Elton Dean
guitar/synth guitar
Elton Dean started taking piano
and violin lessons at a very early age, and bought his first saxophone when he
reached 18. At that point, he'd become interested in jazz listening to the radio
and records, particularly traditional English jazz, Sidney Bechet, Eddie Condon,
etc. By the mid-60's, Dean had started playing in London pubs, and became a
professional musician. In 1966-67, he played alongside trumpet player Mark
Charig in Long John Baldry's
band
Bluesology (whose piano player borrowed his and Baldry's first names to start a
career as pop singer under the name Elton John), Georgie Fame's Blue Flames and
Marsha Hunt's backing band. Late in 1967, Dean and Charig met pianist Keith
Tippett and trombone player Nick Evans, thus the formation of the Keith Tippett
Sextet, which played in various clubs in 1968-69 and recorded two albums for the
Vertigo label. In the Autumn of 1969, Tippett's brass section of Dean, Evans and
Charig was absorbed into Soft Machine. While the latter two left after only a
couple of months, Dean soldiered on, and for two years was part of the band's
most vividly remembered line-up, alongside Robert Wyatt, Hugh Hopper and Mike
Ratledge. He played on the studio albums Third (1970), Fourth (1971) and 5
(1972), as well as many radio sessions and European tours, resulting in later
archive albums such as Peel Sessions. While in Soft Machine, Dean also formed
his own jazz group with Neville Whitehead (bass) and Phil Howard (drums),
releasing his eponymous debut on CBS in 1971 (with Ratledge guesting), and
played with Barry Guy's Jazz Composers' Orchestra and Keith Tippett's 50-piece
Centipede. The Elton Dean Group had already metamorphosed into Just Us, which
saw Dean reunited with Charig and Evans, by the time he left Soft Machine in May
1972. It carried on as a semi-professional ensemble until 1975, by the time the
rhythm section had changed to Harry Miller and Louis Moholo on bass and drums
respectively. In 1973, Dean toured Holland backing Loak Dikker, and later that
year replaced Charlie Mariano in the Dutch progressive rock band Supersister.
Back in England in February 1974, he toured as part of Hugh Hopper's Monster
Band and joined Chris MacGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, touring Europe with
them for two years. 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. In 1976, he toured Europe with
Tippett, Jim Richardson (bass) and Pip Pyle (drums) as the Weightwatchers, and
later that year formed yet another quartet with Tippett, 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. An album by El Skid, which as it names
indicates was a collaboration with fellow sax player Alan Skidmore (with former
Soft Machine colleague John Marshall on drums), was also released. Dean's
activities at the turn of the decade were a little less prolific : Soft Heap
carried on with some personnel changes (John Greaves coming in on bass, Mark
Hewins on guitar replacing Gowen after his untimely death in 1981), his own EDQ
recorded the album Boundaries (1980), and he guested on National Health's
tribute album to Gowen, D.S. Al Coda (1982). Canterbury links were further
renewed when he joined Phil Miller's new band, In Cahoots (of which he's been a
permanent fixture for almost 15 years), and a couple of years later drummer Pip
Pyle's jazz band L'Equip'Out. To keep busy during his spare time, he also formed
yet another EDQ which recorded a couple of albums in the mid-80's. Later in the
decade, he also formed the Dean/Etheridge Quartet with guitarist Etheridge, and
the rhythm section of Fred Baker and Mark Sanders. Other projects during that
period included the Duos and Trios tapes which he released on his own label, ED
Tapes, and his Unlimited Saxophone Company. The 1990's have seen the
continuation of Dean's participation in In Cahoots (the albums "Recent
Discoveries" and "Parallel", and numerous tours) and Equip'Out (until its demise
in the mid-90s), amidst various jazz projects. The mid-Nineties witnessed the
return of the EDQ with a new line-up (Sophia Domancich on piano, and members of
Keith Tippett's band Mujician: Paul Dunmall, Paul Rogers and Tony Levin), with
the CD "Silent Knowledge" on the American label Cuneiform. Dean also formed a
new large jazz ensemble, Newsense. And more recently the SoftWare quartet,
consisting of Dean, Hugh Hopper, John Marshall and Keith Tippett, played one gig
in Germany September 1999. There are plans for follow-up appearances and
possibly an album. Dean is currently going through his extended archive of
unreleased recordings to compile a proposed 3CD anthology for release in 2001.
There are also plans for a reissue of his "El Skid" album with Alan Skidmore,
but sadly none for "They All Be On This Old Road" or "Boundaries".
Bands : Bluesology (1966-67), Keith Tippett
Sextet (1968-70), Soft Machine (1969-72), Just Us (1972-75), Centipede
(1970-71), Brotherhood of Breath (1973), Ninesense (1975-77), Weightwatchers
(1976), Hopper Dean Tippett Gallivan (1976-77), Carla Bley Band (1977), Keith
Tippett's Ark (1978-79), Soft Head (1978), Soft Heap (1978-), London Jazz
Composer's Orchestra, In Cahoots (1982-), Pip Pyle's Equip'Out (1984-95), Mark
Hewins' FF (1984-85), The Music Doctors (1986-87), London/Dallas Sextet (1988),
+ various EDQ's, In Cahoots, EDQ [ED, Roswell Rudd, Alex Maguire, Marcio Mattos,
and Mark Sanders], Dean Dean's NewSense [ED, Annie Whitehead, Paul Rutherford,
Jim Dvorak, Alex Maguire, Marcio Mattos, Paul Rogers and Mark Sanders plus
Roswell Rudd], Keith Tippett Big Band.
This information is taken from Aymeric Leroy's
excellent website Calyx.
At the Vortex my local jazz club on the 29th of
October In Cahoots played a set commemorating the music of Elton Dean and Pip
Pyle who sadly both died this year. They were 2 of the original members of In
Cahoots and performed with the band from 1983 for over two decades. Both were of
course brilliant individual talents who played with fire and passion and I am
proud to have played with them. For this gig In Cahoots line-up was augmented to
a 7 piece with Simon Finch, Simon Picard, Gail Brand (Trombone), Pete Lemer,
Fred Baker and Mark Fletcher. It was a brilliant gig with many of Elton an Pip’s
musician friends playing together in different combinations. We may perform one
of their pieces as a tribute when we play at the Shinjuku Pit Inn in December .I
think Fred Baker will play the piece Elton wrote called Baker’s Treat in our Duo
performance.