- Jamie Muir
Jamie Muir was a
UK percussionist best known for his work inKing Crimson . He is now a painter.Biography
Muir attended
Edinburgh College of Art during the 1960s and began playing jazz on various instruments before settling on percussion. [cite web| publisher=Elephant Talk|date=1991-92|accessdate = 2008-06-10|title=The Talking Drum - A Jamie Muir Interview|url = http://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Interview_with_Jamie_Muir_in_Ptloemaic_Terrascope] .On moving to London, Muir was active in
free improvisation , recording and performing withDerek Bailey andEvan Parker in theMusic Improvisation Company from 1968-71. Muir used variousfound object s as part of his percussion repertoire. He spoke of "approach(ing) the rubbish with a total respect for its nature as rubbish" and that "The way to discover the undiscovered in performing terms is to immediately reject all situations as you identify them (the cloud of unknowing) - which is to give music a future". [cite book |last= Bailey |first= Derek |title=Improvisation: Its nature and practice in music | publisher=Moorland Publishing | year=1980 | pages=113-4]During this period he also played in the band Boris with Don Weller and
Jimmy Roche (both later of jazz-rock bandMajor Surgery ) and Assagai withAlan Gowen and others.Muir was a member of
King Crimson from mid-1972 to early 1973. Muir initially appeared on a single King Crimson album, 1973's "Larks' Tongues In Aspic"; several live recordings featuring Muir have since been released by DGM records. King Crimson violinist/keyboardist David Cross reports that "We all learned an incredible amount from Jamie. He really was acatalyst of this band in the beginning and he opened up new areas for Bill (Bruford, at that point the group's "conventional" drummer) to look into as well as affecting the rest of us." [ [http://www.progressiveears.com/frippbook/ch06.htm Chapter Six: King Crimson III and Brian Eno] ]With King Crimson, Muir occasionally played a standard
drum kit , but more often, he contributed to Crimson's music with an assortment of unusual sounds from a wide variety of percussion instruments, includingchime s, bells,thumb piano ,mbira s, amusical saw , shakers, rattles, and miscellaneousdrum s.In 1972 Muir decided to pursue a monastic lifestyle, in accordance with the strict principles of
Buddhism . He left King Crimson abruptly in 1973 to live in amonastery inScotland . He had just completed his contribution to "Lark's Tongues", released subsequent to his departure. The British Press at the time attributed his decision as the result of "personal injury sustained onstage during performance", a phrase attributed to the band's management company,E'G .In 1980, Muir returned to the
London music scene, recording withEvan Parker andDerek Bailey . He was also on the soundtrack of the film "Ghost Dance", a collaboration with another Crimson alumnus, drummerMichael Giles and David Cunningham recorded in 1983, and eventually released in 1996. [cite web| publisher=piano records|accessdate = 2008-06-10|title=ghost dance -michael giles, jamie muir, david cunningham|url = http://www.stalk.net/piano/piano502.htm]Muir has since withdrawn completely from the music business and now devotes his energies to painting. [ [http://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Interview_with_Jamie_Muir_in_Ptloemaic_Terrascope Interview with Jamie Muir in Ptloemaic Terrascope - ETWiki ] ]
References
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