Search - Soft Machine :: Best Of: Harvest Years

Noodling jazz/rock fusion - a sad epitaph

happydogpotatohead | New Orleans, LA USA | 10/13/1999

(2 out of 5 stars)

"No, I'm sorry, The Best Of Soft Machine is contained on "Soft Machine I and II." This is lukewarm jazz/rock, most of it done under the direction of Karl Jenkins, keyboardist and saxophonist who was not even a member of the original Soft Machine. On some of these tracks, even founder Mike Ratledge had left, which meant that there were NO original Softs members in the band! As a result this is largely pedestrian stuff, the kind of thing they play in the background of TV clips during a football game, except for a few gutsy guitar solos here and there by a very young Allan Holdsworth. Unless you are an obsessive Softs completist, or you enjoy jazz/rock from the 70s to an unheard of extent, this is not really worth your time. Unless, of course you're a TV producer looking for good background music for sports clips. It certainly sounds nothing like Soft Machine, leave alone Soft Machine at their best."

Not "the best"

04/15/1999

(3 out of 5 stars)

"If you like the Karl Jenkins era of Soft Machine, this disk is probably a good sampler ... but it's a totally different band from the classic 1968-1971 era."

Excellent Jazz-Fusion

05/01/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As the previous reviewers state ad nauseum, this is not the original Soft Machine lineup. It is, however, the Soft Machine that produced some of the best jazz fusion of the 70's. If you like electric jazz, you'll want this CD."