Symbiosis was a 1970s free jazz group consisting of Robert Wyatt (drums), Roy Babbington (bass), Gary Windo (saxophone) and Mongezi Feza (trumpet). They only recorded a radio session for the BBC in 1971 before dissolving.
Links to Peel[]
Peel played many of Robert Wyatt's projects and Symbiosis was one of them. He had them do a session for his show in 1971, possibly with the support of producer John Walters, who in his first couple of years on Top Gear encouraged the DJ to book sessions by musicians from the contemporary British jazz scene. Apart from Wyatt, group members included South African trumpeter Mongezi Feza, who later did Peel sessions as a member of Brotherhood Of Breath.
In an interview with Steve Peacock of Sounds, Wyatt explained how the group came about, when he was taking a break from working with Soft Machine:
- At that time we'd spent a long time on the road, and Mike and Hugh wanted to take some time off to do some writing, and I didn't fancy doing any writing - I was getting a bit fed up with the pre-planned stuff and I wanted to see, how much could be done just spontaneously again. That's what "End Of And Ear" is all about really - it's really an exercise in total spontaneity, and that whole time was really - Symbiosis, everything - but it wasn't meant to be my whole life. It was really to see what could come out of that, that wasn't coming out with the Soft Machine[1].
Symbiosis, described as "a jamming band" in an online biography of tenor sax player Gary Windo[2], only recorded one radio session (at the time, Melody Maker carried many complaints from jazz writers and musicians about the lack of airtime on the BBC for contemporary jazz) and never released any records, according to the Discogs website. According to Peel's comments, preserved on the surviving recording of the session, John Walters thought up the title of one of the session tracks, JP's links also give the impression that all the tracks were run together, perhaps because the music wasn't the standard guitar-based rock his listeners were most familiar with.
After working with Symbiosis, Wyatt returned to Soft Machine for a short period, before leaving them to form Matching Mole.
Sessions[]
Robert Wyatt and Friends (Matching Mole, Symbiosis, WMWM) 1971-3
The session can be heard between 10:54-16:31 of the video featuring John Peel links
1. Recorded: 1971-01-11. First Broadcast: 30 January 1971. "Standfast" available on album by Gary Windo - Anglo American Cuneiform RUNE 189. "NTU" available on album by Gary Windo - His Master's Bones Cuneiform RUNE 89, v/a album - Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers And Free Fusioneers: British Jazz 1960 - 1975 Reel Recordings RR026 and album by Robert Wyatt - Flotsam Jetsam Rough Trade R3112
- NTU / Volume 4: Be Bop / Bass Variations On Standfast / Aura / Standfast
Other Shows Played[]
- None