Search - Daevid Trio Allen :: Live

Hopper or Ayers?

Agustin Criollo | San Juan, Puerto Rico | 12/20/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"One must not judge this historic musical document by pointing out neither the poor sound quality nor the band's performance overall.

While a Bootleg is an unofficial recording made almost exclusively at the band's peak of popularity, this is a testament of an historic moment in the history of British Rock.

Before Soft Machine (labeled as one of the precursors of Prog Rock), before Caravan. Even before The Wilde Flowers, there was The Daevid Allen Trio. We can securely trace back the beginnings of the Canterbury Scene to this particular recording and that is the main point of this recording.



By 1963 Allen had just met his landlord's 16 years old son, Robert Wyatt and, along with Hugh Hopper (or was it Kevin Ayers?)were very much into free jazz from the likes of Sun Ra. Allen was experimenting with Beat poetry by the likes of Ginsberg and Burroughs hence the poem like lyric structure over a pandemoniac free jazz groove.



This is definitely a piece for die hard Canterbury fans and completitionists, however, it should be viewed not as a mere bootleg but as an important piece of a musical puzzle named The Canterbury Scene.

"