ELTON DEAN — El Skid (review)

ELTON DEAN — El Skid album cover Album · 1977 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
snobb
One of the four Elton Dean albums released in 1977, "El Skid" (what comes from Elton + Skidmore), is the only one of them released outside of his home country (on the tiny German Vinyl Records), all the others come from the English Ogun label.

The quartet on here is led equally by two British sax players, Elton Dean and Alan Skidmore, and also includes acoustic bassist Chris Laurence and ex-Soft Machine drummer John Marshall. Released during a time when Soft Machine had become inactive but still retained name recognition. It's not unusual that the music recorded by this band's living legend Elton Dean (plus one more ex-Machinist) attracted a lot of attention from their former band's fans, but it wasn't necessarily for good at all.

Even if the album's opener, "Dr. Les Mosses", sounds quite close to early 70s "Softs" fusion, the rest of the music is pure jazz, and even more - quite straight-ahead jazz (at least compared to many of Dean's freer works). This co-led quartet plays quite melodic free-bop and blues-rooted groovy music, the kind one can hardly find on other Dean albums. Four long compositions are influenced more by Eric Dolphy and Sonny Rollins than the Canterbury scene they came from, or the quirky English improv-based avant-garde jazz of that time.

Reissued in 2001 on the UK Voiceprint label which specializes in the Canterbury scene and other rock-jazz reissues and vault material releases, this album missed its second chance to find the right listener and it's a pity, since it contains some really good jazz coming from one of Dean's most fruitful periods. Anyone coming from an interest in the Canterbury scene and wanting to dig deeper into the Elton Dean solo works can start here - this free, but quite accessible album could become a good entry to his other, often more "out" and quirky solo music.
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