Soft Machine Live In Paris CD

Saxophonist Elton Dean's last performance with Soft Machine, this concert was recorded live in Paris in May of 1972. The two-disc set draws largely from the albums FOUR and FIVE and finds the quartet indulging its improvisatory skills throughout.

John Marshall's drumming easily moves from bedrock propulsion to exuberant and inventive explosions, while the familiar tones of Mike Ratledge's organ and electric piano and Hugh Hopper's trademark bass guitar tie the band sonically right back to its roots in Canterbury, England, six years previously. The sound throughout is sharp--this was a nicely recorded event--documenting the band's improvisations in clear detail.

Those whose interest in British jazz-rock legend Soft Machine ceases at the point where drummer/singer Robert Wyatt left the band in 1971 stand to have their preconceptions shattered by this two-disc live recording of the band's subsequent phase. One of numerous revelatory live Soft Machine recordings released posthumously by Cuneiform Records, LIVE IN PARIS catches the group in transition. With John Marshall (former bandmate of UK free-jazzer Keith Tippett) replacing Wyatt, Soft Machine moved definitively away from rock trappings toward a jazzier, more cerebral approach that further accentuated the improvisatory abilities of keyboardist Mike Ratledge and saxman Elton Dean.

They prove themselves fully able to tackle the bulk of their landmark Wyatt-era album THIRD here. However, tracks that would appear shortly after this May '72 concert on FIFTH show the band flexing new muscles. Dean's post-Coltrane solos and Ratledge's trademark fuzz-organ lines bob and weave through tunes that show the quartet to be no slouches in the compositional department (of course Dean, Ratledge and bassist Hugh Hopper had already contributed mightily to the band's songbook before Wyatt left). Three of these tracks would never make it to the studio, as this mighty lineup would splinter before FIFTH was even released, making LIVE IN PARIS all the more special.

Recorded live in France.

Soft Machine: Hugh Hopper (bass guitar); Elton Dean, John Marshall , Mike Ratledge.

Personnel: Elton Dean (saxophone, alto saxophone, electric piano); Mike Ratledge (electric piano, organ); John Marshall (drums).

Liner Note Author: Aymeric Leroy.

Recording information: Paris, France (05/02/1972).

Photographer: Jochen Monch.

Soft Machine: Elton Dean (saxello, alto saxophone, Rhodes electric piano); Mike Ratledge (electric piano, organ); Hugh Hopper (bass); John Marshall (drums).

The Wire (p.60) - "The sound of the recording is clear, if not atmospheric, and the drums sound great..."
JazzTimes (p.96) - "Dean's buzzing, terse saxello and soprano saxophone parts are the primary element here. Hopper and Ratledge give the music its character with brooding, simple vamps from the former and unsettled, churning chords from the latter."