Steve Miller and Lol Coxhill - Coxhill/Miller - Miller/Coxhill and "The Story So Far..."/"Oh, Really?"

Cuneiform Rune 253/254

What has made the music of the Canterbury scene so fresh and lasting is the fact that many of the participants had more than one foot in the jazz and improvised music camp, carrying them a fair distance from their straight prog-rock peers. Of course, the mature Soft Machine culled its horn section – including Elton Dean, Nick Evans and Marc Charig – from pianist Keith Tippett’s unit and saxophonist Lyn Dobson also passed through the group. The Softs’ earliest incarnation, with Australian guitarist/singer (and later Gong ringleader) Daevid Allen, grew out of a jazz quartet Allen led in the mid-60s. Colosseum featured, in addition to reedman Dick Heckstall-Smith (the UK's Roland Kirk), the rhythm section of drummer Jon Hiseman and bassist Tony Reeves, who recorded on post-Bley pianist Peter Lemer’s sole album as a leader, the 1966 ESP session Local Colour. By all accounts, bands like Colosseum or the Soft Machine are fairly easy to classify among the early ‘70s progressive-rock continuum, as are a number of their Canterbury music peers. But in every scene, there is always a ringer – something that just doesn’t quite fit with music fans’ desire to put even the most obtuse music into neat compartments. The various aggregations of pianist Steve Miller and soprano saxophonist Lol Coxhill are truly the Canterbury scene’s musical outliers.

Steve Miller, brother of Caravan and Hatfield and the North guitarist Phil Miller, has remained somewhat of an obscurity even by English progressive music standards. Though he was, for a time, a member of Caravan, most of Miller’s most recognizable work was with saxophonist Coxhill, himself an outcast in London improvising circles, despite occasional appearances with Company and the Brotherhood of Breath. The saxophonist’s early claim to fame was as part of ex-Softs vocalist/bassist Kevin Ayers’ group The Whole World, with pianist-composer David Bedford. Many of the Miller/Coxhill collaborations were as a duo, though situations may have included other musicians, not to mention studio effects and multi-tracking. In addition to making a number of festival appearances, the twosome recorded a set of LPs in 1972 and 1974 for Caroline, released as Miller/Coxhill – Coxhill/Miller and the ostensibly split LP “The Story So Far…” / “Oh, Really?.” The two reunited in 1986 for the Matchless LP Miller’s Tale, which featured percussionist Eddie Prévost and bassist Tony Moore. On this two-disc set, Cuneiform issues both Caroline LPs in their entirety with a host of extra tracks culled from concert appearances.

Coxhill has often been compared to Steve Lacy, and it may be easier to hear in the Monkishly elliptical phrasing of his later work. However, in concert with Miller and the broken psychedelic jams of Delivery or the various Miller/Coxhill groupings, the saxophonist approximates the dark heft of Wayne Shorter and the curt edginess of countryman Trevor Watts. Delivery is a particularly illuminating side of the Miller/Coxhill collaboration, featuring Phil Miller on guitar, drummer Pip Pyle (later of Gong), Caravan vocalist Richard Sinclair, and bassist Roy Babbington (Softs/Ovary Lodge). Three tracks from a November 1972 concert are included here, sunny jams with Sinclair’s non-sequiturs floating in and out of the sextet’s loose swing. Even as Coxhill’s highs are pinched and ensconced in electrified prog gloop, sort of like Dave Liebman on helium, he occupies a nether-region in the ensemble, standing outside the cleanly-synchronized electric-piano/guitar engine while floating along the group’s rhythmic whitewaters.

But as much as this set is collaborative, its dedication is to the late Steve Miller, whose contribution to progressive British music is little documented. Just as Coxhill so clearly occupies his own sound-world, so does Miller as his unaccompanied piano pieces and duets with Coxhill will testify. “Chocolate Field” may have been perfectly written with the duo in mind, but its initial playfulness segues into a romantic kaleidoscope of Eastern European-flavored turns, Monkish introspection and crystalline isolation under the ringing watchfulness of Miller’s unaccompanied Steinway grand. He duskily underpins the inquisitive plaint of Coxhill’s pinched wail, feeding the saxophonist’s blues-heeled lines with a pent and complex fire. Coxhill closes the tune unaccompanied, playing into the piano’s guts and adding a dangerous ring to his fervent tone. The following two numbers are quartets (one with Coxhill, the other with Phil Miller); “One for You” is a somber piece with fusiony backbeat, and it could be lambasted for histrionics if one didn’t grasp the utter sincerity in Miller’s piano attack. Phil Miller’s thin Clapton-isms aren’t really a help in the “overwrought” department, but despite such dating gaffes, the music retains significant honesty and power. Throaty bass pulsations from Archie Leggett and Laurie Allen’s light, free cymbal work underpin “Portland Bill,” Miller and Coxhill occupying an interesting separateness, two complementary improvisational and emotional areas, feeding one another yet entirely parallel. Even as Coxhill picks up Miller’s tersest statements and worries them, the connection seems like common grasps across a room.

“The Story So Far…” / “Oh Really?” was a different beast altogether, with only two tracks featuring Miller and Coxhill together (with Leggett and Allen). The remainder of the date encompassed Miller solo and in duo with Allen, a few odd Coxhill “solo” tracks, and an ostensible Kevin Ayers piece with Robert Wyatt and Leggett; contractual obligations it might’ve filled, but at least it offers more of the pair’s early work. The Story So Far… sessions include a brief solo take of “Chocolate Field,” its swinging romanticism at a brisk pace, followed by a stark, unaccompanied version of “One for You.” These takes have something of the songwriter exploring his muse – not that they’re tossed-off, but somehow the absence of accompanying musicians emphasizes that their weight is utterly private. Indeed, Miller certainly has a penchant for isolated playing even in a group situation, so to hear him unaccompanied is perhaps how his music is “meant” to be. The duos with Laurie Allen provide an interesting contrast to those with Coxhill; Allen provides more thrust than comment, so “G Song” and “Songs of March” are self-contained toe-tapping motives for electric piano and drum accompaniment. There is a bit of a jazzy edge to the percussive half of “Does This,” propulsive and commentary, but the gritty chiaroscuro and sinewy moods of solo acoustic ruminations like “F Bit” are never too far away.

Oh, Really? is a window into the soprano saxophonist’s own music of the time, including echo-recording and a duet with a droning cathedral organ. “Oh DO I Like to Be Beside the Seaside” is claustrophobic and angsty, a lo-fi sea of doubled-back soprano arcs mocking one another as useless shouts in a cavern. “In Memoriam: Meister Eckhart,” its mood more open, features pulsing organ overtones buoying Coxhill’s most Lacy-like improvisation of the set, with crisp tones and an edgy whimsy. Brief jabs at Mike Oldfield aside, “Soprano Derativo/Apricot Jam” was the most curious track on Coxhill’s half of the original LP, a live snippet that could stand in for a Whole World outtake. The island-song strums, calypso rhythms and subversive snickers all serve as waves underneath the straight-horn boat. It’s light fare, perhaps, but elegantly puts in perspective the romantic and the anarchic, two sides of the Miller/Coxhill duo.