Maggie Nicols

Avant-garde vocalist Maggie Nicols has been an active participant in the European improvisational community since joining The Spontaneous Music Ensemble the late '60s. Throughout her career, she has also worked to further women in improvised music and other creative arts not only by example, but through workshops and extensive collaborating.



Born in the late '40s in Scotland, Nicols quit school in her mid-teens to work as a dancer at the Windmill Theatre, and a year later, secured her first singing gig in a local strip club. In addition to some traveling as a dancer, which included several months in Paris, Nicols became a dedicated jazz fan and began singing around Britain, sometimes collaborating with bebop pianist Dennis Rose. In 1968, she joined an early improvisational group, with John Stevens, Johnny Dyani, and Trevor Watts, The Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and the group performed that year at Berlin's avant-garde festival, First Total Music Meeting. Around this time, Nicols also began collaborating with the Scottish percussionist Ken Hyder (who had recently moved to London), and formed a vocal group called Voice (which had one self-titled release) with vocalists Brian Ely, Phil Minton, and Julie Tippett -- the latter two were also in another band with Nicols at that time; Keith Tippett's enormous ensemble, Centipede. Nicols and Julie Tippett also led a release for the FMP label in the late '70s, called Sweet and S'Ours.

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