Jazz Articles about Soft Machine

About Soft Machine

Album Review

Following a series of releases for Moonjune Records under the moniker Soft Machine Legacy, beginning with 2005's Live in Zaandam and concluding, most recently, with 2013's Burden of Proof, this quartet consisting largely of members from the classic Canterbury group Soft Machine has finally decided to drop the “Legacy" and go it with the original name alone. And why not? For a group that began in the mid-'60s and, over the next 15 years or so, released eleven ...

Album Review

Soft Machine: Switzerland 1974

Read "Switzerland 1974" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 30, 2015

Much has been written about this vastly influential and time-honored jazz fusion unit that skirted the avant-garde spectrum, especially when saxophone great Elton Dean was in the band, in addition to its psychedelic persuasions during the 60s. This 1974 live concert in Switzerland, features soon-to-be guitar god Allan Holdsworth's entry into the band's lineup. At this time, keyboardist Mike Ratledge loomed as the only founding member of the unit. These historic performances are supplemented by the concert footage DVD, underscored ...

Lyrics

Avanti o indietro?

by Alberto Bazzurro
March 30, 2015

La più o meno contigua uscita di reperti d'epoca di Jarrett, Osborne e Soft Machine ci induce a una disamina a largo raggio su cos'era e verso dove si muoveva il jazz, pur inteso in senso lato, nell'epoca in cui tanti ragazzi provenienti dal rock più o meno progressivo vi confluivano a frotte. Cercando anche di ragionare su com'è mutato in questi quarant'anni il concetto di avanguardia, di autenticità espressiva, sana sete di ricerca, e concetti analoghi. ...

Extended Analysis

Switzerland 1974

by John Kelman
February 21, 2015

Thank goodness for Cuneiform Records. Beyond releasing cutting edge new music from now-longstanding groups like The Claudia Quintet and relative newcomers like Norway's Pixel, the intrepid American label continues to unearth, restore and release wonderful archival finds like S.O.S.' Looking for the Next One (2013), and the equally impressive Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop-April '69 (2011), from one of the group's reed players, John Surman. Perhaps its most important work on the archival front has, however, been in sourcing live music ...

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Album Review

Soft Machine: Tales of Taliesin: The EMI Years Anthology 1975-1981

Read "Tales of Taliesin: The EMI Years Anthology 1975-1981" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
August 9, 2011

With the release of Bundles (Harvest, 1975), Soft Machine moved more definitively into the riff-based fusion territory that keyboardist/reed man Karl Jenkins had begun pushing the band since his arrival on Six (Sony, 1973). With reeds becoming increasingly less dominant, and the group's only remaining founding member, keyboardist Mike Ratledge, relegated to a backline position, this incarnation--distanced completely from the minimalist-informed, free jazz-centric, but still high volume and rock-edged classic quartet that recorded albums like the seminal Third (Sony, 1970)--truly ...

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Album Review

Soft Machine: Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris

Read "Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
February 25, 2011

Despite the controversy that plagued the ever-shifting musical persona of Soft Machine during its 15-year run, the benefits of time and hindsight have largely proven the value of every incarnation--albeit best assessed independently, rather than as part of a single continuum. 1978's Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris was the last of a three-record run on Harvest, and saw Soft Machine leave all vestiges of its roots behind, as its last remaining founder, keyboardist Mike Ratledge, finally disappeared entirely, by ...

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Album Review

Soft Machine: NDR Jazz Workshop –Hamburg, Germany 1973

Read "NDR Jazz Workshop –Hamburg, Germany 1973" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
September 5, 2010

By May, 1973, Soft Machine was well on its way from being a truly remarkable outfit to being a comparatively anonymous fusion band. This CD and DVD set goes to show this, but at least the music is played with the kind of fire that wasn't apparent on their studio albums of the time. While the rhythm section--bassist Roy Babbington and drummer John Marshall--was a lot more “correct" than its predecessors, the pair does inject a kind ...