ELTON DEAN QUARTET – They All Be On This Old Road (LP-1977) + another

Label: Ogun – OG 410

Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: UK / Released: 1977

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded at the Seven Dials, Shelton Street, London WC2 on 18 November 1976.

Artwork By [Front Cover Painting] – John Christopherson

Engineer – Keith Beal

Liner Notes – Elton Dean

Mixed By, Edited By – Elton Dean, Keith Beal

Photography – Yuka

Producer – Elton Dean, Keith Beal

Recorded By – Ron Barron

A  -  Naima .................................................................................. 20:30

        (Composed By – Coltrane)

B1 - Dede Bup Bup ....................................................................... 8:50

        (Composed By – Dean)

B2 - Nancy (With The Laughing Face) ......................................... 3:12

        (Composed By – Van-Heusen, Silvers)

B3 – a) Easy Living ....................................................................... 8:40

         (Composed By – Robin, Rainger)

         b) Overdoing It

         (Composed By – Lawrence, Moholo)

         c) Not Too Much

         (Composed By – Dean, Tippett)

Elton Dean – saxophone [saxello]

Keith Tippett – piano

Chris Lawrence – bass

Louis Moholo – drums, percussion

Elton Dean, period 1975/1978 was very tumultuous and resulted in a series of good performances and albums for the label Ogun. This is one of them.

Elton Dean was a totally unique musician : at times lyrical and moving, at others explosive and unsettling, his approach of saxophone playing was totally his own, besides the fact that he favoured a little-used member of the sax family : the saxello, an hybrid between alto and soprano, with an instantly recognizable sound. Over the years, Dean lent his immense talents to bands like Soft Machine, Soft Heap, In Cahoots and L'Equip'Out, as well as many jazz ensembles featuring Keith Tippett, Hugh Hopper, Pip Pyle, Mark Hewins and John Etheridge.

 Elton Dean / Louis Moholo

In January 1975, Elton Dean launched his most ambitious project to date, the large ensemble Ninesense, which included many of the British jazz scene's most talented musicians, including Keith Tippett, Mark Charig, Nick Evans, Harry Miller and Louis Moholo. He also formed his own quartet, EDQ, with Tippett, Moholo and bassist Chris Laurence, recording They All Be On This Old Road (1977) for Ogun Records; around the same time he also formed El Skid with fellow saxophone player Alan Skidmore. In the autumn of 1975, he also joined forces with Tippett, Jim Richardson (bass) and Pip Pyle (drums) as the Weightwatchers, whose brief existence culminated in September 1976 with an epic tour of the Netherlands, The following month, Dean and Tippett formed yet another quartet, this time with Hugh Hopper and Joe Gallivan (drums and synthesizer), which recorded the album Cruel But Fair for Compendium.

1977 was another busy year, with more Ninesense activities, a tour of France and Germany with Tippett/Hopper/Gallivan, an album and European tour with Carla Bley's band (alongside Hugh Hopper and Gary Windo), and a trio album with Gallivan and Kenny Wheeler, The Cheque Is In The Mail. In 1978, he formed Soft Heap with Pip Pyle, Hugh Hopper and Alan Gowen. An inaugural French tour with Dave Sheen replacing Pyle resulted in the Soft Head album Rogue Element, and later that year the band went in the studio to record its eponymous debut, with Pyle back on the drum stool. Around the same time El Skid finally made its recording debut...

HUGH HOPPER / ELTON DEAN / ALAN GOWEN / DAVE SHEEN – Rogue Element (LP-1978)

Label: Ogun – OG 527

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 1978

Style: Free Jazz, Jazz-Rock, Experimental

Recorded May 1978 at Chez Jacky "A L'Ouest de la Grosne" Bresse sur Grosne, on the Van Acker Mobile.

