Personnel: Elton Dean (saxello, alto saxophone, electric piano); Jeff Green (guitar); Marc Charig (cornet); Nick Evans (trombone); Mike Ratledge (electric piano, organ); Neville Whitehead (electric bass); Louis Moholo, Phil Howard (drums).
Though he's had a long, prolific solo career, saxophonist/composer Elton Dean is probably best known as a member of the legendary British jazz-rock outfit Soft Machine. JUST US, Dean's first solo effort (long out of print until this Cuneiform reissue), was recorded while Dean was still working with Soft Machine. It's not surprising, then, to note that the album bears a strong resemblance to that group's contemporaneous work (the presence of many Soft Machine musicians doesn't hurt either). Like the Softs circa '72, JUST US is full of post-BITCHES BREW concoctions that deftly balance acoustic and electric, hard bop and free jazz, lyrical romanticism and avant-garde experimentation. Dean's '70s alto work is a vital part of the British jazz legacy, and outside of his pioneering recordings with Soft Machine, there's no better place to hear his early work than JUST US, a classic of the jazz-rock canon.
