Elton Dean
| Elton Dean | |
|---|---|
| File:EltonDean01.jpg | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 28 October 1945 Nottingham, England |
| Origin | Tooting, London, England |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. London, England |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter, record producer |
| Instruments | Saxophone, saxello, keyboards |
| Years active | 1966–2006 |
| Associated acts | Bluesology, Keith Tippett, Soft Machine, The Wrong Object |
Elton Dean (28 October 1945 – 8 February 2006) was an English jazz musician who performed on alto saxophone, saxello (a variant of the soprano saxophone) and occasionally keyboards.
Contents
Career
Dean was born Nottingham, England, moving to Tooting, London, soon after his birth.[1] From 1966 to 1967, Dean was a member of the band Bluesology, led by Long John Baldry. The band's pianist, Reginald Dwight, afterward combined Dean's and Baldry's first names for his own stage name, Elton John.[2]
Dean established his reputation as a member of the Keith Tippett Sextet from 1968 to 1970, and in the band Soft Machine from 1969 to 1972.[2] Shortly before leaving Soft Machine he started his own group, Just Us.[3]
From 1975 to 1978 he led a nine-piece band called Ninesense,[3] performing at the Bracknell Jazz Festival and similar events. His own groups since then, usually quartets or quintets, have most often worked in the free jazz mode, with little or no pre-composed material such as Soft Heap with Mark Hewins.[4] At the same time, he continued to work with other groups that are very composition-based, such as guitarist Phil Miller's In Cahoots, drummer Pip Pyle's Equipe Out,[3] and various projects with former Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper.
In 2002, Dean and three other former Soft Machine members (Hugh Hopper, drummer John Marshall, and guitarist Allan Holdsworth) toured and recorded under the name Soft Works.[5] With another former Soft Machine member, guitarist John Etheridge, replacing Holdsworth, they subsequently toured and recorded as Soft Machine Legacy, playing some pieces from the original Soft Machine repertoire as well as new works.[2] Featuring Dean, three albums of the Legacy have been released: Live in Zaandam (CD, rec. 2005/05/10), New Morning - The Paris Concert (DVD, rec. 2005/12/12) and the studio album Soft Machine Legacy (CD, 2006, rec. 2005).
Dean's last musical collaborations also included those with Soft Bounds, a quartet composed of Dean, Hugh Hopper, Sophia Domancich and Simon Goubert, and also with Alex Maguire's project Psychic Warrior.[6]
Dean died on 8 February 2006 after more than a year of "heart and liver problems," on the day before he was to join a reunion of Soft Machine.[2]
Notes
- ↑ Bennett 2005, pp. 176-177.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Stephen Yarwood, Elton Dean interview, Facelift ("issue 20 - the issue that never happened!").
- ↑ Bennett 2005, p. 398.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
References
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External links
- Discography
- Extended Biography
- AllAboutJazz.com: "Former Soft Machine saxophone player Elton Dean dies"
- Elton Dean at the Wayback Machine (archived 29 September 2007) - interview for Facelift Magazine.
- Use British English from August 2015
- Use dmy dates from July 2013
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with hCards
- 1945 births
- 2006 deaths
- 20th-century English musicians
- 21st-century English musicians
- English rock saxophonists
- English jazz saxophonists
- English jazz alto saxophonists
- English jazz soprano saxophonists
- English record producers
- English songwriters
- English rock musicians
- English jazz musicians
- Jazz-rock musicians
- British rhythm and blues boom musicians
- People from Tooting
- Musicians from London
- People from Nottingham
- Canterbury scene
- Soft Machine members