Design [Sleeve] – Liz Walton

Engineer – Jean-Pierre Weiller, Pierre Richard

Mixed By, Edited By – Keith Beal

Photography By [Front Cover] – David Graham

Photography By [Back Cover] – Jean-Pierre Duplan

Producer – Ron Barron

Matrix / Runout (Side 1): OG 527 A C 2929

Matrix / Runout (Side 2): OG 527 B C 2929

A1 - Seven For Lee ..................................................................... 8:40

         (Written-By – Dean)

A2 - Seven Drones ...................................................................... 4:20

         (Written-By – Hopper)

A3 - Remain So ........................................................................... 5:05

         (Written-By – Gowen)

B1 - C.R.R.C. ............................................................................. 14:01

         (Written-By – Gowen)

B2 - One Three Nine ................................................................... 6:17

         (Written-By – Dean)

Hugh Hopper – bass guitar

Elton Dean – alto saxophone, saxello

Alan Gowen – electric piano, synthesizer

Dave Sheen – drums, percussion

_1     This band was supposed to call themselves Soft Heap and include drummer Pip Pyle, but though a tour was booked, he found himself otherwise engaged, and Dave Sheen was hired to accompany fellow Canterbury scenesters Alan Gowen, Hugh Hopper, and Elton Dean on a tour of Europe. Calling themselves Soft Head, they hoped to draw in those frustrated fans of Soft Machine and Gilgamesh. And perhaps they did on this night in France in 1978. But make no mistake, even though Hopper and Dean are present here, this is no pure fusion date with a bunch of knotty harmonics and angular changes riffing around all over the place. This is an electric jazz date, period. Largely this is due to Gowen's compositions and arrangements that walk a tense line between strictly composed elements and improvisation, and the fire of the band themselves, who are -- on this night anyway -- inspired beyond belief. Thank God somebody recorded it. Even at the risk of overstatement, Elton Dean has never played like this on a record. His legato phrasing is lightning-quick and moves through harmonic figures against Gowen's keyboards like a knife cutting through butter. Counterpoint battles are pitched and waged in these tracks, coming down to riding the steady yet flailing rhythm section of Hopper's modally expansive bassing and the avant-swing of Sheen's drumming. While everyone but Sheen contributes originals to the mix here, the arrangement signature is all Gowen, even on Dean classics such as "Seven for Lee", or Hopper's signature "Seven Drones." The spaces for movement between members are held tightly by Gowen, who underlies everything with a chromaticism that is inclusive yet modally and dynamically driven. This is killer stuff that makes one long for the good old days of electric jazz that was still jazz.  

_ (Review by Thom Jurek)

 Hugh Hopper / Alan Gowen

_ 2     This is a live album recorded in a club in France in 1978. Alan Gowen, Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean and Dave Sheen make up this band.The first three are all gone now sadly. It's hard to believe when looking at the pictures of Alan Gowen in the liner notes that just three years from this recording he died of cancer while still in his thirties. In the liner notes it describes Alan as "a jazzer by nature, but his writing was dominated by elaborate and expansive themes. His playing had litheness and lightness which blurred what was scored and what was improvised. Running parallel jaunts with Elton's bitter-sweet saxello, Alan could wail in a way that stretched tonality to it's limit".

"Seven For Lee" opens with bass as light drums join in then keys. Sax before a minute. Great sound here. A calm arrives around 6 1/2 minutes then it builds with bass and drums. Sax before 8 minutes then keys. "Seven Drones" is a Hopper composition. Drums and dissonant keys lead the way as sax comes and goes. Bass before 1 1/2 minutes as the sax starts to play over top. The sax and keys become dissonant. Crazy stuff. It figures that this is a Hopper tune. "Remain So" picks up quickly with piano but the tempo changes often on this one. Bass takes over before 3 minutes. Sax is back late.

"C.R.R.C" is the long thing and takes whole 14 minutes. I like the sound here as keys and sax lead while the bass and drums are also prominant. The tempo picks up after 5 1/2 minutes. It calms right down a minute later with piano, bass and drums. "One Three Nine" is a jazzy little number with sax and keys leading. A bass solo after 5 1/2 minutes.

A very important document really of these talented men playing live. The electric piano, sax, bass and drums are played as only these men could play them.

_ (Review by Mellotron Storm)

Enjoy!

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