The Canterbury Scene

@ Wiki
The Canterbury scene (or Canterbury sound) is a term used to loosely describe the group of progressive rock, avant-garde and jazz musicians, many of whom were based around the city of Canterbury, Kent, England during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many prominent British avant-garde or fusion musicians began their career in Canterbury bands, such as Fred Frith, Allan Holdsworth, and Peter Blegvad. Over the years, with band membership changes and new bands evolving, the term has been used to describe a musical style or subgenre, rather than a regional group of musicians.

Definition
The Canterbury scene is largely defined by a set of musicians and bands with intertwined memberships. These are not tied by very strong musical similarities, but a certain whimsicalness, touches of psychedelia, rather abstruse lyrics, and a use of improvisation derived from jazz are common elements in their work. “The real essence of 'Canterbury Sound' is the tension between complicated harmonies, extended improvisations, and the sincere desire to write catchy pop songs.” “In the very best Canterbury music...the musically silly and the musically serious are juxtaposed in an amusing and endearing way.”

There is variation within the scene, for example from pop/rock like early Soft Machine and much Caravan to avant-garde composed pieces as with early National Health to improvised jazz as with later Soft Machine or In Cahoots. Didier Malherbe (of Gong) has defined the scene as having "certain chord changes, in particular the use of minor second chords, certain harmonic combinations, and a great clarity in the aesthetics, and a way of improvising that is very different from what is done in jazz."

There is debate about the existence and definition of the scene. Dave Stewart has complained at the nomenclature as he and many other musicians identified with the Canterbury scene never had anything to do with Canterbury, the place. The former Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper, who lives in Whitstable, near Canterbury, has said: "I think it's a rather artificial label, a journalistic thing... I don't mind it, but people like Robert [Wyatt], he in fact hates that idea, because he was born somewhere else and just happened to go to school here. In the time when the Wilde Flowers started we hardly ever worked in Canterbury. It wasn't until Robert and Daevid went to London to start Soft Machine that anything happened at all. They weren't really a Canterbury band if it helps people understand or listen to more music then it is fine."

History
The scene had one main root in the Wilde Flowers, a band formed in 1964 which, at various times, was home to most of the founding musicians of both the Soft Machine and Caravan, bands which in turn provided the musicians of several later bands. The genesis of the Canterbury Sound may, in part, be traced back to 1960, when Australian beatnik Daevid Allen lodged at Robert Wyatt's parents' guest-house in Lydden, ten miles to the south of Canterbury. Allen brought with him an extensive collection of jazz records, a different lifestyle, and the jazz drummer George Niedorf who later taught Wyatt the drums. In 1963, Wyatt, Allen and Hugh Hopper formed the Daevid Allen Trio (in London) which metamorphosised into the Wilde Flowers when Allen left for France. Wyatt, Allen, Kevin Ayers (from the Wilde Flowers) and Mike Ratledge (who had played on occasion with the Daevid Allen Trio) formed Soft Machine in 1966.

Other key early bands were Delivery and Egg, whose members blended into the Canterbury scene in the early 1970s. For example, Phil Miller of Delivery went on to found Matching Mole and Hatfield and the North, the latter with Dave Stewart of Egg. Both were later in National Health, while Steve Hillage, who dropped out of a degree course at the University of Kent at Canterbury, had worked with the members of Egg in a previous band, Uriel, was later in Gong with Allen.

The Canterbury scene is known for having a set of musicians who often rotated into different Canterbury bands. Richard Sinclair, for example, was at different points of his career, in the Wilde Flowers, Camel, Caravan, Hatfield and the North and, briefly, Gilgamesh; he also worked with National Health. His cousin Dave Sinclair was in Caravan, Camel, Matching Mole and, briefly, Hatfield and the North. Robert Wyatt was a member of the Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine, Matching Mole, and also did work as a solo artist. Pip Pyle was in Delivery, Gong, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Soft Heap and In Cahoots. Hugh Hopper was in Soft Machine, Isotope, Stomu Yamash'Ta's band, Soft Heap, In Cahoots and, with Pyle and Allen, Brainville, Hughscore, as well as doing numerous of his own group and solo projects and working with non-Canterbury bands such as Bone.

Other individuals peripheral to the scene but with connections include Mike Oldfield (who played in Kevin Ayers' band), Bill Bruford (briefly drummed in Gong and National Health and employed Dave Stewart in his late 1970s Bruford Band) and Allan Holdsworth (who worked with Soft Machine, Gong in their jazz rock period, and the Bruford Band).

Bands and Musicians
The five central Canterbury bands, according to the Calyx website, are Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong, Hatfield and the North and National Health. Other bands were Egg, Gilgamesh, Henry Cow, In Cahoots, Khan, Matching Mole, Bruford, Camel, Caravan of Dreams, Comus, Delivery, Isotope, Mashu, Mirage, Ottawa Music Company, The Polite Force, Quiet Sun, Rapid Eye Movement, Soft Heap, Short Wave, and the Wilde Flowers.

