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316

Article: 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.

239

Article: Album Review

Soft Machine: Softs

by John Kelman
August 23, 2010

The last several years have seen the bulk of legendary British group Soft Machine's original recordings reissued: some available after years out-of-print; all receiving sonic upgrades as definitive as they'll likely ever get. Still, Esoteric Recordings' Mark Powell gave all the love he could to Sony's reissue of the group's classic Third (1970), but its marginal ...

236

Article: Album Review

Soft Machine: Land of Cockayne

Read "Land of Cockayne" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
August 22, 2010

Three years after Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris (Harvest, 1978), Britain's Soft Machine suddenly resurfaced momentarily with Land of Cockayne. Given the experimental nature of its glory days and a latter-day fusion masterpiece in Bundles (Esoteric, 1975), it's understandable why Cockayne has historically been considered Soft Machine's dullest moment. But time heals all wounds, and ...

296

Article: Album Review

Soft Machine: Bundles

by John Kelman
June 30, 2010

If the recent discovery of NDR Jazz Workshop (Cuneiform, 2010) demonstrated that the once considered “transitional" 1973 line-up of British psychedelia-cum-electric-avant- jazzers Soft Machine was, indeed, a fine enough standalone unit, then Esoteric's near- concurrent reissue of 1975's Bundles proves that the addition of guitarist Allan Holdsworth lit one serious fire beneath that same group. Back ...

655

Article: Extended Analysis

Soft Machine: NDR Jazz Workshop - Hamburg, Germany May 17, 1973

by John Kelman
June 18, 2010

Every year it seems that more archive material is unearthed from Soft Machine, the legendary British group that began life in Dadaist psychedelia, but wound down as a powerhouse, chops-centric, fusion outfit at the end of the 1970s, with stops in more complex writing and free jazz territory along the way. As influenced by minimalist composers ...

387

Article: Album Review

Don Rendell Ian Carr Quintet: Live at the Union 1966

Read "Live at the Union 1966" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
May 11, 2010

During its five-year run, the Don Rendell Ian Carr Quintet was one of the UK's premiere small ensemble jazz groups. Five albums on Columbia didn't hurt either, from 1965's Shades of Blue through to 1969's Change Is, where dissention ultimately resulted in the band's dissolution. Sometimes it's for the best, though; saxophonist/flautist Rendell continued on in ...

1,326

Article: Extended Analysis

Eberhard Weber: Colours

by John Kelman
January 14, 2010

As the jazz-rock fusion movement gained ground from its early years in the late 1960s through its glory days in the early-to-mid-1970s—blending the more sophisticated harmonies of jazz with rock music's rhythmic power and high volume—all too often it was about muscular chops and complex writing for the sake of it. Little attention was paid to ...

Album

Eberhard Weber: Colours

By Eberhard Weber

Label: ECM Records
Released: 2009
Track listing: CD1 (Yellow Fields): Touch; Sand-Glass; Yellow Fields; Left Lane.

CD2 (Silent Feet): Seriously Deep; Silent Feet; Eyes That See in the Dark.

CD3 (Little Movements): The Last Stage of a Long Journey; Bali; A Dark Spell; Little Movements; "No Trees? He Said.

1,216

Article: Interview

Theo Travis: From Prog to Jazz and Back Again

by Bruce Lindsay
September 29, 2009

British musician Theo Travis has one of the most varied performing and recording histories to be found among contemporary jazz musicians. A talented saxophonist, flautist and composer, Travis has performed solo, in duos and quartets, in straight ahead jazz combos and in electronic, improvisational groups. He has performed live soundtracks in cinemas, ...

1,320

Article: Interview

John Surman: From Boy Choirs to Big Horns

by John Kelman
August 31, 2009

It's increasingly risky to be a musician on the road. When British saxophonist John Surman was traveling from his home in Oslo, Norway, to New York City in September, 2007 for a recording session, he almost lost his baritone saxophone to the airlines. “It is a nightmare traveling now," says Surman, “and hardly a tour goes ...