The only way I can understand Ratledge and Hopper’s inclusion of Phil Howard into Soft Machine is that they didn’t initially realize his playing had no “off switch.” Happily, his playing on both All White and Drop is perfect as his wall of sound drumming energizes and completes both tunes. After those tracks, however, disaster and musical chaos reign as Phil Howard becomes a drumming train wreck and liability for Soft Machine.
The ramifications went far beyond the drum chair; the poor way his dismissal was handled sped up Elton Dean’s departure and the arrival of Karl Jenkins sped up Hugh Hopper’s departure. True Soft Machine ceased to exist. Those falling dominoes can be traced back to a very real degree of neglect by Hopper and Ratledge in the decision to hire Phil Howard, they simply did not perform due diligence. Did they not make Phil audition or listen to Just Us? Phil Howard is a very exciting polyrhythmic drummer, capable of creating churning, dense, vertical rhythms. Phil Howard is also stylistically a “free” drummer where actual charts, stops and starts, interaction and above all volume dynamics are not prioritized. How anyone thought his style could work indefinitely within the compositional requirements of Mike Ratledge and Soft Machine is hard to imagine.
Despite the success of side one of Fifth, Phil Howard could not be integrated into their set list unless Soft Machine turned itself into a more famous version of “Just Us.” Even Elton Dean and his love of both free jazz and Phil’s playing had to know the long term likelihood of that was nil.
That said, the first two tracks of Fifth represent the last great Soft Machine studio recordings. Nothing else on Fifth ultimately holds up and certainly nothing on future albums comes close.
All White offers the first and best documentation of Ratledge’s command of the Fender Rhodes. His chording is angular and melodic, and forms an energetic background for Elton’s wonderful soloing on saxello. It is really their first jazz offering, with minimal changes and a single theme: this tune is for blowing.
A tip–off to Phil’s Soft Machine future is that for the first time in their recording history the drums are actually faded in at the beginning of All White. Even then, someone was thinking “less is more,” but for this piece the drumming is perfect and Phil Howard’s style could not be more ideally suited.
Hugh Hopper plays delightful minimal overarching bass parts to contrast with the business of the drumming on both tracks. On Drop, as Hugh begins the short thematic line that introduces the solo section, Phil trades snare and tom-tom accents and jabs with the bass line setting up a warm canvas for the soloist. Ratledge rewards the entire rhythm section with the last great Soft Machine fuzz organ solo on record. It is beautifully crafted, searching and ambitious. It is perfect from the intro of the short melody, cresting over the waves of drum propulsion, telling a story with a beginning, middle and end. In the last 30 seconds of the piece Ratledge hits the echo on his Lowrey and a little micro song erupts that could have been the basis for another entire movement. It is brilliant and it is also the end.
Phil Howard and John Marshall
Compare Fifth’s All White to the live Six version with John Marshall and you realize how much the original All White depended on sheer mayhem and vertical churning from the drum chair for it to work. On the versions of All White on Six and Live in France, John Marshall depends on eighth notes on his hi-hat to provide the foundation and this energy is not enough to carry and propel the piece. In fairness, Six and BBC Radio One have Karl Jenkins soloing on oboe in place of Elton and that by itself is a huge fall-off in command and musicality.
John Marshall has the identical problem with Drop. Other recorded versions with Marshall such as Live in France or BBC Radio One fall flat as you realize the tune depends on a percolating rhythmic floor that Phil Howard created to hold up and prod the soloist. Oddly, on Live in France Marshall employs basically a funk beat that simply does not work.
Again, Phil’s style of dense, churning patterns and cymbal overtones fits Drop perfectly. But every song cannot sound like this. There are no stops and starts, there are no true changes that must be hit. Imagining Phil Howard playing Teeth or Slightly is impossible. He completely overplays on the BBC 1967-1971 version of As If missing even the minor written changes. As that tune progresses he feeds off of Elton and everyone else is ignored, he is simply not listening. Halfway through the track, you are literally hearing a drum solo accompanying a sax solo, with both in complete disregard of the bass and piano. It is a musical mess. The word “busy” does not even do Phil Howard justice, he is playing an approach of “everynote” where apparently you cannot overplay.
This stems from free playing where frankly I am not qualified to judge. As an example, how does a great take of Neo-Caliban Grides compare to merely a good one? I am sure I could not hear it. That is my bias. For me, free jazz suggests the quip from American Dorothy Parker as she described downtown Los Angeles with, “There is no there there.” Free playing can be a great form of contrast for a piece, cacophony evolving into melody and structure. It makes the ear appreciate the melody even more when it is preceded by non-traditional melody and rhythm. But when it is the entire composition, again, there is no there there.
So here is the question: can a polyrhythmic drummer also be monochromatic? The answer is yes; Phil Howard. Phil Howard is an exciting drummer who created intense, rhythmically complex patterns with almost no open spaces. On side one of ,Phil was the ideal drummer for those tunes, he was a huge contributor to their success and their viability today. In 2006 they still sound fresh. Yet he was absolutely monochromatic; his actual drum parts on All White and Drop are very similar, his playing sounds different on MC due only to his use of brushes. Just Us and BBC 1967-1971 confirm that he played like that all the time. Sometimes less is more. For Soft Machine, Phil Howard, was a useful but expensive wrong turn.
John Trimble/2009
Just making a few corrections:
Actually, the compilation of BBC Radio is really dated 1971-74, the 1967-71 contains nothing more, nothing less than all Wyatt era stuff. So “As If” comes from the 1971-74 compilation, that post-dates Wyatt’s departure.
Apparently, Phil Howard did get into Soft Machine by an impressive audition. Elton Dean might’ve lobbied for Howard a lot. Mike and Hugh also considered Joe Gallivan, dunno why that alternative didn’t work out.
I’ve got the “Drop” live album and while it’s indeed bloody intense and I guess my tolerance for free-jazz is a bit higher than average, it has been suggested in the liner notes (by Steve Lake) that by the end of Wyatt’s tenure, the band was playing the same setlist nightly. Mike Ratledge might’ve wanted a more free jazz drummer in order to break the monotony a little bit, to introduce more spontaneity to the mix. Alas, Howard’s style of spontaneity was indeed like too much pepper in the stew and thus Ratledge judged him “too hot to handle”.
Interesting use of words at the end: “useful but expensive wrong turn”. I would personally use “unsustainable” in place of “expensive”, but you do convey the meaning quite well still. But in any event, side one of Fifth is excellent. Side two not so much. Well, let’s just say Howard was perfect for “All White” and “Drop”, Marshall did justice to “As If” (though I quite liked the explosive madness on BBC album as well), while all the better versions of “Pigling Bland” come from the Wyatt era.