Key Canterbury musicians include (with example bands):
* Daevid Allen (Soft Machine, Gong, Brainville)
* Kevin Ayers (Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine, Gong)
* Mont Campbell (Uriel, Egg, National Health)
* Lindsay Cooper (Henry Cow, Feminist Improvising Group, Mike Oldfield, National Health, Mike Westbrook Orchestra, News from Babel)
* Lol Coxhill (Delivery, Kevin Ayers & The Whole World)
* Chris Cutler (Ottawa Music Company, Henry Cow, Art Bears, News from Babel, Peter Blegvad Trio)
* Elton Dean (Keith Tippett Sextet, Soft Machine, Just Us, Centipede, Soft Heap, In Cahoots, Pip Pyle's Equip'Out)
* Fred Frith (Henry Cow, Art Bears)
* Alan Gowen (Gilgamesh, National Health, Soft Heap)
* John Greaves (Henry Cow, National Health, Soft Heap, Peter Blegvad Trio)
* Jimmy Hastings [2] (Caravan, Caravan of Dreams, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Soft Machine)
* Mark Hewins (Sinclair and the South, The Polite Force, Soft Heap, Gong, Mashu, Caravan of Dreams)
* Steve Hillage (Uriel, Khan, Kevin Ayers, Gong, System 7)
* Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow)
* Allan Holdsworth (Soft Machine, Gong, Bruford)
* Hugh Hopper (Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine, Isotope, Soft Heap, In Cahoots, Pip Pyle's Equip'Out)
* Karl Jenkins (Nucleus, Soft Machine, Adiemus)
* Geoff Leigh (Henry Cow, The Black Sheep)
* Phil Miller (Delivery, Matchine Mole, Hatfield and the North, National Health, In Cahoots, Richard Sinclair Band, Hugh Hopper Band)
* Pierre Moerlen (Gong, Mike Oldfield Band, Gongzilla)
* François Ovide (John Greaves Group)
* Pip Pyle (Delivery, Gong, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Soft Heap, In Cahoots, Pip Pyle's Equip'Out, John Greaves Band, Hugh Hopper Band)
* Mike Ratledge (Soft Machine, Adiemus)
* Geoff Richardson (Spirogyra, Caravan)
* David Sinclair (Wilde Flowers, Caravan, Matching Mole, Hatfield and the North, The Polite Force, Camel)
* Richard Sinclair (Wilde Flowers, Caravan, Delivery, Hatfield and the North, Sinclair and the South, Camel, In Cahoots, Caravan of Dreams)
* Gilli Smyth (Gong)
* Dave Stewart (Uriel, Egg, Ottawa Music Company, Khan, Hatfield and the North, Gong, National Health, Bruford, Rapid Eye Movement)
* Andy Ward (Camel, Marillion, Caravan of Dreams, Mirage)
* Robert Wyatt (Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine, Matching Mole) =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

@ Calyx Club

What Is Canterbury Music?

The musicians' opinion :

Richard Sinclair (The Wilde Flowers and Caravan)
"People say, what is the Canterbury scene? I think you have to come to Canterbury and see it and hear it ! I think Kent has got a particular sound. We've sung it in our schools here, we were all at school in this sort of area. I was part of the Church of England choir : up to the age of sixteen I was singing tonalities that are very English. Over the last three or four hundred years, and even earlier than that, some of the tonalities go back. So they are here, and they are a mixture of European things too. The history is very much that. A very historical centre of activity is Canterbury for the last hundred years. So it's quite an important stepping stone of whatever this thousand years have covered. I think it's not to be mocked because it's a centre of communication here and it's a meeting point - many nations come here to visit the cathedral, so you get a very unique situation happening".

"A lot goes on here, it's quite cosmopolitan, Canterbury, to a degree... But that's because of the tourists, not from the people who actually live here : they are very conservative, not cosmopolitan at all, not particularly worldly, I don't think. The music happens outside, gets written here and taken out. This is the Canterbury scene for me. It doesn't really exist here, but it forms here. Musicians, friends join together and play music together, and then they head off around Europe and play their music and get noted for this type of sound".

Hugh Hopper (Soft Machine)
"I think it's a rather artificial label, a journalistic thing... I don't mind it, but people like Robert [Wyatt], he in fact hates that idea, because he was born somewhere else and just happened to go to school here. In the time when the Wilde Flowers started we hardly ever worked in Canterbury. It wasn't until Robert and Daevid went to London to start Soft Machine that anything happened at all. They weren't really a Canterbury band... So, it doesn't worry me... if it helps people understand or listen to more music then it is fine".

"Canterbury has never been a really good place to play. I played one gig last Friday and it was the first I played here for about two years. It's not virtually a musical place. There are lots of people who've come from it. There are few pubs here, but it's not really a musical hotbed at all... I was born in Canterbury and I lived here until I was about nineteen and then I lived in other places in France and London, other places in Kent... And I gradually came back this way - it wasn't really a plan, it just happened this way. So that Canterbury thing, it's a nice idea because it's a nice little town, it's got a cathedral and in the Summer it looks good. But not much is happening here, really".

Robert Wyatt (Soft Machine)
"I couldn't tell you much about that... I don't remember any particular movement happening there. I was at school there, I got married there and I lived there for a while. The school I went to had nothing special, there wasn't any particular interest for art, and I grew bored because I wasn't really good at school... If there ever was a Canterbury scene, it was when the Wilde Flowers became Caravan : they were Canterbury people...".

"I didn't even know it meant me until interviewers started asking me about it. As I say, because I'd bussed in from outside to go to school there I didn't really consider myself a Canterbury person. I think it really means people like Hugh Hopper and Richard Sinclair, who are genuinely based in that area. I met them there and I'm eternally grateful that I met someone like Hugh who provided something I don't think anyone else could have provided. My mind doesn't dwell on it as a place though, if I recall a former fantasy world upon which I draw, it's Harlem in the Forties and not Canterbury in the Fifties...".

