Soft Machine - "BBC radio 1 Live in Concert"

Label: Windsong | Catalog Number: WINCD031

Recorded at the Paris Theatre London, March 11th, 1971

progreviews.com review : "This CD is now out of print, although an album that documents the same show (3/11/71, at London's Paris Theater) was released in 2005 by the Hux label, called BBC In Concert: Soft Machine and Heavy Friends. It has about six extra minutes of music and also includes John Peel's introduction. Additionally, I have read that it has remastered sound. Although I have not heard it as of this writing and cannot offer anything further insofar as comparisons, I would imagine that this review would be more or less applicable to that title as well.

Apart from simply being an excellent date, this show is also a valuable find for a Soft Machine fan because of the presence of the "Heavy Friends." Soft Machine occasionally performed with a guest or two from their stable of regular collaborators in 1970 and 1971, but this concert was a one-shot deal whereby different configurations of the ten musicians played during the set. One of the extra musicians was not a regular but British jazz legend Ronnie Scott (who, according to Hugh Hopper's insightful liner notes, found rehearsing Soft Machine's music to be a daunting task and jokingly asked when they were going to play a blues).

By early 1971, Elton Dean was beginning to assert himself as the dominant force in Soft Machine and the band's sound during this era reflects his desire to steer the group away from their rock influences and toward a form of electric jazz. Hugh Hopper and Mike Ratledge apparently became big fans of Miles Davis' electric music around this time, and the liner notes state that Ratledge incorporated some of these influences into his playing. There are no vocals on this set from Robert Wyatt — not even his scatting — and the music has a looser, freer feel to it than the live material from 1970 that I have heard.

The first two tracks, "Blind Badger" and "Neo-Caliban Grides," are Elton Dean compositions. They later appeared on Dean's 1972 solo album, Just Us, and they are the purest jazz pieces on the album. The group that plays on "Blind Badger," is comprised of individuals who were in Dean's Just Us band (Dean, Ratledge, Charig, Whitehead and Howard). The regular Soft Machine band then takes the stage to handle the dissonant blowout that follows, although John Marshall stays on to drum with Wyatt. Wyatt and Marshall's dual drum attack perfectly enhances the wild energy of the piece.

The rest of the album is a medley of the familiar ("Out Bloody Rageous, "Eamonn Andrews") mixed with the new ("All White," "Kings and Queens," "Teeth," "Pigling Bland"), played fast and loose, yet with a great precision. Different combinations of players drop in and out during the medley and these personnel changes are all documented on the sleeve. In the liner notes, Hugh Hopper praises the 1970 and 1971 tours, claiming that the band's studio albums were "a tame representation" of the band was capable of when they were touring. I don't think that either the Third or Fourth albums are "tame," but this show is certainly evidence that the band was capable of quite a lot."

http://rapidshare.com/files/292140220/soft_machine_bbc.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/292148203/soft_machine_bbc.part2.rar