"Elton Dean (28 October 1945 Ð 8 February 2006) was an English jazz musician who performed on alto saxophone, saxello (a variant of the soprano saxophone) and occasionally keyboards.

Dean was born Nottingham, England, moving to Tooting, London, soon after his birth. From 1966 to 1967, Dean was a member of the band Bluesology, led by Long John Baldry. The band's pianist, Reginald Dwight, afterward combined Dean's and Baldry's first names for his own stage name, Elton John.

Dean established his reputation as a member of the Keith Tippett Sextet from 1968 to 1970, and in the band Soft Machine from 1969 to 1972. Shortly before leaving Soft Machine he started his own group, Just Us.

From 1975 to 1978 he led a nine-piece band called Ninesense, performing at the Bracknell Jazz Festival and similar events. His own groups since then, usually quartets or quintets, have most often worked in the free jazz mode, with little or no pre-composed material such as Soft Heap with Mark Hewins. At the same time, he continued to work with other groups that are very composition-based, such as guitarist Phil Miller's In Cahoots, drummer Pip Pyle's Equipe Out, and various projects with former Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper.

In 2002, Dean and three other former Soft Machine members (Hugh Hopper, drummer John Marshall, and guitarist Allan Holdsworth) toured and recorded under the name Soft Works. With another former Soft Machine member, guitarist John Etheridge, replacing Holdsworth, they subsequently toured and recorded as Soft Machine Legacy, playing some pieces from the original Soft Machine repertoire as well as new works. Featuring Dean, three albums of the Legacy have been released: Live in Zaandam (CD, rec. 2005/05/10), New Morning - The Paris Concert (DVD, rec. 2005/12/12) and the studio album Soft Machine Legacy (CD, 2006, rec. 2005).

Dean's last musical collaborations also included those with Soft Bounds, a quartet composed of Dean, Hugh Hopper, Sophia Domancich and Simon Goubert, and also with Alex Maguire's project Psychic Warrior.

Dean died on 8 February 2006 after more than a year of "heart and liver problems," on the day before he was to join a reunion of Soft Machine."

"Alan Skidmore, a world-class musician experienced in a myriad of musical environments and disciplines, is renowned both as a soloist and as a section player on films, radio and television. The list of international artists with whom he has performed and recorded reads like a "Who's Who" of contemporary music and includes Georgie Fame, John Mayall, Elvin Jones, Eric Clapton, Clark Terry, Stan Tracey, Van Morrison, Charlie Watts, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Weather Report and Dexter Gordon!

Skid's formative years - what he has described as "my university education" - was playing with John Mayall and Alexis Korner in the early 1960s.

The earliest of his many special achievements came in 1969, when his quintet, featuring the late Kenny Wheeler, represented the UK at the Montreux: Jazz Festival and won the International Press Awards for Best Soloist, which included a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, and for Best Band.

Alan first won the Melody Maker Jazz Poll for saxophone in 1971 and again in 1972, 1973 and 1974. In 1973 he formed the band S.O.S with John Surman and Mike Osborne, with which he toured extensively and appeared at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Always popular in Germany Alan also had the pleasure of being invited to play at NDR Hamburg's Jazz Workshop with Weather Report for TV broadcast and also for jazz education purposes.

In 1984 Alan toured India, Hong Kong and the Philippines as the featured soloist with the Cologne-based West Deutscher Rundfunk (WDR) Big Band.

One of the major highlight's of Alan's career was the honour and privilege of working at Ronnie Scott's with the Elvin Jones Jazz Machine in 1988, giving Alan the opportunity to work with his hero, John Coltrane's, regular drummer.

During the 1980s he represented the BBC at the Belgrade Festival with the band S.O.H. (Skidmore, Oxley and Haurand), with which he toured Europe for six years, and has toured the world and recorded with Rolling Stones' drummer Charlie Watts, Stan Tracey and Georgie Fame, featuring with Georgie on BBC TV's Later With Jools Holland.

In the 1990s, after the abolition of apartheid, Alan was chosen to be the first European jazz musician to go on a British Council sponsored tour of South Africa, and has since recorded three CDs The Call,Ubizo and 50 Journeys with the African drum band Amampondo and they have toured the UK several times as Alan Skidmore's Ubizo.

n 1998 Alan became one of a very small band of saxophonists - Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt and Stan Getz - to record an album with a full orchestra. After the Rain has proved a great favourite and has been reissued in 2017. His "Tribute to John Coltrane" UK tour which included appearances at Brecon Jazz Festival and Cheltenham Jazz Festival received rave reviews, and more recently, he has collaborated with Peter King at the North Sea Jazz Festival where they presented their "In Honour of Bird and Trane" programme, accompanied by the celebrated Dutch band, the Rein de Graaff Trio while, closer to home, he has performed at the Royal Albert Hall with Elvis Costello and Georgie Fame.

