Crovella, Beppe - What's Rattlin' on the Moon

SKU MOONJUNE030
Beppe Crovella-Mellotron, Fender Rhodes Stage 73 electric piano, Wurlitzer E200 electric piano, Hohner electric piano, Hohner Clavinet D6, Rösler Grand Piano, Hammond Organ M102, Farifsa Professional (neither analog or digital synthesizers, or other digital keyboards were used on this recording).

"...Beppe Crovella (Arti e Mestieri) delivers a heartfelt and long-overdue appreciation of one of the defining voices of the jazz-rock idiom, Soft Machine keyboard player and composer Mike Ratledge. More than any of his more widely recognized former bandmates, it was Ratledge who was truly the heart and soul of Soft Machine, his instantly identifiable sound and forceful, incandescent soloing providing the thread of continuity throughout most of the band’s many incarnations. At a time when many progressive rock keyboardists were surrounding themselves with ever more elaborate arrays of futuristic, often sterile-sounding keyboard instruments, Ratledge managed to produce music of arguably greater depth and vitality armed primarily with an inexpensive modified Lowrey organ and a Rhodes electric piano. Not for Ratledge the precious neoclassicism and faux orchestral flavorings of the progressive genre—his signature overdriven organ gave even guitarists like Softs touring partner Jimi Hendrix a run for their money and flattened many an unsuspecting concertgoer. The rawness and intensity of his Coltrane-inspired sheets of sound imbued Soft Machine’s music with a sense of risk and immediacy that tilted the band into the realm of up-to-the-minute jazz, yet he could just as easily conjure more bucolic moods with his ruminative playing on the electric piano. Ratledge also contributed a number of the group’s most enduring compositions in “Slightly All the Time,” “Out-Bloody-Rageous,” “Esther’s Nose Job,” and “Chloë and the Pirates". Sadly for many Soft Machine enthusiasts, Ratledge has been little seen since he left the band in 1976 — all the more reason to celebrate the release of What’s Rattlin’ on the Moon, on which Crovella breathes new life into a choice selection of classic Ratledge compositions while adding a number of exemplary Softs-inspired tunes of his own..."


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  • LabelMoonJune
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