Elton Dean: Bands that Aren't the Soft Machine

Having the Soft Machine legacy to live up to during most of one’s career is probably difficult. Elton Dean did well though. That yoke never brought him down. Instead, using some tenets of what the saxophonist worked out in the Soft Machine, Dean went on to a career as a date leader and sideman while maintaining a unique voice on his instrument.

The two best (read most enjoyable and listenable) albums from the Soft Machine came after Daevid Allen left the group to found Gong. What followed - Third (1970) and Fourth (1971) released on CBS Records – was and adroit amalgam of jazz, psychedelic weirdness and aggressive rock stuffs. The band even toured with Hendrix: they were that good.

The line-up - Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper and Elton Dean – didn’t last too long before players left to fulfill other various musical inclinations. But over those two aforementioned discs, it became clear that no other fusion outfit had a chance at working in the same territory as the Soft Machine.

After leaving the group himself, Dean formed a group called Just Us as well as a different ensemble named Ninesense. Both line ups shifted and occasionally included Keith Tippet. There wasn’t really a tie to the Cantebury stuff anymore, just an open mind in regards to what jazz could be and do. But regardless of the players and the styles that Dean surrounded himself with, the saxophonist created some forward leaning jazz. It wasn’t necessarily free jazz, but the music had its out elements that made recordings relatively bizarre to hear for traditional jazz fans.

The Ninesense group, obviously comprised of nine players, took on a big band feel to backing orchestration while still including bop elements in solos and some noisier ideas. The group’s 1976 album, Oh! For the Edge, counts only five tracks, but seeing as a good half of ‘em are extended, there’s some dense work to get through here.

“Foresoothe” opens with some dirgy big band weirdness and moves into solo space, all airy and auspicious for Dean and his compatriots. It isn’t the highlight of the disc, but some of the sections that build to the inevitable peak are tension filled and keep listeners enrapt in the collage of resounding notes.

What could be considered the album’s center piece, “M.T.,” clocks in at fourteen minutes and change. Beginning in a subdued manner – but not unlike “Foresoothe” – the ensemble gets to some traditional backing music before band members are allowed to indulge in some bop inspired work outs. It isn’t mid blowing either, but in its traditional stance the track accentuates the brief moments where band members fly off into freak-outs. The contrast between the two approaches, not just here, but over the entire disc, are what make the album so interesting.

Oh! For the Edge might appeal to some traditional folks – although they also might abhor the solos. And the out jazz folks might decry introductory passages as stale, but there’s a little bit of everything tossed in. So listen good.