Soft Machine

Ronnie Scott’s 10^th April 2024

This review first appeared in the Camden New Journal

My wife suggested that a vanishingly small number of readers would appreciate the headline to this piece. So, here goes – it is a play on a track called Dedicated To You.. But You Weren’t Listening on Soft Machine Volume Two (also used for the title of an album by the Keith Tippet Group, which featured Softs men Elton Dean and Robert Wyatt). It came to mind because guitarist John Etheridge of this parish (you may see him crossing the Heath most days), and the de facto frontman of the current Softs line-up, dedicated the band’s performance on Wednesday night to long-term, masterly drummer John Marshall, who played his final gig at Ronnie’s last year with the band and died in September 2023. Marshall wasn’t actually on Volume Two or the Tippett album but the latter in particular is a masterpiece of the kind of jazz-rock that Marshall excelled at.

         The latest iteration of the Softs (above, pic by P Howitt) played the first show at Ronnie’s – 6.30-8pm -a slightly early slot for jazz. It was ”Just after nap time” as Etheridge, who joined the band in 1975, making him the elder statesmen, put it. Whether he had partaken of a snooze himself wasn’t clear, but something put fire in his belly, because he was on blistering form, whether trading licks with the versatile sax/flute/keys man Theo Travis, indulging in a McLaughlin/Cobham like interplay with drummer Asaf Sirkis or turning out fiery finger-shredding solos on former member (Sir) Karl Jenkins’ Tales of Taliesin from the ninth album Softs.

         With no original personnel left, there are those who think the group is like Trigger’s famous broom in Only Fools and Horses – if all the parts have been replaced, is it still the same brush? In this case, though, the better analogy would be something like the Porsche 911 that has evolved over time into a new, yet familiar, beast. Hardly any components remain from the original in the current 911 model, yet the DNA they share is obvious. Soft Machine began in 1966 but the 2024 version has a similar genetic connection to the original.

       Etheridge went to great lengths to explain how the new boys – drummer Sirkis with his five crash cymbals and bass player Fred Baker  – slot into the history of the band, although a hand-out of a Pete Frame-like family tree would certainly help beginners to the Canterbury scene. Baker, incidentally, may look like he’ll be off to sell shooms at Glastonbury, but he demonstrated that he and his fretless bass are worthy (farm) successors to Hugh Hopper and Roy Babbington. The latter retired recently with hand problems, but he can be heard guesting on the excellent new record Other Doors, which has all the knotty time signatures, ethereal soundscapes and earworm melodies that any long-term fan could desire.

         The set was a canny mix of old and new, going back to the sixties for Joy of a Toy – also revisited on Other Doors – and taking in the seminal Third with Facelift and ranging from the abstract and angular (Travis’s The Visitor at the Window) to the serenely beautiful (a flute-driven version of Hopper’s Kings & Queens from Fourth – the flute harks back to the days when the enigmatic Lyn Dobson was a short-lived addition to the “classic” Dean/Hopper/Ratledge/Wyatt line-up). Odd that the new single wasn’t featured. It’s a proper 7-inch 45 rpm number with Harry Becket’s lilting The Dew at Dawn backed with a reworking of that old Mike Ratledge-era favourite, Slightly All the Time. Still, it was for sale in the foyer for those who missed it being included.

         The evening finished with a medley that spanned decades, where the multi-talented Travis let rip a la Elton Dean, beginning with 10.30 Returns to the Bedroom, the final track on Soft Machine Volume Two, and climaxing with a furious Hazard Profile Part One from the Bundles album. The full house loved it and, as on the new album, the band demonstrated this music, rather than being an exercise in prog-rock nostalgia, still has a winning vitality and relevance. Ronnie’s is closing for a refurb over the summer – let’s hope they invite Soft Machine back to the spiffed-up club, perhaps this time in the later slot, not just after nap time.

Rob Ryan