Didier Malherbe (Gong)
"The Canterbury School can be defined musically : certain chord changes, in particular the use of minor second chords, certain harmonic combinations, and a great clarity in the aesthetics, and a way of improvising that is very different to what is done in jazz. I really loved Soft Machine around the time of Third for that. The way they were playing the arrangements was of an absolute clarity".

Bill MacCormick [about latter-day Soft Machine]
"Well, call me a mouldering old hippy if you like but I have some sympathy with the view expressed [that post-Wyatt Soft Machine was 'crap']. Well, sort of. It's not so much that everything else is 'crap' but a lot of it (especially post Robert leaving the Softs) doesn't have anything much to do with the original 'Canterbury' feel (ethos?). Certainly, the band called Soft Machine that we (Matching Mole) toured with in 1972 in Holland and Belgium had precious little to do with the 1966-71 version in either feel or approach in my humble opinion, in spite of the presence of Ratledge and Hopper (and I may be wrong but I always felt Hugh wasn't over the moon about it either). After that, when these two had left, the Soft Machine was just a brand label being passed around. To be honest, Robert always had a great grievance that the Softs retained the name when he left... when Mike and Hugh left the name should have died with them. Instead it was just commercially exploited for what it was worth. It had nothing to do with Canterbury... as did none of the musicians. I didn't like their music either (you guessed didn't you?)...". =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

@ Rare Vinyl
Canterbury music scene originated in the Canterbury area of Kent (UK) in the 1960's. It was a very vibrant scene, out of which come a lot of musicians, many of whom are still active today: Robert Wyatt and Hugh Hopper (Soft Machine), Richard Sinclair (Caravan), David Allen (Soft Machine and Gong), Steve Hillage (Gong), Kevin Ayers, Dave Stewart and Phil Miller (Hatfield & The North), Mike Oldfield, Chris Cutler, John Greaves, Fred Frith (Henry Cow) and many others. The prototypical Canterbury band was the the Wilde Flowers, from whom emerged the Soft Machine and Caravan, Kevin Ayers and Gong. Meanwhile in London, a band called Uriel was formed whose ashes spawned Egg and Khan. About the same time Delivery was also formed in the London area soon to break-up. The break-up of some of these bands and personal departures led to the next generation of Canterbury bands which included Matching Mole and later Hatfield & The North. The real essence of 'Canterbury Sound' is the tension between complicated harmonies, extended improvisations, and the sincere desire to write catchy pop songs. In the very best Canterbury music - all of Hatfield & The North and Matching Mole, early Soft Machine (with Robert Wyatt), early Caravan (pre-Cunning Stunts), and early Gong (pre-Shamal) - the musically silly and the musically serious are juxtaposed in an amusing and endearing way. Probably Soft Machine loose all their 'charm' when Robert Wyatt stopped singing (and eventually left). Much the same can be said of the various post-Allen and post-Hillage editions of Gong in which Pierre Moerlen was the prime mover. As great as the post-Wyatt Soft Machine music was a lot of the humor and silliness was gone. Another well-known aspect of the 'Canterbury Scene' is the circular nature of personnel changes in the various groups. Without going into gory detail, it always seems that the same players were turning up in each others' bands. This phenomenon explains why there is a 'Canterbury Sound' at all. After all, musicians are the ones making the sounds!

Similar scenes have emerged in France (Komintern, Zao, Heldon, Art Zoyd, Lard Free, Etron Fou Leloublan, Potemkine, Magma, Urban Sax, Weidorje…) and Belgium (Univers Zero) to much the same effect. In contrast, Daevid Allen's 'New York Gong' albums bear absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to Canterbury music. This is a great example of the importance of this rotating cast of musicians to the 'Canterbury Sound'. Of course, there are always exceptions & so there are some very Canterbury-sounding (...but also very original-sounding) bands from Japan & Italy. Another peculiar aspect of the 'Canterbury Sound', and the tendency towards complex structures and lengthy improvisations, is the use of the vocals, delivered in very 'British' manner, with absolutely no attempt to ape American blues and pop singers. The lyrics betray a strong sense of the absurd (pataphysical humour from the Alfred Jarry's play 'King Ubu'). If they are 'about' anything, they're often hilarious and concerned with private jokes and/or various aspects of British domestic life. Hatfield & The North's lyrics about 'life as a pop star' from the first album are utterly hilarious!

While a number of these bands were adopting jazz improvisation into their sound, the ever changing Soft Machine had been actively exploring Jazz with jazz-trained musicians from the London school. In particular with members of the Keith Tippett Group (Centipede) from whom Elton Dean joined the band. As the Soft Machine veered towards jazz-rock, their personal changed again eventually bringing in John Marshall, Karl Jenkins, Roy Babbington & Alan Holdsworth, all of whom had at one time played in Britain's other premier jazz-rock outfit, Ian Carr's Nucleus. Virgin records was formed in the early 70's and proved to be a good label for Canterbury musicians signing up Mike Oldfield and David Bedford both former members of Kevin Ayers' Whole World as well as Gong, Robert Wyatt, Hatfield and The North which comprised former members of Egg, Matching Mole, Gong, and Caravan and later Steve Hillage. Also signed to the label were Henry Cow and Slapphappy, members of whom later collaborating with Canterbury musicians forming a new generation of bands: Art Bears, News From Babel and Cassiber. Among these were National Health and Gilgamesh which basically redefined the Canterbury sound as well as explorations into more improvised jazz by Hugh Hopper & Elton Dean in Soft Heap. Richard Sinclair on leaving the Hatfields joined Camel a more straight-ahead progressive band while Henry Cow and Slapphappy merged before breaking up to form the Art Bears and the John Greaves and Peter Blegvad collaborations. Of the early the Soft Machine members, David Allen is till active performing solo and with former Gong members. Hugh Hopper and Elton Dean are probably the most prolific still playing together and with a variety of other musicians as well. Robert Wyatt has released a new album during the 1998 (Shleep) and his back catalogue is currently being re-released. Gong reformed for a 25th Anniversary tour and live double CD in 1995. Caravan with Pye Hastings, Richard Coughlan and Dave Sinclair are still active and touring. Many previously unobtainable vinyl releases are now being re-released on CD. Former Delivery (another important musician is the amazing saxophonist Lol Coxhill, founder member of Delivery with Phil and Steve Miller and Pip Pyle), Matching Mole, Hatfield & the North & National Health guitarist Phil Miller now has his own band In Cahoots which from time to time has featured Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean and Pip Pyle. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

