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http://s51.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2F2G15MYQTRK31D5A91OLOMYZ V
MESSAGE 
Personnel:

ALLAN MURDOCH g 
TOMMY MCGUIGAN v, sax 
(BILLY TABBERT g, v) A 
HORST STACHELHAUS b 
(GERHARD SCHABER d, v) A 
(GUNTHER KLINGEL d) B 
MANFRED VON BOHR d C,D 
TONY GREAVES sax D 
ALBUMS (up to '76): 

(A)"The Dawn A New Is Coming" (Bacillus BLPS 19081) 1972 
(B)"From Boks & Dreams" (Bacillus BLPS 19159) 1973 
(C)same (Nova 6.22013) 1975 
(D)"Synapse" (Nova 6.22523) 1976 

NB: Re-issue of 1 on Bacillus BAC 2007. Beware that this mid-70s re-issues frequently are offered as originals!
(P)This was a German-British band led by Allan Murdoch. The story of Message is quite similar to that one of Nektar: in the early seventies they released some excellent, refined progressive rock albums, spanning from lyrical, melodic folk-rock over to heavy guitar outbursts. Their music was supervised by the well-known Bacillus recording team of Peter Hauke (label manager, producer) and Dieter Dierks (studio owner, engineer). The crew that recorded The Dawn A New Is Coming (1972) was (A). Only the rhythm section of this group was German! Taff Freeman from Nektar contributed with vocals and mellotron on one track. Overall, it was an excellent album with the title track and "When I'm Home" being the highlights - a very obviously British melodic progressive rock. The fold-out cover contained a notable psychedelic artwork by Klaus Holtizka. From Books And Dreams (1973) was another fine album; here some of the tracks had a more sinister undertone, like the pounding "Dreams And Nightmares" with its' repeating, almost ritualistic guitar riff. On the other side, tracks like "Sigh" followed more in the Nektar-like style of their first album. By now Billy Tabbert and Gerhard Schaber had quit, and their drummer for the recording sessions was Gunther Klingel. 
For some unknown reason, it seems that the group fell out with the Hauke & Clerks recording team. Their third and self-titled album was released by Nova in 1975. Message now had a much more conventional style, possible due to pressure from their new record company. Their music lacked the energy and instrumental interludes of the two previous albums. The mellotrons and complex arrangements were also abandoned in an ill-failed attempt to gain more commercial success. Some tracks were still great, such as "Thoughts" with a stunning guitar solo. Manfred von Bohr was their drum player for this album. For their fourth album Message changed direction again. They attempted jazzy heavy rock on Synapse (1976), on which the sax player Tony Greaves was added. 
Discography

1968 - Caravan - Caravan :  http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD. asp?cd_id=3106
1970 - Caravan - If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You  : http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD. asp?cd_id=3107
1971 - Caravan - In The Land Of Grey And Pink
1972 - Caravan - Waterloo Lily
1973 - Coxhill/Miller.Miller/Coxhill
1974 - Hatfield And The North - Hatfield And The North : http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD. asp?cd_id=558
1974 - Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom
1975 - Hatfield And The North - The Rotters' Club
1975 - V (Hatfield And The North)
1975 - Over The Rainbow (Hatfield And The North)
1976 - Kevin Ayers - Odd Ditties
1977 - Camel - Rain Dances
1978 - Camel - A Live Record 
1978 - Camel - Breathless
1980 - Hatfield And The North - Afters
1982 - Caravan - Back to Front
1982 - Gowen/Miller/Sinclair/Tomkins - Before A Word Is Said
1982 - National Health - D.S. Al Coda
1988 - Phil Miller - Split Seconds
1992 - Richard Sinclair's Caravan Of Dreams
1992 - Todd Dillingham - Wilde Canterbury Dream
1993 - Anthony Aldridges Skaboosh - Freetown
1993 - Caravan - Live
1993 - Hatfield And The North - Live 90
1993 - Richard Sinclair - An Evening Of Magic
1994 - Caravan - Cool Water
1994 - Richard Sinclair - R.S.V.P.
1994 - The Wilde Flowers
1995 - Supper's Ready
1996 - Hugh Hopper And Richard Sinclair - Somewhere In France
1997 - Camel - Master Series
1998 - Caravan - Songs For Oblivion Fishermen
1998 - Pip Pyle - Seven Years Itch

