Centipede

Centipede was a 50-piece jazz-rock orchestra assembled late in 1970 by pianist Keith Tippett (b. 1947) in order to perform his large-scale conceptual work "Septober Energy." Made up of a core of musicians drawn from Tippett's own band and the orbit of the Soft Machine and King Crimson, and augmented by various established professional players (including solid jazz men like Alan Skidmore) and student musicians, the group didn't sound quite like anything else to come out of the progressive rock boom.



Centipede gave live performances for the Jazz Center Society "Sigma" Organization of Bordeaux in France, the Lanchester Arts Festival, the Bristol University Student Union, and the Rotterdam Arts Council, garnering uneven reviews in the process. Some critics found the Tippett's music to be long and leaden, others saw it as a bold extension of the kind of free-form experimentation that Tippett and his band were already engaged in on a smaller scale -- Centipede merely added saxes, trumpets, and violins to the mix.

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