Jazz Articles

Nucleus: UK Tour '76

by John Kelman
October 12, 2006

If British jazz/rock progenitor Ian Carr and his Nucleus group had made any kind of splash in the US with early albums like Elastic Rock (Vertigo, 1970), they had become largely forgotten by the mid-1970s. That's unfortunate, because they continued to record and tour in the UK and Europe and, with the exit of keyboardist/reedman/composer Karl Jenkins, became a significantly stronger vehicle for Carr's identity.

Later albums like Alleycat (Vertigo, 1975) lacked the panache of the earlier classics, but a ...

Soft Machine: British Tour '75

by John Kelman
October 5, 2005

Recent years have seen a wealth of archival live releases by British jazz-rock legend Soft Machine. But the lion's share of this material has revolved around the period 1970-72, which saw the classic lineup of keyboardist Mike Ratledge, saxophonist Elton Dean, bassist Hugh Hopper, and drummer Robert Wyatt morph from a freewheeling high-volume exploratory quartet into a more straightforward riff-based fusion band; ex-Nucleus reedman/keyboardist Karl Jenkins would assume leadership, along with another Nucleus alumnus, drummer John Marshall. The artistic success ...