The Insect Trust
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Insect Trust was an American jazz-based rock band that formed in New York, United States, in 1967.
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Background
The members of the band were Nancy Jeffries on vocals, Bill Barth on guitar, Luke Faust, formerly of the Holy Modal Rounders, on guitar, banjo, fiddle, and harmonica, Trevor Koehler on saxophone, and Robert Palmer (1945–1997) on clarinet and alto saxophone. Elvin Jones and Bernard Purdie both drummed with the group at times. Bill Folwell on bass and trumpet and Warren Gardner on trumpet and clarinet were part of the band by the time they recorded their second album.
According to The New York Times, the band took its name from William S. Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch, detailing a race of giant insects bent on world domination. However, according to Bill Barth, the name came from the poetry journal Insect Trust Gazette, published by William Levy. Levy took the name from Burroughs, Warren Gardner then gave it to the band.
Musical style
Reviewing their 1970 album Hoboken Saturday Night, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies: "The blues scholars in the group have been listening to a lot of Arabic and Eastern European music lately, but this doesn't stop Elvin Jones from sounding just like Elvin Jones. In short, these passionate humanists also sound friendly and have come up with a charming, joyous, irrepressibly experimental record."
Legacy
Robert Palmer later became a well-respected and widely published rock critic and blues/jazz historian and served as the popular music editor of The New York Times in the 1980s. Nancy Jeffries became an executive at A&M, Virgin, and Elektra.
Death
Former member, Bill Folwell, died on October 2, 2019, at the age of 80.
Discography
- 1969: The Insect Trust
- 1970: Hoboken Saturday Night