@ All Music
A fraternal collective of musicians clustered around the Kentish tourist town that is home to the Church of England's Archbishop, the Canterbury Scene provided the cradle for a half-dozen of the most freewheeling British bands of the post-psychedelic era. Though the direct musical similarities between Canterbury's major bands -- the Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Hatfield & the North, Egg, National Health -- aren't overwhelming, each featured a clever synthesis of jazz improvisation and rock rhythms with clever, intellectual songwriting tied to psychedelia. It's no wonder the Canterbury bands became so close, since many of its major figures began their musical careers in a beat group called the Wilde Flowers. Together from 1963 to 1969, the Wilde Flowers included most of the figures who later formed Canterbury's two best bands, the Soft Machine (Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers) and Caravan (Pye Hastings, David Sinclair, Richard Sinclair, Richard Coughlan). After both the Soft Machine and Caravan released their debut albums in 1968, they became popular in England's psychedelic underground. By the early '70s however, a series of fragmenting lineup changes and the subsequent formation of new bands soon multiplied the force of the Canterbury scene. Early Soft Machine member Daevid Allen formed Gong, and both Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt eventually left the Softs to begin their own solo careers. The musicians that led the new incarnation of the Soft Machine, including Elton Dean and Hugh Hopper, began pushing the band in the direction of instrumental jazz-rock. By the mid-'70s, many of the remaining Canterbury bands had progressed from psychedelic and prog-rock to embrace extended fusion jams with few lyrics. Many of Britain's better avant-garde or fusion musicians of the 1970s and '80s -- including Fred Frith, Allan Holdsworth, and Peter Blegvad -- also began their career playing in Canterbury bands. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

Soft Machine

Few English bands from the mid-60's had the mystique of the original Soft Machine. Several have acquired it in retrospect - the Soft Machine actually had it (albeit uninternationally) at the time. They may have lost it in time (through musical self indulgence) but there is no denying their place in the cultural history of 'those days'.

The Soft machine formed in 1966 but their story starts several years earlier at the Simon Langton School in Canterbury, whose pupils at the time included Robert Wyatt, Mike Retledge and Hugh Hopper - all of varying ages, but sharing a common interest in jazz. Much has been made, over the years, of the idyllic and liberal atmosphere of the school and its influence on a Canterbury supposedly on the brink of turning into a kind of English Haight-Ashbury. But Robert Wyatt has since dispelled the myth by saying: 'It was an extremely dull grammar school and I can't remember a single stimulating thing about Canterbury.'

Around this time Wyatt and Hopper met a genial Australian by the name of Daevid Allen. Aged 21, Allen was a fully fledged beatnik - he knew and had worked with William Burroughs and the then unknown Terry Riley in Paris; He had taken LSD and had long hair. With Hopper playing bass and Wyatt learning the drums, the three of them performed occasionally as an avant-garde trio but spent much time in Paris, on Allen's houseboat, working on tape-loops with all manner of new delights.

By 1964, with the Beatles and the Stones sweeping all before them, Canterbury was developing its own healthy music scene. At the center was a group called the Wilde Flowers, the initial line-up of which comprised Hugh Hopper, his brother Brian on saxes, Robert Wyatt, Richard Sinclair on guitar and Kevin Ayers - who had been recommended because he was the only other long-hair in Kent - on vocals. The Wilde Flowers played a strange mixture of R&B, soul and experimental jazz. The band continued in various incarnations until mid 1966, when Allen and Ayers took off to Majorca for the summer.On their return they discovered that Ratledge - a brilliant keyboard player, heavily into contemporary classical music - had left Oxford University and wanted to form a new band. One half went on to become Caravan in 1968. Ayers, Wyatt and Allen joined up with Ratledge and eventually became the Soft Machine. The name was Allen's idea, coming from the title of a William Burroughs novel; He actually phoned Burroughs for permission to use it.

Initially the new band's repertoire wasn't vastly different from that of the Wilde Flowers, but they soon became totally original, performing Ayers' and Wyatt's own compositions. Ayers' were prototypes for the quirky but oddly philosophical songs for which he later became known; Wyatt was already writing about the minutiae of his daily life, both were singing, in their different ways, in very English accents, providing that it was possible to sing in a rock band without affecting a mid-Atlantic drawl. Apart from the songs, they were developing an interest in improvisation, largely through Ratledge. By the end of 1966 their music was, in both style and execution, way beyond most of their British contemporaries.

The timing was perfect - through Allen and his connections with the international freak set, the band were able to find gigs in the newly-emerging underground. They played on the same bill as Pink Floyd at the International Times launch party in October 1966 and went on to become regulars at UFO. For these early gigs they were supplemented by an American guitarist, Larry Nolan, a mysterious character who was, apparently, the veteran of various Californian bluegrass bands alongside David Lindley.

