John Greaves (musician)

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For the mathematician of the same name, see John Greaves.
John Greaves
John Greaves with the Peter Blegvad Trioperforming at a RIO Festival in Southern France,April 2007 (© Michael S. Eisenberg)
John Greaves with the Peter Blegvad Trio
performing at a RIO Festival in Southern France,
April 2007 (© Michael S. Eisenberg)
Background information
Birth name John Greaves
Born January 23, 1950 (1950-01-23) (age 58)
Prestatyn, North Wales
Genre(s) Progressive rock,
Experimental, Jazz, Pop
Occupation(s) Musician, Composer
Instrument(s) Bass guitar, Piano, Singing
Years active 1969 – present
Label(s) Harmonia Mundi
Associated acts Henry Cow, National Health,
Peter Blegvad

John Greaves (born 23 January 1950) is a British bass guitarist and composer, best known as a member of Henry Cow and his collaborative albums with Peter Blegvad. He was also a member of National Health and Soft Heap, and has recorded several solo albums, including Accident (1982), Parrot Fashions (1984), The Caretaker (2001) and Greaves Verlaine (2008).

He obtained an English literature degree at Cambridge University in 1971.

Contents

[edit] Biography

John Greaves was born in Prestatyn, North Wales, but grew up in Wrexham in north-east Wales. At the age of 12, he was given a bass guitar by his father, a Welsh dancehall bandleader, and within six months, he was playing in his father's orchestra. He continued playing in the orchestra for four years, during which time its varied musical styles gave Greaves valuable musician and arranger skills. He was educated at Grove Park Grammar School in Wrexham from 1961 to 1968.

In 1968 Greaves entered Pembroke College, Cambridge to study English, and at Cambridge he met members of the burgeoning English avant-garde rock group Henry Cow in 1969. The band had been established the previous year by fellow Cambridge students Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson and had undergone numerous personnel changes up to that point. They were looking for a bassist and after several months of persuading, Greaves joined the band in October 1969. After juggling his time with the band and his studies, Greaves completed his Master of Arts degree in 1971. By the end of 1971, Henry Cow settled into a permanent core of Frith, Hodgkinson, Greaves and Chris Cutler. Greaves remained with the band until March 1976, during which time they released five albums (including two with Slapp Happy) and toured extensively across Europe. Greaves also contributed several compositions to the band's repertoire, including "Half Asleep; Half Awake", recorded on their second album, Unrest (1974).

Greaves left Henry Cow to work on a project, Kew. Rhone. with Slapp Happy's Peter Blegvad in New York City. Greaves had met and worked with Blegvad during the brief merger of Henry Cow and Slapp Happy between November 1974 and April 1975, their first collaboration, "Bad Alchemy", appearing on the two bands' joint album Desperate Straights. Kew. Rhone. was a song cycle with all the music composed by Greaves and the lyrics written by Blegvad. In addition to bass guitar, Greaves also played keyboards and sang. The album was released in 1977 and credited to Greaves, Blegvad and Lisa Herman, the lead vocalist. It was well received by critics: All Music Guide described it as "An unfortunately neglected masterpiece of '70s progressive rock ..." [1]; and Robert Wyatt reportedly liked it so much he bought two copies "just in case the first got worn out!" [2]

After Kew. Rhone. Greaves returned to England to work in theatre as a composer, arranger and actor. In early 1978 he joined National Health and remained with them until the band split up in 1980. He toured with the band, appeared on three of their albums and wrote their instrumental tour-de-force, "Squarer for Maud". During this time (1979-88) he also performed with a free-improvising group, Soft Heap with Elton Dean from Soft Machine, Pip Pyle from National Health, and maverick guitarist Mark Hewins.

In the early 1980s Greaves began a series of solo projects and collaborations. Having secured a deal with independent French-American label Europa Records, he recorded his first solo album, Accident in Paris in 1981-82. He moved to Paris in 1984, and formed a touring band with François Ovide (guitar and trombone), Denis van Hecke from Aksak Maboul (cello), Mireille Bauer (formerly of Gong) (stand-up drums and percussion) and Blegvad's brother, Kristoffer Blegvad (backing vocals). This line-up also featured on Greaves's second solo album, Parrot Fashions (1984). During this time he also recorded and/or toured with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra and the Michael Nyman Band. He reunited with Peter Blegvad again on The Lodge project (alongside Kristoffer Blegvad, Jakko Jakszyk and Anton Fier) which produced an album, Smell of a Friend in 1987 (but only ever made a couple of attempts at performing live).

Poster for the Robert Wyatt tribute concert Dedicated to You, Charleville-Mézières, France, November 2003.
Poster for the Robert Wyatt tribute concert Dedicated to You, Charleville-Mézières, France, November 2003.

