THE WRONG OBJECT & ELTON DEAN: THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH

What the late Elton Dean was all about.

Elton Dean joined up with the excellent musicians in The Wrong Object for this truly memorable album. Unfortunate, this was one of Elton Dean's last albums before he passed away.

Those who knows Elton Dean's work from Nucleus and in particular Soft Machine will be very happy in the company of this album. Elton Dean is improvising and soloing over the melodies laid down in the background by The Wrong Object. The band is very impressive with their light and loose playing. In particular, the under stated but still very impressive guitar licks by Michel Delville is everywhere and very impressive. They also work as a contrast to Elton Dean. It is like light and shade in the sound. Excellent stuff.

The opener Seven for Lee sets the tone and is the best track on the album. Elton Dean's improvisations is straight up your face while Delville is keeping the band tight in the background. This song makes a Soft Machine fan weep with joy. The rest of the songs is not that strong, but they are still great songs nevertheless. This album is also a surprising varied album where The Wrong Object also shines like a bright light in the darkness. The music here is also a mix of the Jazz/Fusion and Canterbury Scene. The latter one mostly due to Elton Dean.

Altogether, this is a great album and both a great farewell and a tribute to Elton Dean. This album is highly recommended to both Jazz/Fusion fans and Canterbury Scene fans.

4 stars

Whether this is an Elton Dean album or a Wrong Object one is up for debate, but I'm more of a partisan of classifying it with TWO's discography, because four of the seven tracks are TWO compositions (and therefore 'new', while the three Elton pieces are almost old standards. Nevertheless the two parties had arranged for more than just one session/gig, but Elton's health would not allow it, since he departed for the big jam session in the naught. They'd had prior contacts and had sent tapes to each other.

Aymeric tells us of the circumstances of this gig, and how the band had barely had anytime at all to set up and no sound-check to play the first half of the gig, as usual, mostly made up of Frank Zappa covers. Then Elton joined them for the second set, and right from the opening Seven For Lee, all madness breaks loose. In many ways, we're not far away from Soft Machine's type of fusion during Elton's tenure in that band, but this is valid for much (if not all) of TWO's compositions. You'd swear it is Hopper on bass at the start of Millenium Jumble, because it's a stealing hot Machinist-like number where Elton shines like one thousand sun (Delplancq ans Estievenaert leave him all the space to roam around).

However Dean's Baker's Treat is a bit of the odd piece out of the set, since it plays a fairly trad jazz game, and sticks out a bit from the rest of the set. Indeed with Delville's Unbelievable truth (the title track) we return to fuzz territory worthy of the Machine, and even more. Indeed the track reaches an enthralling intensity, especially during Delville's lava-melting guitar solo (he's the band's main songwriter). Surprisingly enough Cannery Catastrophe is a sung piece, though the vocal parts are so few that it might as well have been an instrumental. But the piece also develops in a wild full- blast blow-out. Elton's old Basho Variations might just be the evening's more dissonant piece, but it's definitely a gentle side, with some slight bop influences.

This album was the last one Elton Dean recorded and in some ways, it's the perfect testimony of his JR/F side, albeit incomplete, since The Unbelievable Truth doesn't show his more experimental or extreme facet, but I'm ever so grateful that destiny made that his last album he participated is a great one. Thank you Elton'. And RIP.

The Wrong Object is a group from Liege, Belgium, led by the talents of guitarist Michel Delville and having a strong Jazz background as exhibited by the fact they even had three sax/trumpet players at some point.They started as a Frank Zappa cover band with a main core consisting also of Damien Polard on bass, Alain Deval on drums, later replaced by Laurent Delchambre, Fred Delplancq on saxes and Jean-Paul Estievenart on trumpet/flugelhorn.They played live in several European countries over the years, taking part in quite a few grand Jazz festivals and during their performance at Glaz'Art in Paris on 18th October 2005 they were joined by the legendary Elton Dean of Soft Machine on sax.It was one of the last live performances of Dean, before passing away in February 2006, the album was released in 2007 on Moonjune Records under the title ''The unbelievable truth''.

With a deep FRANK ZAPPA background and links to the music of THE SOFT MACHINE due to Dean's presence, this live consists mainly of Zappa covers and jazz improvisations, nothing to do with Prog actually, and often passing in the territory of Free Jazz.Some 65 minutes of music in seven tracks overall offer a spicy and intense taste of the free spirit of Jazz Music with 70's THE SOFT MACHINE being a good comparison, not only because Dean is on stage, but also because the rhythm section and Delville's guitar seem to be around for the creation of supporting, psychedelic tunes.The album is thus dominated by the long, scratching and free solos of Delplanq, Estievenart and Dean on saxes and trumpet, resulting to over-stretched pieces of improvisation, which are pretty nice to be seen live, but not overly charming for a normal audio release.This is one of these live executions you have to be there to fully appreciate or maybe a DVD could be a better delivery as a whole.Of course the material is pretty strong and powerful, going from Psychedelic Jazz to Free Improvisation and back, adding some obscure electronics in the process and eventually completing a dynamic set of jazzy weirdness with endless solos and instrumental masturbations.

Not among my priorities and definitely not suitable to Prog fans.This is loose Jazz Rock with Avant-Garde leanings and numerous improvised parts, a good fit for those into this particular style and maybe fans of the jamming side of THE SOFT MACHINE and the featured FRANK ZAPPA productions...2.5 stars.

Miss me? THE WRONG OBJECT are a Jazz band out of Belgium and they have an Avant flavour to their sound. This is actually a live album recorded in Paris October 18, 2005. Elton Dean is the featured guest here with his sax and saxello. We get seven tracks over 68 minutes. The band are very much big Zappa fans but they're also big SOFT MACHINE fans so having Elton on board must have been amazing especially since he passed not long after this.

No keyboards here but three horn players including Dean along with bass, guitar and drums. The guitarist has a very interesting style almost like scratching, it's hard to describe and I'm not a fan. He does play normally later on the title track which happens to be a top two track for me. The horns are great on this one plus the guitar. It turns fairly powerful after 2 minutes and Avant sounding. A calm after 6 1/2 minutes and that's when we get that guitar I like and he's ripping it up 10 minutes in.

"Seven For Lee" which was on a SOFT HEAD album is a Dean composed tune as is "Baker's Treat" and "The Basho Variations". The guitarist composed three tracks and the band one. Vocals on "A Cannery Catastrophe" the only tune that has them. Love the rhythm section after 3 minutes on "Cunnimingus Redux" with the sax over top. Actual fuzz bass to start "Millennium Jumble" along with experimental sounds. An Avant flavour for sure on this one. "Baker's Treat" is my least favourite as it's like an instrumental ballad. That opener though "Seven For Lee" I could spin on repeat for most of the day, it's so good.