There was a time, right around when this album was recorded, when your reviewer, aged 17, consciously opined that there were only four bands he was interested in: Beefheart, Zappa, Crimson and Soft Machine. I owned only numbers 3, 4 & 5 by the latter, enjoying them all, after which I went on to other things. I mention this only to give context to the review below. Aside from the odd track here and there, I’ve heard almost nothing from Soft Machine since about 1972, haven’t by any means kept up with any releases of live material from the early days and couldn’t say precisely where this release fits in with the hagiography. I’m approaching this “naively”, as it were, though with fond memories of those early LPs.
This performance, contained on two discs, consisted of the approximately 40-minute sets they were wont to do, each set stringing together several themes, most of which had appeared on those third, fourth and fifth records. The band at this point in time — Mike Ratledge, the late Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper and Robert Wyatt — were beginning to strain at the seams, Wyatt in particular finding less and less to enjoy in extended forms, wanting to return to a song format. It is quite possibly just this tension that underlies and makes vibrant much of the music here. Given his extraordinary work on this date, one would never guess Wyatt was disgruntled, for instance. The overriding impression though, one that wouldn’t have crossed the mind of that 17-year old, is how akin Soft Machine was to what Miles Davis was doing contemporaneously, especially in the band with Jarrett and Corea. Less funky, sure, and lacking a truly magnificent lead horn but there are many parallels between DeJohnette’s and Wyatt’s approach and, particularly, Ratledge’s sound and that created by Miles’ keyboard tandem. Less generously, one might also find equivalencies between the noodling tendencies of Dean and Steve Grossman. You can even hear echoes (which way the influence was running might be another question) of the rock-influenced music George Russell was creating around the same time in works like “Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature”.
The medley structure makes for something of an overall sense of stasis. The themes range from catchy to crankily fussy in the manner of many a Canterbury melody from that era but are essentially just points of reference enabling the members to switch chords and rhythms and go spinning off much as they do on every piece, Hopper’s thick bass generally laying down a spongy bottom that meshes especially well with Wyatt. One of the attractions of the music is that there’s less overt virtuosity on display (with the arguable exception of Dean), the members managing to manifest a real group sound that ambles and jogs merrily along, maybe a trifle smoothly, but with exuberance. The recording is clear, the performance stands alongside the records from the period while expanding on them — what more could a Soft Machinist ask for? Well, maybe the third disc here, a small compendium of essays, photos and sound on the group, the recording technology of the time, the venue, influences, etc. If it wasn’t already a must-buy for the committed fan, that pretty much seals the deal.
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