Join us this week for the last Free Range at Garage Coffee in Jewry Lane. The rest of the season will take place at St Gregory's Centre for Music at Canterbury Christ Church University and Garage Coffee itself is moving to a few doors down from the Cathedral Gate.

This week we present saxophonist Trevor Watts accompanied by pianist Stephen Grew.

Trevor Watts founded the Spontaneous Music Ensemble with drummer John Stevens in 1965. Since then he has recorded at least 116 albums playing with a huge range of musicians such as Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy, Keith Tippett and Veryan Weston to name just a handful. Out of the many bands Trevor has ran and played with, one of the most remarkable was a series of extraordinary large improvising groups called Moiré Music that were heavily influenced by various forms of African music.

For this performance Trevor Watts is joined by Stephen Grew, whose virtuosity, grace and precision can be likened to Cecil Taylor. ‘Stephen Grew hurls unrelenting, high-speed Conlon Nancarrow-style runs, his breathlessly impressive freneticism hinting at a sombre melody concealed somewhere deep within the army-of-crabs attack’ (The List)

Trevor and Stephen say ‘our inspiration comes from making the music and making it from the blank canvas of raw performance, in tandem with many years of experience. The music oscillates from outright raw energy to spacious more abstract refinery, we hold no caveat for our audience’s emotional responses ... what is important to us, is that people enjoy the music from any emotional angle.’