ee
http://helene.collon.club.fr/greaves/greaves.htm
With Courtesy of 'Calyx' The Canterbury Website (http://calyx.club.fr/)
John Greaves
John Greaves played with the following groups : HENRY COW (1969-76), NATIONAL HEALTH (1978-80), SOFT HEAP (1979-88), PETER GORDON’S LOVE OF LIFE ORCHESTRA (1981), MICHAEL NYMAN BAND (1985), MICHAEL MANTLER BAND (1987,1996-97). In his solo records he combines influences of his different musical experiences into a mixture of Jazz, Jazz-Rock, R.I.O, Traditional Songwriting, Absurd Theatre, Chanson Française and more. 
"The son of a Welsh dancehall bandleader, John Greaves was born in 1950 in Prestatyn, a small village in the North of Wales, near the seaside resort of Rhyl, but grew up in Wrexham, the native town of his mother. Very soon, he was initiated to music by his father, who offered him a bass guitar for Christmas at age 12. Six months later, John was playing every night with his orchestra, and spent four years doing it. A year before he left to study litterature in Cambridge, his younger brother Michael, an aspirant drummer, also joined. By that time, Greaves had acquired the necessary skills, both as a musician and an arranger. The very varied mix of musical styles played by the orchestra, playing every night from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m., and the opportunity to open for pop groups like the Big Three and Gerry And The Pacemakers proved an invaluable context for learning quickly!
Once in Cambridge, in 1967-68, Greaves discovered politics, canoeing and... cricket! In 1969, he met the members of Henry Cow, which he joined. For two years, following which he received a Master of Arts from the university, he combined these different activies, before concentrating on his work with Henry Cow, recording and touring with the band until his departure in early 1976.
Having developed a strong collaboration with Peter Blegvad during the shortlived (but very creative) Henry Cow/Slapp Happy amalgamation in 1974-75, Greaves flew to New York with him to work on the Kew Rhône project with funding from Virgin. The pair spent three months putting words to Greaves' compositions, then jumped on the offer of Carla Bley and Michael Mantler to record these in their Woodstock studio. Many musicians guested on the album, which was eventually credited to Greaves, Blegvad and singer Lisa Herman.
Back in England, John Greaves spent a year working for theatre, both as composer/arranger and actor (!). Then, in early 1978, he accepted an offer to join National Health, staying until the band's demise in the spring of 1980. Meanwhile, he'd also joined part-time jazz band Soft Heap, with Elton Dean, Pip Pyle and Alan Gowen (later replaced by Mark Hewins), a line-up still active to this day.
The 80's were the decade of many solo projects and one-off collaborations. First was the The Lodge project with Peter Blegvad, which took seven years to materialize in the form of the "Smell Of A Friend" album. Then his first solo album, "Accident", recorded in Paris in 1981-82, and released in 1983 on Jean-Pierre Weiller's independent Europa label. In 1984, he settled in Paris, and formed a touring band which included Kristoffer Blegvad (vocals), François Ovide (guitar), Denis Van Hecke (cello) and Mireille Bauer (percussion). This line-up was featured on his second solo album, Parrot Fashion (1985, Europa).
At this point, Greaves was already in demand as a session player, and worked extensively with the Michael Nyman Band, also meeting ex-Flying Lizards frontman David Cunningham, with whom he started a long-term musical association.
A short European tour with an all-star Michael Mantler Band (which featured Jack Bruce, Rick Fenn, Don Preston and Nick Mason) in 1986 preceded the formation of a new The Lodge line-up, which toured around Europe during the next three years (and recorded the above-mentioned album).
In the late Eighties, John Greaves started working on a third album, which he recorded in Paris in 1989-90 with a band that consisted of François Ovide (guitar), Sophia Domancich (piano) and Pip Pyle (drums). "La Petite Bouteille De Linge" (1991, La Lichère) ('the little bottle of laundry'...) was a critical, if not commercial, success. The band that toured in 1992 sometimes included Paul Rogers (double bass) and Mireille Bauer (vibraphone/percussion). Almost simultaneous with the release of "La Petite Bouteille...", John's first collaborative album with David Cunnigham, "Greaves-Cunningham" was issued on the Japanese Wave label (and more recently reissued by Voiceprint).
In 1993, a more improv-oriented John Greaves Band, with Elton Dean (sax), Jean-François Pauvros (guitar) and Pip Pyle (drums), played a few gigs. Greaves also started work on a new project which consisted of new, acoustic/jazzy arrangements of songs from his various albums. Knowing Robert Wyatt had liked the "Kew.Rhône" album very much (to the point of buying two copies of the album when it originally came out, just in case the first got worn out!), Greaves asked him to sing on a few tracks, which he did. The core of the band was now Ovide (acoustic guitar), Domancich (piano) and Rogers (double bass), and the cast of singers included Kristoffer Blegvad, Susan Belling (a.k.a. S'Ange) and French radio/TV/pop star Caroline Loeb. Finished in 1994, the magnificent result, "Songs" (Resurgence/Voiceprint), was only released in the autumn of 1995. In the meantime, new collaborative efforts with Peter Blegvad (leading to extensive touring in Europe, the USA and Japan since 1996) and David Cunningham had been issued.
The autumn of 1997 saw the CD reissue of Greaves' first two solo albums, Accident and Parrot Fashions on Voiceprint, and the release of Michael Mantler's new work The School Of Understanding, on which he was one of the featured vocalists. In January 1998, Greaves gave two rare solo voice/piano performances at Paris' Hôtel du Nord, followed by more in Japan in June of that year (a CD recorded during that tour has been released).
In May 2001, Greaves at last released his new studio album, The Caretaker, on which he'd been working since 1998 with François Ovide (guitars) and Manuel Denizet (drums). Although its working title was Songs 2, it is very different to Songs - largely electric, and featuring him on lead vocals and, of course, on bass. In keeping with the album's sparser instrumentation, Greaves stuck with the trio format for his subsequent live gigs; for a year, the guitarist was Patrice Meyer, who was then briefly replaced by François Ovide, before the line-up settled again with the arrival of Frenchman Jef Morin. The trio has a live album in the can.
Greaves has also recorded an album of purely instrumental music, as well as an album of jazz standards with pianist Marcel Ballot and Patrice Meyer, On The Street Where You Live, which was released by Voiceprint simultaneously with The Caretaker.
In 2002, Greaves decided to return to acoustic music (while keeping his rock trio going), and formed the JazzSongs trio with old friend Sophia Domancich and more recent collaborator, cellist Vincent Courtois. The result of a prestigious deal with high profile French label Harmonia Mundi, The Trouble With Happiness, released in September 2003 to critical acclaim, contains old favourites and a handful of new songs, including the title track.
In addition to his own albums and bands, Greaves is involved in countless projects. In November 2003, Greaves participated in the Robert Wyatt tribute concert "Dedicated To You" in Charleville-Mézières (N-E France), alongside Karen Mantler, Dominique Pifarély, Sylvain Kassap and others. That project is now known as "Dondestan", and several other performances have taken place. 2004 saw the release of Chansons, a French language album with lyrics by Christophe Glockner and lead vocals by Elise Caron, a former collaborator of Albert Marcoeur, with guest appearances by the likes of Robert Wyatt and Louis Sclavis."
‘Kew Rhône’ (1977) and ‘Songs’ (1995)are highly recommended.
With Courtesy of 'Calyx' The Canterbury Website (http://calyx.club.fr/)

