The Insect Trust

Insect Trust were an American jazz-based rock band that formed in New York in 1967. 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, who had played with Albert Ayler (and later an original member of The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo), on bass and trumpet; as well as Warren Gardner on trumpet and clarinet, were part of the band by the time they recorded their second album. The band probably took its name from William S. Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch. The music ranges from surreal folk-rock (in the vein of such local heroes like Holy Modal Rounders and Fugs), to Booker T.-like pop-soul, to flat-out free jazz. Never intended to be a traditional pop act, the Insect Trust should be best remembered for extending rock's boundaries and taking the genre to a much hipper level without resorting to a lot of banal technique.