In July 2017 he featured at a special memorial tribute concert marking the 50th anniversary of John Coltrane's passing at London's Cafe Oto with Paul Dunmall's Sunship Quartet. In 1987 he shared the bill at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon with a quintet with many of Coltrane's regular collaborators to mark the 20th anniversary."

"Harold Winston "Harry" Beckett (30 May 1935 - 22 July 2010) was a British trumpeter and flugelhorn player of Barbadian origin.

Born in Bridgetown, Saint Michael, Barbados, Harry Beckett learned to play music in a Salvation Army band. A resident in the UK since 1954, he had an international reputation. In 1961, he played with Charles Mingus in the film All Night Long. In the 1960s he worked and recorded within the band of bass player and composer Graham Collier. Beginning in 1970, he led groups of his own, recording for Philips, RCA and Ogun Records among other labels.

He was a key figure of important groups in the British free jazz/improvised music scene, including Ian Carr's Nucleus, the Brotherhood of Breath and The Dedication Orchestra, London Jazz Composers Orchestra, London Improvisers Orchestra, John Surman's Octet, Django Bates, Ronnie Scott's Quintet, Kathy Stobart, Charlie Watts, Stan Tracey's Big Band and Octet; Elton Dean's Ninesense. He has also recorded with Keef Hartley, Jah Wobble, David Sylvian and worked with David Murray. He toured abroad with Johnny Dyani, Chris McGregor, Keith Tippett, John Tchicai, Joachim Kühn, Dudu Pukwana's Zila, George Gruntz's Bands, Belgian quintet The Wrong Object, Pierre Dørge's New Jungle Band and Annie Whitehead's Robert Wyatt project, Soupsongs, which also featured Phil Manzanera and Julie Tippetts, among other jazz and rock luminaries.

His dub-oriented album, The Modern Sound of Harry Beckett, was produced by famed British producer Adrian Sherwood and released on On-U Sound in late 2008.

In 1972, Beckett won the Melody Maker jazz Poll as "Top Trumpeter in Britain". He was a member of the Orchestre National de Jazz between 1997 and 2000.

Beckett died on 22 July 2010 after suffering a stroke."

"Mark Charig (born 22 February 1944 in London) is a British trumpeter and cornetist.

He was particularly active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he played in settings as diverse as Long John Baldry's group, Bluesology, Soft Machine, and Keith Tippett's group and his Centipede big band. Charig also featured on several King Crimson albums, being particularly prominent in a long solo on the title track of Islands, on the title track of Lizard and on the track 'Fallen Angel' on the 'Red' album.

In the mid-1970s he also toured with the group Red Brass, which featured singer Annie Lennox. He also appeared with the Brotherhood of Breath and recorded with Mike Osborne, as well as releasing his own Pipedream LP on Ogun Records.

He is also a member of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra. He now lives in Germany and is a member of the Wuppertal-based Conduction Orchestra.

More recently, he has recorded KJU: a CD of quartet improvisations with the group "Quatuohr""

"Nicholas "Nick" Evans (born January 1947 in Newport, Monmouthshire, South Wales) is a Welsh jazz and progressive rock trombonist.

Evans worked in the Graham Collier Sextet (1968-69), Keith Tippett Group (1968-70), Soft Machine (1969), Brotherhood of Breath (1970-74), Centipede (1970-71), Just Us (1972-73), Ambush (1972), Ninesense (1975-80), Intercontinental Express (1976), Ark (1976, 1978), Nicra (1977), Dudu Pukwana's Diamond Express (1977), Spirits Rejoice (1978-79), and Dreamtime (1983).

He started playing the trombone at age 11 and by 1966 he had joined the New Welsh Jazz Orchestra. In that period he first joined the Graham Collier Sextet. In 1968 at the Barry school he worked with Keith Tippett and became a founding member of his sextet. He later worked with South African band Brotherhood of Breath and also Soft Machine. He is an important figure in the Canterbury Scene.

Evans also appeared on the album Lizard by the progressive rock band, King Crimson, in 1970."

"Radu Malfatti is an Austrian trombone player and composer. He was born in Innsbruck, in the province of Tyrol, on December 16, 1943. He has been described as "among the leaders in redefining the avant-garde as truly on-the-edge art." His work "since the early nineties... has been investigating the edges of ultraminimalism in both his composed and improvised work." He also operates B-Boim, a CD-R only record label focusing on improvised and composed music, much of it his own."

