Moon in June

Soft Machine: Rab Spall (violin), Mike Ratledge (piano, Lowrey organ, Hohner Pianet), Hugh Hopper (electric bass) and Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals). From the album Third (1970).

In 1967 Soft Machine toured Europe, but on returning to the United Kingdom, Australian Daevid Allen was refused entry because his visa had expired, so he went to Paris and founded Gong. Since in 1968 the remaining trio had the same manager as Jimmy Hendrix, they toured the United States opening the Jimmy Hendrix Experience. There they recorded with Probe Records their first album The Soft Machine, in which they mix the energy of psychedelic rock with jazz improvisations.

After the tour, Ayers was succeeded to electric bass by Huge Hopper and in 1969 they recorded Volume Two, in which Huge’s brother, saxophonist Brian Hopper, also participated, and in which we find long jazz-oriented themes with less sung parts and a creative work of the rhythm section that plays in a surrealistic way. To record the next album, the group signed with the Columbia label and incorporated saxophonist Eston Dean, who suggested hiring three more wind players. In 1970, the septet released the double album Third, the best-selling in the history of the band and considered an icon by fans of progressive rock and jazz-rock. Since they couldn’t maintain such a large ensemble, in 1971 they published Fourth in quartet, but with the collaboration of other musicians in different songs. After that Wyatt left to create Matching Mole and then start a solo career.

Wyatt was replaced by Phil Howard and the group toured Europe before recording Fifht, in which Howard only participates in the first three tracks and John Marshall in the rest as the band’s new drummer, and in which it plays almost entirely in the language of jazz. In 1972 Eston Dean was succeeded by saxophonist, keyboardist and composer Karl Jenkins, and this line-up (Jenkins, Ratledge, Hopper and Marshall) performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Carnegie Hall in New York and the Newport Jazz Festival.