A unique tenor saxophonist, deriving some elements of his playing from Sonny Rollins, Lou Gare was a member of the early Mike Westbrook Band. He, Keith Rowe (guitar), and Lawrence Sheaff (cello/clarinet) found themselves increasingly at odds with the rest of the unit and inevitably split away. After moving to London, Gare, Rowe, and drummer Eddie Prévost founded AMM in 1965. Gare's improvising typified the AMM approach, not least in his use of passages of silence, and the underpinning melodic logic of even his most abstract solos was so compelling that he gave a potent impression of phrases continuing, understood but unheard, through the gaps he left. During much of the '70s AMM comprised only Gare and Prévost, but Gare left the band and went to live in Exeter, Devon in 1977. For a while he led a free jazz trio but, although he occasionally played with Prévost and others, including bass player Marcio Mattos, he virtually gave up public performing. Lou Gare died in October 2017 at the age of 78. ~ TiVo Staff, Rovi