"Keith Tippett (born Keith Graham Tippetts; 25 August 1947) is a British jazz pianist and composer.

Tippett was born in Southmead, Bristol. The son of an English father who was a policeman and an Irish mother name of Kitty. Keith wrote music dedicated to her after she died. Keith was the oldest of three siblings and had Clive and Thomas as brothers. Tippett went to Greenway Secondary Modern school in Southmead, Bristol. He formed his first band when he was fourteen with school friends, such as Richard Murch, Mike Milton, Terry Pratt and Bob Chard. They were called the KT Trad Lads performing Traditional jazz. Later Keith formed a modern jazz trio in Bristol and played regularly at the Dugout Club in Park Row, Bristol. He studied Piano and Church Organ, was a chorister and played with the school and Bristol youth brass bands. He moved to London in 1967, to pursue a musical life.

In the late 1960s, Tippett led a sextet featuring Elton Dean on saxophone, Mark Charig on trumpet and Nick Evans on trombone. Tippett married singer Julie Driscoll and wrote scores for TV.

In the early 1970s, his big band Centipede brought together much of a generation of young British jazz and rock musicians. As well as performing some concerts (limited economically by the size of the band), they recorded one double-album, Septober Energy.

He formed, with Harry Miller and Louis Moholo a formidable rhythm section at the centre of some the most exciting combinations in the country, including the Elton Dean quartet, and Elton Dean's Ninesense. Around the same time, he was also in the vicinity of King Crimson, contributing piano to several of their records including "Cat Food" (and even appearing with them on Top of the Pops). His own groups, such as Ovary Lodge tended towards a more contemplative form of European free improvisation. He continues to perform with the improvising ensemble Mujician and more recently (2006) Work in Progress.

Tippett has appeared and recorded in a wide variety of settings, including a duet with Stan Tracey, duets with his wife Julie Tippetts, solo performances, and appeared on three King Crimson albums."

"Harold Simon "Harry" Miller (25 April 1941 - 16 December 1983) was a South African jazz bass player, who settled in Europe, becoming one of the UK jazz scene's "most vibrant and dynamic talents".

Miller was born in Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa. He began his career as a bassist with Manfred Mann, and went to settle in London, England. He was a central figure in the mixture of South-African township music and free-jazz that dynamised the scene in London at the end of the 1960s and into the '70s. Miller recorded frequently with musicians such as Mike Westbrook, Chris McGregor, John Surman, Mike Cooper, Louis Moholo, Keith Tippett and Elton Dean.

At the end of the 1970s he moved to the Netherlands for economic reasons, where he worked with musicians of Willem Breuker's circle. Miller also appeared on the album Islands by the progressive rock band King Crimson, in 1971 as session musician.

Miller died in a car crash in the Netherlands in 1983.

The record label Ogun Records, which he founded with his wife Hazel Miller, was vital for documenting that period, and is still active today."

"Louis Tebogo Moholo (born 10 March 1940), is a South African jazz drummer.

Born in Cape Town, Moholo formed The Blue Notes with Chris McGregor, Johnny Dyani, Nikele Moyake, Mongezi Feza and Dudu Pukwana, and emigrated to Europe with them in 1964, eventually settling in London, where he formed part of a South African exile community that made an important contribution to British jazz. He was a member of the Brotherhood of Breath, a big band comprising several South African exiles and leading musicians of the British free jazz scene in the 1970s and is the founder of Viva la Black and The Dedication Orchestra. His first album under his own name, Spirits Rejoice on Ogun Records, is considered a classic example of the combination of British and South African players. In the early 1970s, Moholo was also a member of the afro-rock band Assagai.

He has played with many musicians, including Derek Bailey, Steve Lacy, Evan Parker, Enrico Rava, Roswell Rudd, Irène Schweizer, Cecil Taylor, John Tchicai, Archie Shepp, Peter Brötzmann, Mike Osborne, Keith Tippett, Elton Dean and Harry Miller.

Moholo returned to South Africa in September 2005, performing with George Lewis at the UNYAZI Festival of Electronic Music in Johannesburg. He now goes under the name Louis Moholo-Moholo because the name is more ethnically authentic. South African promoter Slow Life in March 2017 at the Olympia Bakery in Kalk Bay, Cape Town produced a show where Louis performed along with Mark Fransman, Reza Khota, Keenan Ahrends and Brydon Bolton."