three-year old request for another John Stevens. Looks like I got work to do.

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  19. Benoît21 April 2012 at 13:21:00 CEST

    Thank you thank you thank you!

    This blog should be decorated by the UN for services rendered to the Universe!

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  20. kinabalu22 April 2012 at 00:27:00 CEST

    I used to work for the UN once ...

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  21. Bob29 November 2013 at 12:36:00 CET

    Thanks for this. I bought the album when Polydor reissued it in 1972 and haven't heard it in years. The discographical details are rather garbled, though.

    Olive I features Trevor Watts (as), Kenny Wheeler (fh), Derek Bailey (g), Peter Lemer (p), Johnny Dyani (b), John Stevens (perc), Maggie Nicols (voc), Pepi Lemer (voc), Carolann Nicholls (voc).

    Oliv II has Trevor Watts (as), Johnny Dyani (b), John Stevens (perc), Maggie Nicols (voc).

    It would be good to have it out on CD with the two unissued takes of Waiting for Giorgio.

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  22. john18 January 2014 at 10:58:00 CET

    thank you; I'm a bit late getting to this but am catching up with the bits of Stevens / Watts that I don't know, a great team.

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  23. Anonymous21 April 2014 at 12:19:00 CEST

    any possibility to reup this gem in lossless please??
    thanks
    Alex in Solex

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  24. Ernst Grgo Nebhuth21 April 2014 at 15:24:00 CEST

    ..soon a re-up will be visible...

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  25. Ernst Grgo Nebhuth21 April 2014 at 17:29:00 CEST

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  26. bventure21 April 2014 at 19:45:00 CEST

    Amny thanks for the re-up!

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  27. Anonymous24 April 2014 at 14:21:00 CEST

    thank you for as usual instant answer.great music , great blog , perfect upload (as usual!!!)
    Alex in Solex

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  28. Anonymous26 April 2014 at 19:37:00 CEST

    Though I'm not a great fan of John Stevens/SME's more sedate, chamber jazz recordings I do like to give them all a good listen. Many thanks for the lossless reup.

    -Brian

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  29. Berg Larsen11 November 2016 at 03:08:00 CET

    any chance of a re-up please?

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  30. miloo213 December 2022 at 13:21:00 CET

    I am with Berg - any chance of re-up please?

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  31. Ernst Grgo Nebhuth13 December 2022 at 17:23:00 CET

    'Oliv' was reissued and is still available through EMANEM. Albeit sales is in hibernation until spring. And we do not offer links for music which is readily (or somewhat less so in this case) available.
    See http://www.emanemdisc.com/E5033.html
    And see also!: http://www.emanemdisc.com/news.html

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