Like many of the more adventurous bands of the period, the Soft Machine suffered from audience incomprehension and hostility almost every time they played out of London or at a non-underground gig. As a result, shortly after their memorable performance at 'The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream' at the Alexander Palace in April 1967, they shifted their base of operations to the South of France, their popularity in Europe dates from this period. On their return at the end of the summer, Allen was refused entry as an undesirable alien, the band continuing as a three-piece. How ever, they have already recorded a single, the classic 'Love Makes Sweet Music', on which Allen played.

In April 1967, shortly after the release of the single, the band entered De Lane Rea studios in Soho to cut the tracks that became known as the 'Jet Propelled Photographs' album. Opinions differ as to the purpose of the sessions. Certainly they were demos, but Giorgio Gomelsky (who paid for the recording and subsequently held on to the tapes) claims they were to be the basis of a proper album. Wyatt remembers it differently, claiming that they were more in the nature of publishers demos and that the majority weren't being seriously considered as material for the band to perform on stage. Indeed several were written by Hugh Hopper, who although still a friend, wasn't actually in the band.

So what about the actual music. To be fair no one could suggest that it's the best stuff the band ever recorded and over the years the album has been subjected to an awful lot of criticism, much of it valid. The production qualities are minimal, some of the playing is sloppy (especially Allen's guitar-playing, which only if one was being very king could be called 'atonal') and overall conveys little or non of the magic and power of the band could generate at the UFO. In its favour the album has enthusiasm, not a little excitement, some great songs and now and again, snatches of something very special. Daevid Allen once remarked that he was eternally embarrassed by his performance but that the whole thing was redeemed by Wyatt, whose vocals and drumming Allen described as 'magnificent'. Which is probably true. The tapes, of course, vanished for years but although an album based on them never materialised, most survived in one form or another.

At the end of the year the Soft Machine embarked on a gruelling six-months tour of the States with Jimi Hendrix and after this they recorded their first album, Soft Machine. Although everything was completed in one take, it was a stunning album, containing charmingly silly Wyatt songs and slightly more disarming numbers by Ayers, linked by pieces of improvisation. Despite its quality, it remained unreleased in the UK until the mid Seventies. The tour virtually killed off the band. however; Ayers disappeared, but Ratledge and Wyatt recruited Hugh Hopper, who had roadied for them, to play bass - and a new band came together in July 1968 to rehearse for a second album.

Ratledge had felt that the original band was too 'poppy'; although adventurous and bizarre, the new line-up was to be considerably more serious. Nevertheless, the two 'aspects' co-existed for a while, as is demonstrated by the second album, 'Volume Two' (1969). Despite more technical problems, it was another classic album, this time with the added dimension of Hopper's roaring fuzz bass. By the end of the year, the limitations of the three-piece led to the addition of a four-piece brass front-line. On a good night they were amazing, but the sheer originality of the first line-up had virtually disappeared; they were moving towards a jazz-rock norm. Unable to sustain such a large unit, they dropped back to a four-piece, only Elton Dean on alto sax remaining from the big band. This line-up produced 'Third' (1970), in many ways their most polished album - though, with the exception of Wyatt's "Moon In June', most of the humour and what the French saw as 'Dadaist' qualities had gone.

Shortly after the release of 'Third', the band played at the Promenade Concerts, much to the chagrin of the dinner-jacketed audience. It wasn't a good gig, but it was significant in that it showed that the band have become the 'intellectuals' of the rock set and were taken up by the establishment. Ratledge, in particular, was starting to concentrate more and more on 'technical expertise'. Wyatt's contributions, especially the vocals, were being cut back virtually to nothing. He left the band, returning briefly to drum on 'Fourth' (1971), a rather flaccid version of 'Third'.

With Wyatt gone, the charm of the original band had disappeared completely. Even new recruit Elton Dean left; an improviser by choice, he found little room to move in Ratledge' increasingly tight compositions. the next line-up, with John Marshall on drums and Karl Jenkins on saxes, recorded 'Fifth' (1972) and 'Six' (1973), both cold jazz-rock albums.
By May 1973 Hopper had left and been replaced by another jazz-rocker, Roy Babbington. At This point Ratledge should seriously have considered dropping the name Soft Machine but, undaunted, the band went on to make 'Seven' (1973) and 'Bundles' (1975). Even the addition of a guitarist, Allan Holdsworth, had made little difference to the sound. Ratledge himself quit in January 1976, but Jenkins and Marshall held on to the name and, with various additional musicians, made the albums 'Softs' (1976), 'Alive And Well In Paris' (1978) and, after a gap when everyone thought that the name had gone for good, "Land Of Cockayne' (1981).

For music of the Seventies, the band bearing the name Soft Machine bore little relation to the original.aspects of the original ideas lived in the work of ex-members, notably in Gong, the anarchic - if self indulgent - band led by Daevid Allen.

Throughout the late Sixties and early Seventies, Kevin Ayers tottered on the brink of success with a string of solo albums, but seemed happier sunning himself in Majorca. Wyatt formed Matching Mole, a sort of radical version of Soft Machine. Following an accident in which he fell from a window, causing him to be paralysed from the waist down, he was unable to drum any more, but such releases as 'Rock Bottom' (1974) and a series of singles on the Rough Trade label in the Eighties have shown that his distinctive vocal style, once so important in the Soft Machine, remained unimpaired. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

Personnel:
Hugh Hopper.
Mike Ratlidge.
Robert Wyatt

@ The Ninth National Jazz and Blues Festival. - 8th August 1969
The Softs were a bit unlucky , as they bore the brunt of the technical problems on the opening night . Power failures led to much of this set being dogged with problems. Just how long they performed for is debatable. However, an audience tape exists of 10 minutes of their set and If I can find it I'll review it .

