All White

Soft Machine: Elton Dean (saxello), Mike Ratledge (Lowrey organ, Fender Rhodes), Hugh Hopper (electric bass) and Phil Howard (drums). From the album Fifth (1972).

After leaving Soft Machine in 1972, Elton Dean formed his first own group Just Us and in 1973 he joined the Brotherhood of Breath until its dissolution in 1975. He then assembled a sporadically performing nine-member ensemble called Ninesense with English jazz musicians and South African emigrants on electric bass and drums. In addition, throughout the decade he joined many free jazz and jazz fusion bands, and founded other groups, such as Weightwatchers, El Sqid and EDQ. In 1977 he recorded European Tour 1977 with the Carla Bley Band in Germany and toured Europe with it. In 1978 he created Soft Heap with Alan Gowen (keyboards), Hugh Hopper (electric bass) and Pip Pyle (drums) recalling Soft Machine’s music and recorded Soft Heap. In 1980 he published Boundaries with EDQ and in 1982 entered the London Jazz Composer’s Orchestra.

In the mid-1980s he released two more albums with EDQ. After that he teamed up with John Etheridge to form the Dean/Etheridge Quartet and worked with In Cahoots, the Dedication Orchestra and Equipe Out. During the 1990s he recorded three albums with In Cahoots and collaborated with countless musicians. In 1999 he met again with other Soft Machine former components to organize Soft Ware, which published an album; in 2002 they created Soft Works, with which they launched another one; and finally in 2004 they founded Soft Machine Legacy, with which Dean participated in three more albums before passing away. In 2000 he returned to play keyboards, both standards and his own material, using the Fender Rhodes and the Hammond organ. During his last years he continued recording and touring, composing in an idiosyncratic way and making harmonically complex and politonal improvisations. His large number of unpublished recordings were issued by different independent record companies. Elton Dean died in 2006 of liver and heart disease at 60 years of age.

The composition begins with Dean playing the saxello with a long echo, that is, it sounds like two saxellos playing the same thing one after the other, accompanied by a background sound generated by Ratledge with the organ. After a while, Ratledge changes the organ for the Fender Rhodes and Hopper and Howard join in, but Dean continues his improvisation, although now without echo. His long solo is interesting and well articulated knowing how to maintain the balance and the interest of the listener. Finally he plays with Ratledge a melody in unison to wind up the theme.