For his next album, 1991's La Petite Bouteille de Linge (Little Bottle of Laundry), Greaves retained the services of Ovide on guitar, adding his old mate Pip Pyle on drums and the latter's then-partner, Sophia Domancich on piano. Over the next few years his music took on a more acoustic flavour and Greaves eventually settled on a drum-less line-up comprising Domancich, Ovide (now on acoustic guitar exclusively) and double bass player Paul Rogers. This resulted in the 1995 album Songs, which consisted largely of acoustic arrangements of songs from his previous efforts, going back to Kew.Rhone. Greaves himself only handled lead vocals on one track, "The Green Fuse" (based on a Dylan Thomas poem), leaving the spotlight to Robert Wyatt, opera singer Susan Belling, Kristoffer Blegvad and French variety singer Caroline Loeb.

During the 1990s, Greaves also embarked on one-off collaborations with David Cunningham from The Flying Lizards, on 1991's greaves, cunningham album, and Peter Blegvad on 1995's Unearthed.

Since the late 1990s, Greaves has divided his time between two contrasting bands, an electric trio named Roxongs - the original line-up, with François Ovide on guitar and Manu Denizet on drums, heard on 2001's The Caretaker, has since changed to Jef Morin on guitar and Mathieu Rabaté on drums - and an acoustic trio named Jazzsongs, with Sophia Domancich on piano and Vincent Courtois on cello, which recorded 2003's The Trouble With Happiness, once again a mixture of old and new songs, but this time with Greaves himself singing all the way through.

Originally intended as a follow-up of sorts to the acclaimed Songs, 2004's Chansons saw Greaves team up with lyricist Christophe Glockner and vocalist Elise Caron for a collection of all-new songs with predominantly acoustic instrumentation, including guest spots by Robert Wyatt and Louis Sclavis. His latest project Greaves Verlaine, released in February 2008, sees him set to music poems by Paul Verlaine, albeit with a decidedly un-retro aesthetic conceived in cooperation with French multimedia collective Les Recycleurs de Bruits. In addition to his Roxongs bandmates the album features regular collaborators Jeanne Added (vocals) and Scott Taylor (accordion, trumpet), as well as appearances by Karen Mantler and Dominique Pifarély. A special concert at Paris' New Morning club celebrates its release on March 12.

In June 2007, Greaves and Peter Blegvad performed Kew.Rhone in a special concert for the Tritonales festival, an exceptional event which is to be repeated, this time with original vocalist Lisa Herman, in May 2008 in Bourgoin-Jallieu. Greaves was also involved in the Dedicated To You (later renamed Dondestan) Robert Wyatt tribute band (alongside Karen Mantler, Dominique Pifarély, Sylvain Kassap and others), and Alain Blésing's Songs From The Beginning project, revisiting 1970s progressive rock classics by King Crimson, Soft Machine, Henry Cow and Hatfield and the North among others.

[edit] Discography

This is a selection of albums John Greaves has performed on, showing the year they were first released.

[edit] Solo

  • 1982 – Accident (Europa)
  • 1984 – Parrot Fashions (Europa)
  • 1991 – La Petite Bouteille de Linge (La Lichère)
  • 1995 – Songs (Resurgence)
  • 2001 – The Caretaker (Blueprint)
  • 2003 – The Trouble With Happiness (Harmonia Mundi)
  • 2005 – Tambien 1-7 (Resurgence)
  • 2008 – Greaves Verlaine (ZigZag Territoires/Harmonia Mundi)

[edit] Bands and projects

With Henry Cow
With Henry Cow/Slapp Happy
With Peter Blegvad and Lisa Herman
  • 1977 – Kew. Rhone. (Virgin)
With Peter Blegvad
With National Health
  • 1979 – Of Queues and Cures (Charly)
  • 1982 – D.S. Al Coda (Europa)
  • 2001 – Play Time (live 1979) (Cuneiform)
With The Lodge
  • 1987 – Smell of a Friend (Antilles)
With David Cunningham
  • 1991 – greaves, cunningham (Eva Records)
With Marcel Ballot and Patrice Meyer
  • 2001 – On the Street Where You Live (Blueprint)
With Pip Pyle and Philippe Marcel Iung
  • 2001 – The Pig Part (Blueprint)
With Elise Caron
  • 2004 – Chansons (Harmonia Mundi)
With Marcel Kanche, Nicolas Pabiot & Akosh S.
  • 2004 – Le Dogme Des VI Jours (No Format/Universal Jazz)
With Maman
  • 2005 – In And Out Of Life (Resurgence)

[edit] As guest instrumentalist

With Robert Wyatt
  • 1975 – Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard (Virgin)
With David Thomas & The Pedestrians
With Peter Blegvad
With Michael Nyman Band
  • 1985 – The Kiss and Other Movements (EG)
With Sophia Domancich
  • 1991 – Funerals (Gimini Music)
With Johan Asherton
  • 1992 – The Night Forlorn (Fnac/AureaMusic)
With Michael Mantler
  • 1987 – Live (Watt/ECM)
  • 1997 – The School of Understanding (Watt/ECM)
With Pip Pyle
With Julien Lourau
  • 2005 – Fire And Forget (Label Bleu)

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Mason, Stewart. Kew. Rhone.. All Music Guide. Retrieved on 2007-03-28.
  2. ^ John Greaves. The Canterbury Website. Retrieved on 2007-03-28.

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Greaves, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION British musician and composer
DATE OF BIRTH 23 January 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Prestatyn, North Wales
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Languages