Soft Machine were a fairly inpenetrable band, you either loved them or loathed them .Originally the Softs featured the well known 60s rock eccentrics Daevid Allen and Kevin Ayers, but they left fairly early on in the piece . I used to like them quite a bit and I saw them once at the Top Rank in Swansea in either late 1969 or early 1970. Now I fnd their music a bit mechanical, but they had great chops and were masters of the extended prog rock number. Their third album, titled, strangely enough - Third , is a very good example of this and is generally considered the best of their efforts. After this they became progressively more jazz orientated, Wyatt left soon after and after a few years none of the orgiinal members were left in the line-up.This show would be in their middle period, where Wyatt took the vocals. Most of their set would have been instrumental with Wyatt ( who has a very strange, but somehow lovely voice) occasionally chiming in with brief vocal interludes. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

@ Wiki
The Soft Machine was a pioneering English psychedelic, progressive rock and jazz fusion band from Canterbury, named after the book The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs. They were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene.

Beginnings and the "classic quartet"
The Soft Machine was formed in 1966 by Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), Kevin Ayers (bass, vocals), Daevid Allen (guitar) and Mike Ratledge (keyboards). Allen, Wyatt and future bassist Hugh Hopper had played in the Daevid Allen Trio, occasionally accompanied by Ratledge. Wyatt, Ayers and Hopper had played in a band called the Wilde Flowers, which included future members of another Canterbury band, Caravan.

This first Soft Machine line-up became involved in the early UK underground, featuring prominently at the UFO Club, and recorded the group's first single, as well as some demo sessions that were released several years later. They also played in Holland, Germany and on the French Riviera. In 1967, upon their return from a performance in France, Allen (an Australian) was denied re-entry to the United Kingdom, so the group continued as a trio.

In early 1968, eventual The Police guitarist Andy Summers joined the group, but left shortly after. Later in 1968 they toured the USA, opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. During this tour, they recorded their first album, The Soft Machine, in New York. Disbanded after Ayers's amicable departure at the end of this tour, Soft Machine reformed with former road manager and composer Hugh Hopper on bass added to Wyatt and Ratledge, to record their second album in 1969.

From the odd psychedelic rock style of the early period, featuring Ayers and/or Wyatt singing on most of their pieces, Volume Two, with Brian Hopper playing saxophones, launched a transition towards a purely instrumental sound resembling what would be later called jazz fusion. Notwithstanding the disconcerting personnel changes that came about during this period, this is a fascinating period of creative tension. The base trio was late in 1969 expanded to a septet with the addition of four horn players, though only saxophonist Elton Dean remained beyond a few months, the resulting so-called classic Soft Machine quartet (Wyatt, Hopper, Ratledge and Dean) running through Third (1970) and Fourth (1971), with various guests, mostly jazz players (Lyn Dobson, Nick Evans, Marc Charig, Jimmy Hastings, Rab Spall, Roy Babbington). Fourth was the first of their fully instrumental albums.

All members of the classic lineup were highly literate in various musical backgrounds, but foremost was the eclectic genius of Ratledge, who through composition, arrangements and improvisational skills propelled a collective output of the highest standard, in which the vocal charm and extraordinarily original drumming of Wyatt, the lyricism of some of Dean's solos and the unusual avantgarde pop angle of Hopper's pieces all had a major role. Their propensity for building extended suites from regular sized compositions, both live and in the studio (already in the Ayers suite in their first album), reaches its maximum in the 1970 album Third, unusual for its time in each of the four sides featuring one suite. Third was also unusual for remaining in print for more than ten years in the United States, and is the best-selling Soft Machine recording.

The post-Wyatt era
After differences over the group's musical direction, Wyatt left (or was fired from) the band in 1971 and formed Matching Mole (a pun on machine molle, the French for soft machine). He was briefly replaced by Australian drummer Phil Howard, but further musical disagreements led to Howard's dismissal after the 1971 recording of the first LP side of Five (1972) and, some months later, to Dean's departure. They were replaced respectively by John Marshall (drums) and, for the recording of Six (1973), Karl Jenkins (reeds, keyboards), both former members of Ian Carr's Nucleus, and The Softs' sound developed even more towards jazz fusion.

In 1973, after Six, Hopper left and was replaced by Roy Babbington, who had already contributed with double bass on Fourth and Five and took up electric bass successfully. This new quartet of Babbington, Jenkins, Marshall and Ratledge recorded the next (and last) three official Soft Machine studio releases. After they released Seven (1973) without additional musicians, the band switched record labels from Columbia to Harvest. On their 1975 album Bundles, a significant musical change occurred with fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth adding guitar as a very prominent melody instrument to the band's sound, sometimes reminiscent of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, setting the album apart from previous Soft Machine releases, which had not featured guitars. On the last official studio album Softs (1976), he was replaced by John Etheridge. After Softs, Ratledge, the last remaining original member of the band, was also gone. Other musicians in the band during the later period were bassist Steve Cook [5], saxophonist Alan Wakeman, and violinist Ric Sanders. Their 1978 performances and record (titled Alive and Well, ironically) were the last for Soft Machine as a working band. The Soft Machine name was used for the 1981 record Land of Cockayne (with Jack Bruce and, again, Allan Holdsworth, plus Dick Morrissey on tenor sax), and for a few live shows in 1984, but these featured Jenkins and Marshall with groups assembled just for those performances.

