Ancestry

Trevor Charles Watts is a Jazz and free-improvising alto and soprano saxophonist. Trevor is a self-taught cornet player since age 12 then he switched to saxophone at 18. While stationed in Germany with the RAF (1958-63), he encountered the drummer John Stevens and trombonist Paul Rutherford. in 1965 he and Stevens formed the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, which became one of the crucibles of British free improvisation. Watts left the band to form his own group Amalgam in 1967, then returned to SME for another stretch that lasted till the mid-1970s. Another key association was with the bassist Barry Guy and his London Jazz Composers' Orchestra, from the band's inception in the 1970s till the mid-1990s.