Jazz Articles about Hugh Hopper

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Hugh Hopper: Idiom As A Means To No End

by Nic Jones
May 13, 2008

Hugh Hopper started out on his path through music as a stalwart of the British Canterbury scene, from which came bands including Soft Machine, of which Hopper was a member for five years, Caravan and Hatfield and The North. In a sense he's embodied the music which emerged from that scene, which might be best described as an idiosyncratic take on jazz-rock fusion. Any pigeonholing this might imply does him an injustice however, as it takes no account of his ...

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Hugh Hopper: Numero D'Vol

by Glenn Astarita
September 9, 2007

Legendary British bassist Hugh Hopper steps aside from his duties with Soft Machine Legacy to further his solo career, spanning back to the 1970s during those astounding Canterbury progressive-rock years. Unlike previous endeavors, the bassist integrates elements of the avant modern British jazz scene, largely due to the performance of estimable saxophonist Simon Picard. And speaking of legends, what a welcome surprise to hear drummer Charles Hayward (This Heat, Massacre) driving the often-pulsating back-beats. Hopper sports his somewhat patented monster-fuzz ...

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Hugh Hopper: Numero D'Vol

by Nic Jones
September 5, 2007

Hugh Hopper's a busy man as far as recording goes these days, and this one comes more or less immediately after Soft Machine Legacy's Steam on the same label. Comparison between the two perhaps reveals this one as a more varied affair, with the music lacking the air of tension that's such a constructive feature of the other title. This music however stands up in its own right, and the fact that it's been put out by a quartet in ...

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Hugh Hopper: Hopper Tunity Box

by Nic Jones
April 4, 2007

In chronological terms Kevin Ayers and Hugh Hopper were the bass players in the most worthwhile editions of the British band Soft Machine, an outfit which, in the days before they became a fairly routine jazz-rock band, exhibited truly progressive ideals in terms of musical scope. Hopper left the band in 1972, and in August of the same year he recorded the album 1984 (reissued by Cuneiform in 1998), which the benefit of hindsight reveals as containing some of the ...

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Hugh Hopper: Hopper Tunity Box

by John Kelman
February 15, 2007

Why re-review an album covered less than eighteen months ago? In the case of bassist Hugh Hopper's second solo album (and his first after leaving seminal British jazz-rock group Soft Machine), it's because this reissue comes very close to sounding like an entirely new record.

According to Hopper, during the mastering process of Hopper Tunity Box, an unnoticed skip during the late saxophonist Elton Dean's solo on the lyrically swinging “The Lonely Sea and the Sky made it onto several ...

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Hugh Hopper: Hopper Tunity Box

by AAJ Italy Staff
February 8, 2007

Dici Hugh Hopper e subito pensi ai Soft Machine. Inutile nascondersi, la fama del baffuto bassista resta indissolubilmente legata al gruppo di punta della scena di Canterbury. Poco più di quattro anni di militanza, dal dicembre del ’68 (quando il nostro subentra all’eccentrico Kevin Ayers) al maggio del ’73, che hanno consegnato ai posteri cinque album ufficiali e una delle line up più celebri della storia del rock: Hopper, Wyatt, Ratledge, Dean. Il 1973 è anche l’anno del debutto solista ...

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Hugh Hopper: Hopper Tunity Box

by John Kelman
September 21, 2005

With the bounty of archival Soft Machine recordings currently being released, it's a good time to revisit solo works by various members of the group--and new related works as well. Bassist Hugh Hopper--a member of the near-iconic Canterbury group from '69 through '73--has been involved in a number of recent offshoot projects including the French group Polysoft's '02 Tribute to Soft Machine and Softworks, which brought together Soft Machine alumni Hopper, saxophonist Elton Dean, guitarist Allan Holdsworth, and drummer John ...