The Soft Machine legacy
Since 1988, a wealth of live recordings of Soft Machine have been issued on CD, with recording quality ranging from excellent to poor.

In 2002 four former Soft Machine members - Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean, John Marshall and Allan Holdsworth - toured and recorded under the name Soft Works. In 2005, with John Etheridge replacing Holdsworth, they toured and recorded as Soft Machine Legacy, three albums of theirs have been released: Live in Zaandam (2005), the studio album Soft Machine Legacy (2006) and Live at the New Morning (2006). On their tour in summer 2006, Theo Travis (formerly of Gong and The Tangent) replaced Elton Dean, who died in February 2006. Both of these groups performed some pieces from the original Soft Machine repertoire as well as newer material....... =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

@ Calyc Club
Soft Machine was formed in 1966 by Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen. Wyatt had already worked with Allen in the Daevid Allen Trio (which Ratledge occasionally jammed with) in 1963, and with Ayers in the Wilde Flowers in 1964. Although the band had its roots in Canterbury, it soon became a London-based band.

In January 1967, the band's one and only single ever was recorded : it had two songs on it, "Loves Make Sweet Music" and "Feelin', Reelin', Squeelin'". Three months later, a collections of demos was recorded at DeLane Lea Studios with producer Giorgio Gomelsky, but not officially released until 1971 (on two compilations on the French Byg label). At that time, Soft Machine had already become something of a 'cult' band on the London psychedelic scene, gigging at places like the Roundhouse or the UFO. On April 29th, 1967, they took part in an event set up by the underground paper 'International Times', which also featured the Pink Floyd, and was given the name, '14 Hour Technicolor Dream'.

During the summer, the band was involved in an avant-garde theatre project in St.Tropez, on the French Riviera, and it was on the way back that Daevid Allen was refused re-entry to England. So he stayed in France, moving on to various projects before forming Gong two years later, while Wyatt, Ratledge and Ayers decided to carry on as a trio.

In February 1968, Soft Machine embarked on a 3-month US tour (opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience), recording their first album in New York in four days in April, with production handled by Tom Wilson and Chas Chandler, former Animals bassist and Hendrix's producer. Although quickly made (most tracks are first takes) and not particularly well-recorded, "The Soft Machine" is now considered a classic of the extraordinarily creative post-psychedelic, pre-progressive, period of the late 60's... and quite rightly so!

In May, a guitarist by the name of Andy Summers (also on the earlier Hendrix US tour, backing Eric Burdon... later in The Police, of course!) joined, for the second leg of the American tour (July-September), but left mid-tour. Disagreements on the musical direction began to arise between Ayers and Wyatt-Ratledge, leading to their parting company after the tour was completed. Wyatt stayed in Hollywood to work with Jimi Hendrix, while Ratledge and Ayers flew back to Europe. In December 1968, Wyatt was contacted by Probe, who had just released the first album, to discuss possible live dates by the band to promote it. With Ayers unavailable, Hugh Hopper was asked to join (he was about to sell his bass!), and after a month of rehearsal, the new line-up made its live debut at the Royal Albert Hall in February, a few days before entering Olympic Studios to record the second album.

For "Volume Two" and most of the subsequent gigs, the trio was augmented by Hugh's brother, Brian, who played tenor saxophone. This was the symptom of the band's gradual evolution towards jazz, clearly apparent on the album. In the Autumn of 1969, a permanent brass section was recruited from pianist Keith Tippett's jazz band : Elton Dean on alto sax, Marc Charig on trumpet, Nick Evans on trombone. Another sax (and flute) player, Lyn Dobson, was added following Dean's recommendation. The resulting septet was only together for a few weeks, recording BBC sessions in November and touring France quite extensively towards the end of the year; Evans and Charig then left to pursue successful careers on the European jazz scene (although they guested on subsequent albums).

During the first months of 1970, Soft Machine recorded "Third", a double album which included four sidelong compositions. Hugh Hopper's angular "Facelift" was a collage of live performances made in January, and is the only track featuring Lyn Dobson, who had left by the time the studio sessions for the other four sides had begun. Mike Ratledge contributed two sides : "Slightly All The Time", a progressive jazz masterpiece made all the more successful by the inclusion of the "Backwards" theme (bookended by Hopper's transition theme "Noisette") from previous live medleys; and "Out-Bloody-Rageous", which showcased the band's use of tape loops and featured strong group interplay. Finally, "Moon In June", Robert Wyatt's side, was something of a farewell to Soft Machine's original style, the last piece by the band ever to feature vocals; it was actually a montage of several old songs, some of them dating back to the 1967 Gomelsky sessions, but superbly linked together (Wyatt had recorded a demo of the suite in the USA in 1968). A good indication that the rest of the band weren't too keen on pursuing that kind of direction was that, although uncredited as such, "Moon In June" was largely a solo performance by Wyatt, who played organ and keyboard bass as well as drums and vocals. Hopper and Ratledge only appeared for a brief instrumental extravaganza at the end of the main part; Wyatt didn't even ask them to play on the rest.

So by mid-1970, Soft Machine had become a purely instrumental band; Wyatt being the only member wanting vocals in the music, the majority won... During the summer, Wyatt recorded his first solo album, "The End Of An Ear", on the sleeve of which he described himself as an 'out-of-work pop singer'... But a collection on pop songs the album was not : no lyrics, no conventional singing, rather a very experimental collection of mainly improvised material (the titles of the tracks referred to several Canterbury figures : "To Caravan And Brother Jim" etc.) except for a cover of Gil Evans' "Las Vegas Tango", with the voice used as an instrument and heavily treated, mostly through tape speed alterations. The results were, depending on one's taste, unlistenable or startlingly original and unique.

