:SUNTREADER: THE NEW THIRD STREAM

by Richard Williams ( Melody Maker '73)

More than a decade ago, there was a great fuss in America surrounding something called the Third Stream.     It was supposed to be a fusion of late - Fifties jazz and the avant-garde " straight " music of the period, and its chief proponents were the MJQ's pianist John Lewis and composer Gunther Schuller.

Despite the occasional participation of men like Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman, the Third Stream died a miserable and unlamented death, the whole never remotely equalling even one of its parts. Now, though, there's the possibility that such a movement may be on the march again. This time, it will be more wide ranging: specifically, it will also take in the influence of rock music. The acceptance of Stomu Yamash'ta into the pages of newspapers like this one is strong evidence that another Third Stream is beginning to make waves.

One of the musicians most closely involved in this new direction is Morris Pert, former leader of a now defunct group called Come To The Edge, which collaborated with Yamash'ta in 1971/2 and appeared on Stomu's first Island album.

Pert is now a member of a new trio called Suntreader, which also includes Keyboard's player Peter Robinson (formally with Quatermass and a sometime collaborator with arranger Paul Buckmaster) and the brilliant bass-guitarist Neville Whitehead, once with excellent but under-exposed Caparius.

Suntreader too, has an album out on Island in the next couple of weeks - on the label's cheap Help series. Made before Whitehead joined, it features bassist Alyn Ross, a member of the Red Buddha troupe.

Pert aged 25, has impeccable classical credentials: a degree in music from Edinburgh University, three years at the Royal Academy, numerous awards for composing, and performances at various international festivals. The son of a semi-pro jazz musician, he started playing drums in pop groups before he was seduced by the sight of a set of tympani and went on to play them with the National Youth Orchestra. his meeting with Yamash'ta which turned out to be pretty crucial to the development of both men, occurred when they both performed at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1970. " We started talking, and it turned out that our musical ideas and ways of playing were similar. He wasn't at all into rock at that time, although he had played jazz with various people in the States, and I wasn't all that aware of what was going on in rock either. I was doing this two year course in composition and percussion, and had no intentions of getting into anything else. But just prior to meeting Stomu I'd been asked to join a group by Andrew Powell at the Royal Academy. It was Come To The Edge, and they needed a drummer. Stomu expressed an interest in doing something along those lines, so I introduced him to them and it all happened from there. Our first performance was at the Paris Biennialle - he's the sort of musician who has no difficulty filling into anything. Come To The Edge was together for a couple of years and although occasionally a spark would alight, it didn't happen consistently. There were a lot of problems over musical policy, as the playing goes, and at least it opened up avenues and made us all see what we should be doing".

Pert himself reckons he's reached the perfect balance in his own career, alternating between writing " serious" music (he has various commissions under way at the moment) and playing with Suntreader. Each experience informs the other, adding a dimension of understanding which wouldn't otherwise be there. He's been in the Red Buddha troupe throughout its existence, but will soon stop because of his various other commitments:        "Stomu's music is both very simple and commercial, and from the serious side its very complex too. It satisfies both ends of the spectrum, and working within it is very stimulating." Morris has been involved in many kinds of musical fusion, but hes not uncritical about this somewhat vexed question: " Its one of the great dichotomies of contemporary music - people say that the great tradition of serious music is grinding to a halt, and people are writing very extreme avant-garde stuff, most of which is sheer nonsense. Rock has come through an extreme intellectual phase and its come back a bit now, and I feel that for either of these directions to start proceeding again we must not just fuse (a) to (b), but take elements from them and form (c). This has not really been done yet. The Jazz-Rock and Classical-Rock things have lumped the forms together, which isn't the way at all. You need people who're comfortable inside a new kind of framework which derives from all these things - somebody like Barry Guy, for example or Paul Buckmaster. Thats why I have had difficulty finding musicians to work with. I want the band to be a group of musicians who understand all musical spheres, and who can improvise within a given composition in the traditional jazz sense.

Suntreader - live review Queen Elizabeth Hall 1973

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