[Harj]

Many of you may not know this bassist and I didn't until about six months ago. Hugh Hopper was a memeber of The Soft Machine, along with Robert Wyatt & Mike Ratledge, and a few others. Soft Machine were the pioneers of british Jazz-rock, wonderful musicians and fantastic original music from the late 60's to early 70's.

Their best albums were the first four, and if these guys were to have played anything accesible (third and fourth albums virtually did away with lyrics in favour of long instumental compositions) they would have been huge, but instead they favoured playing the music they loved and Hugh Hopper was certainly one of the best bassist out there.

Hugh Hopper: bass player with the jazz-rock band Soft Machine | Times Online Obituary

Soft Machine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Palladio]

Sad to hear.

I remember buying Third in the sixties, a great album.

[scottie50]

Thanks for the post Harj, I heard about the benefit last December but didn't know he had passed away, very sad, a very talented man. With Elton Dean passing away recently we're down to Robert Wyatt and Mike Ratledge left from one of my favourite gigs ever, Soft Machine at Birmingham Town Hall in 1970 where they performed most of Volume 2 and premiered what is still my favourite album Third, and to this day the only record I've ever double dipped. RIP Hugh.