In the autumn, following a controversial appearance at the Royal Albert Hall for the famous 'Promenade Concerts' in August, the 'classic' line-up of Wyatt , Hopper, Ratledge and Dean recorded "4", in fact their first and last studio album as a quartet, although this incarnation would more or less survive for one more year. This effort carried on in the vein of "Third"'s instrumental tracks (with a welcome return to the septet format on the extraordinary "Teeth" and "Virtually"), and in this respect was an impressive achievement, although the complete lack of vocals made some listeners wonder if the band could still go on under the name Soft Machine... If only they'd known how many changes of personnel and musical direction were still ahead of them!!!

1971 was a year of experimentation, as one can tell from listening to the radio sessions recorded on this period. Several musicians (various brass players, string-bassist Roy Babbington and drummer Phil Howard) were sometimes added to the basic quartet, furthering the evolution towards jazz. That same year, Elton Dean released his first solo album, in much the same vein, with his own Elton Dean Band musicians (Howard and bassist Neville Whitehead), and Ratledge among the guests.

When Wyatt finally left in July, later forming Matching Mole, Phil Howard was a natural choice as replacement, but he rapidly left, midway through the sessions of the "5" album - his style was considered too 'free' by Hopper and Ratledge... and a good majority of the audiences who had seen the band play that autumn. He was in turn replaced by John Marshall, one of the very best drummers in Britain, formerly of Nucleus among other bands. With Marshall in, Soft Machine rapidly moved away from the straighter jazz feel of "5", into more 'jazz-rock' territory, which apparently wasn't to the taste of Elton Dean, who left in May 1972. He subsequently worked with mainly acoustic jazz ensembles, although he was also (quite surprisingly) involved in the Dutch 'progressive rock' band Supersister in 1973-74.

Ex-Nucleus pianist/reeds player Karl Jenkins wasn't really a replacement for Dean, as his multiple talents, including that of composer, rapidly made him the co-leader of Soft Machine with Ratledge. With the impressive Hopper/Marshall rhythm section at their disposal, the pair could allow themselves any level of complexity and musical variety. "Six Album", released in early 1973, was a double half-studio, half-live set. The latter showcases the interplay between the four musicians, while the former is more experimental, focussing on Jenkins and Ratledge's dual keyboard patterns and the use of Echoplex, most notably on the hypnotic "The Soft Weed Factor".

In May 1973, Hugh Hopper decided that four years in Soft Machine was enough and that it was time to move on to pastures new. He had just released his first solo album, "1984", and went on to release several others, and work with countless jazz and progressive bands throughout the decade, and again from the mid-eighties onwards after he stopped playing for five years. Roy Babbington, who had guested on a couple of Soft albums a double-bass player, was a natural replacement, except for the fact that he now concentrated on his 6-string bass guitar. The resulting line-up recorded "7", a natural progression from the studio album of "Six Album", with shorter compositions and even less jazz influence.

Perhaps sensing that, for the first time in the band's existence, Soft Machine's music tended to repeat itself, it was decided to add guitarist Allan Holdsworth to the line-up in December 1973. The resulting quintet (which toured North America in early 1974) was a fusion powerhouse, with possibly the best British drummer and guitarist at that time. Consequently, the music took a decidedly 'rocky' character, as documented on "Bundles", recorded in the summer of 1974 but only released in the spring of 1975. This was the first Soft album not to bear a number, a sign that times were surely changing : the band had left CBS for EMI/Harvest, and also left the underground scene for a more mainstream approach at a time when American fusion bands were a dominant force (and reached their commercial peak).

Holdsworth left shortly after the release of "Bundles", and recommended fellow guitarist John Etheridge as a possible replacement. This proved satisfactory and in the summer of 1975 Soft Machine embarked on an ambitious, but ill-fated, package tour of European arenas with the likes of Caravan and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. From then on, the band's popularity waned as it failed to sustain the momentum initially gathered by its new orientation. Ratledge, the last remaining founding member, left in March 1976, leaving Soft Machine's reins in the hands of Jenkins and Marshall. "Softs" appeared later that year, with Alan Wakeman (the cousin of famous keyboard wizard Rick) on saxophone; a shortlived addition as he left after less than six months, to be replaced by a violin player, Ric Sanders. Babbington also left after a last appearance in Edinburgh, and was replaced first by Brand X's Percy Jones, and finally Steve Cook (ex-Gilgamesh/Mirage). The live album "Alive And Well, Recorded In Paris" (1978) documented a series of French gigs in July 1977. Soft Machine subsequently ground to a halt, perfoming its last gig in Bremen in December 1978.

Soft Machine was active again for one more album - the purely studio affair, "Land Of Cockayne" (1981), with an all-star line-up featuring Allan Holdsworth and Jack Bruce alongside Jenkins and Marshall, but a rather uninspiring mixture of American fusion and orchestral 'muzak' - and a series of gigs at London's Ronnie Scotts club in the summer of 1984, with a line-up of Jenkins, Marshall, John Etheridge, Dave MacRae and bassist Paul Carmichael. Plans for further studio and live projects never materialized and indeed probably never will, as Karl Jenkins has found far more lucrative activities in the field of library, TV and advertisement music, most notably with his Adiemus project. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

Soft Machine

Soft Machine @ You Tube

============ blogprock ============