John Stevens Trio - Live at The Plough

Johan Lif, Västmanlands Länd Tidning

"...Gigs in small pubs are normal for British improvisators, something which creates a music which is more intimate and less artificial then from other places, at the same time as it is extremely radical and non idiomatic.
John Stevens, dead since some years, was with his Spontaneous Music Ensemble one of those who created new grounds for British improvised music.
We hear here Stevens in a more traditional environments even if it is not about some standards which have been played over and over again. This is Trio- jazz somewhere on the border between hard bop and free form, neither exaggeratedly formalistic or structurally torn. Three musicians in a sincere conversation.

In spite of his alto saxophone, Mike Osborne obviously has his rotes at Coltrane's later work; at a couple of places he even makes quotes from "A Love Supreme".
He becomes really lively in the more free titles - "Cherokee" and in the closing tventyminutesmonster "MO Recapitulations", were the Trio plays with total devotion in front of a audible audience.
"Summertime" is the standard tune on the CD. It is played restrained, a little searching. Osborne holds long, drawn out tones, and at some places he almost becomes totally silent, as if everything which is possible to say about the theme already is said. ..."