ELTON DEAN — Live At The BBC (as Ninesense) (review)

ELTON DEAN — Live At The BBC (as Ninesense) album cover

Live album · 2003 · Avant-Garde Jazz

4/5 · 2012-10-17
Sean Trane

After having returned from the Netherlands from his Supersister tenure, Elton formed his next group called Ninesense with some of his usual suspects from the London jazz scene, including Charig, Skidmore, Tippett and the London South African contingent of Moholo, Feza, Malfatti and Harry Miller. Add trombonist Nieman, and you’ll reach the nine members of this formation, hence the band’s name. After their first Oh For The Edge album (released on the Ogun label in 75), the band toured extensively Europe and played some broadcasts before releasing their second Happy Daze album (still on Ogun) the following year. While the band remained somewhat active until the later 70’s, those were their only two albums. The present Hux label release features two BBC gigs, including one from their productive era in 75, while the second part is from the band’s later days in early 78, with the notable change of Harry Beckett, in lieu of the then-deceased Mongezi Feza and Nick Evans for Paul Nieman.

The first BBC radio session dates from mid-75 and offers a rather jazzy side with big band penchants, and the opening Dancin’ track will surprise those expecting a full frontal Dean-Tippett attack. However, the following Soothing piece offers a much more experimental side of Ninesense, where the aforementioned Elton and Keith really play up a dissonant typhoon of notes, enough to destabilize the old Londinium foundations to let the Thames in the basement. The reprise of Sweet Francesca certainly doesn’t follow its predecessor’s mood, and to be honest, its 50’s slow-paced aura bores me to shreds. The much faster Bidet Bebop is much less a snoozefest, and despite the trad bop rhythm, but Malfatti’s trombone, Dean’s sax and Tippett’s 100MPH piano challenge your tolerance levels. On the whole, the set varies from almost-swing to dissonant bop, with tad of avant-garde in Soothing.

The second set dates from the later days of the venture, but the least one can hear and say is that the band had lost none of its impetus and power in the winter of 78, and present energy levels closer to the rock realm, and even more in the JR/F genre. After a dissonant start, the band goes into some typical soundscapes for some 16 minutes, sometimes strongly reminiscent of Centipede, where Tippett’s ever discernable piano emerges from the aural quagmire and leads the brass and woods into an unstoppable inferno spiral in which the grand piano will fall into at the superb chaotic Nicra end. The closing Seven For Me is an awesome slow tense crescendo that grows on you as it unwinds its aural wings around your powerless awe-stricken ears. Indeed my preference goes for this second set, and one can wonder what their third album might have sounded like, if recorded at the time of this broadcast. Surely not many bands still played with this kind of energy back then (79).

Both of the Ninesense studio albums on Ogun Records during the 70’s have received a recent CD 2on1 reissue from Ogun, and the least we can say is that despite the typical Ninesense spirit and sound, their live facet was somewhat different than their studio works. Of course it doesn’t help that there are few common tracks between these sessions and the studio, and when there are, they’re titled a bit differently, as to highlight some consequent differences. One may not want to choose whether he prefers the live or studio version of the band, but this BBC Sessions makes a perfect companion album in the Ninesense discography. Actually prefer this posthumous release to the two historical albums.