Jazz Articles about Soft Machine

Soft Machine-y Round-Up: Soft Machine Legacy, Elton Dean & The Wrong Object & Delta Saxophone Quartet

by Martin Longley
February 3, 2008

Soft Machine Legacy Steam Moonjune 2007 Elton Dean & The Wrong Object The Unbelievable Truth Moonjune 2007 Delta Saxophone Quartet Dedicated to You...But You Weren't Listening -- The Music of Soft Machine Moonjune 2007

Soft Machine really does have an ongoing, extended legacy ...

Soft Machine Legacy: Steam

by Nic Jones
August 19, 2007

The band name says it all. Three members of this quartet worked at different times in the original Soft Machine whilst the fourth has assumed the mantle once taken by the late and lamented musician, Elton Dean. They've come up with a program of music that pulls off the not inconsiderable feat of acknowledging the legacy at the same time as it forges ahead in new and distinct ways. The world would be a far more interesting place if more ...

Soft Machine Legacy: Steam

by Glenn Astarita
August 12, 2007

This ensemble's birthright continues via numerous personnel changes over the years as its longstanding members--bassist Hugh Hopper and drummer John Marshall--carry the proverbial torch. With sax great Elton Dean's passing in 2006, Soft Machine Legacy has regrouped and surged onward. Regardless, this effort looms as a milestone of sorts.

Multi-woodwind ace Theo Travis' presence looms mightily here, especially when mixing it up with legendary guitar virtuoso John Etheridge. One of the underlying factors on this release pertains to ...

Soft Machine: Grides

by Donald Elfman
August 2, 2007

These Cuneiform people have a sense of what music grabbed people at a crucial point in the development of jazz and rock. Their sixth rare Soft Machine set is a thing of primal, noisy wonder, forged at a time when the fusion was “nuclear --causing sonic explosions. This version of the group--with the late Elton Dean on saxophones and electric piano, Hugh Hopper on bass, Mike Ratledge on keyboards and Robert Wyatt on drums--was the quintessential British group of its ...

Soft Machine: Third through Seven Remasters

by John Kelman
February 28, 2007

While the merits of remastered reissues are the source of considerable debate, there's no denying that the discography of pioneering British jazz/rock band Soft Machine has been more deserving of attention than most. In the group's fourteen-year existence it shifted gears more often than outfits lasting considerably longer. Beginning in the late 1960s as a psychedelic pop band with jazz tendencies, by the time CBS picked them up for a five-album run between 1970 and 1973 there was no doubt ...

Soft Machine: Middle Earth Masters

by Clifford Allen
December 9, 2006

In recent years, followers of the Soft Machine have had a boon of documents that have shown the band's continual refinement as a jazz-rock juggernaut. Most of the live performances that have surfaced have been the “classic early '70s quartet with bassist Hugh Hopper, organist/electric pianist Mike Ratledge, saxophonist Elton Dean and drummer Robert Wyatt.

The Softs formed in 1967; apart from two ABC/Probe recordings and an early bootleg featuring Gong ringleader Daevid Allen (originally appearing on a BYG offshoot, ...

Soft Machine: Middle Earth Masters

by John Kelman
November 20, 2006

In following the path of seminal British group Soft Machine, there seems to be little to link its mid-1960s emergence as a psychedelic avant-pop band to its guitar-centric fusion at the end of the 1970s. But every evolutionary step revealed a band evolving from one incarnation to the next in logical increments. Middle Earth Masters, culled from three performances from the fall of 1967 through the same time a year later, shows that the building blocks for the classic 1970-72 ...