A John Greaves discography: 
Henry Cow - Legend (1973, Virgin)
Henry Cow - Unrest (1974, Virgin)
Slapp Happy/Henry Cow - Desperate Straights (1975, Virgin)
Henry Cow - In Praise of Learning (1975, Virgin)
Robert Wyatt - Ruth is Stranger than Richard (1975, Virgin)
Henry Cow - Concerts (1976, Caroline/Compendium)
John Greaves, Peter Blegvad & Lisa Herman - Kew.Rhône (1977, Virgin)
National Health - Of Queues and Cures (1979, Charly)
David Thomas & The Pedestrians - Sound Of The Sand (1981, Rough Trade)
National Health - D.S. Al Coda (1982, Europa Records)
John Greaves - Accident (1982, Europa Records)
Peter Blegvad - The Naked Shakespeare (1983, Virgin)
John Greaves - Parrot Fashions (1984, Europa Records)
Peter Blegvad - Knights Like This (1985, Virgin)
Michael Zentner - Present Time (1984) [rec.1979-80]
Michael Nyman Band - The Kiss And other Movements (1985, EG)
Michael Mantler Band - Live (1987, WATT/ECM)
The Lodge - Smell Of A Friend (1987, Antilles)
Peter Blegvad - Downtime (1988, RéR)
John Greaves & David Cunningham - Greaves, Cunningham (1991, Eva Records)
John Greaves - La Petite Bouteille de Linge (1991, La Lichère)
Johan Asherton - The Night Forlorn (1992, Fnac/Aurea Music)
Peter Blegvad & John Greaves - Dr. Huelsenbecks Mentale Heilmethod (1992, Rough Trade)
John Greaves - Songs (1995, Resurgence)
Peter Blegvad & John Greaves - Unearthed (1995, Sub Rosa)
Peter Blegvad - Just Woke Up (1995, RéR)
Soft Heap - A Veritable Centaur [rec. 1982/83] (1995, Impetus)
Peter Gordon & David Cunningham - The Yellow Box (1996, Piano)
Michael Mantler - The School of Understanding (1997, ECM)
Peter Blegvad - HangmanÕs Hill (1998, RéR)
Pip Pyle - 7 Year Itch (1998, Voiceprint)
National Health - Play Time [live 1979] (2001, Cuneiform Records)
John Greaves - The Caretaker (2001, Blueprint)
John Greaves, with Marcel Ballot and Patrice Meyer - On The Street Where You Live (2001, Blueprint)
John Greaves - The Trouble With Happiness (2003, Harmonia Mundi)
John Greaves & Elise Caron - Chansons (2004, Harmonia Mundi) 

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Haven't seen the answer so... "Capra : Isn't life beautiful" great film
another JS:

Edited by Alucard