“In 1962 I went to New York for the first time. My father had worked for Boac for so long that the flights were free - I had only to pay 7/6 (=37½p) airport tax. I stayed in NY for two weeks, only leaving Manhattan to take the standard tourist boat trip around the island. A lady on the plane had taken an interest in my plans, and when I told her that I didn't think there would be time to experience more than what Manhattan had to offer, she implored me, 'Please don't judge America by what you see there!'

She had a point. In a bar on Bleeker Street called the Take Three, I was able to hear the Cecil Taylor trio with Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray before their first trip to Europe where they made the epoch-making Cafe Montmartre recordings. I heard the Eric Dolphy Quintet at Birdland with Edward Armour, Herbie Hancock, Richard Davis and J.C.Moses -amazing! And the legendary 'School Days' band at a coffee shop in the West Village called Phase Two. A select audience of coffee drinkers were witness to a band whose original intention had been to memorise the complete works of Ellington, Parker and Monk. This enormous ambition had given way to the more realistic decision to focus on Monk.

Unaware of this at the time, but knowing Steve as a great soloist on two Gil Evans records, I was there primarily to hear Steve. I heard Roswell warming up, working through the overtone series on fixed slide positions with a clarity and incision that I had not heard from a trombone before. I am not sure who was playing bass that night - it is said that 29 different bass players worked with the band during its lifetime. I think it was Dennis Charles on drums. At the end of the first set, Steve's announcement reminded us that the band was 'happy to play requests.... (suitable pause) ....we'll play any tune by Thelonious Monk.' Even then I was keen to get closer to the action and, as the band reassembled for the second set, I asked Steve for 'Four in One', the trickiest line I could think of. 'We can play that,' he said and they did. What a band, what a programme, and here's the Evidence.” - Evan Parker (2011)