ELTON DEAN “Seven for Lee Variations”

ARTIST

Elton Dean

ALBUM TITLE

“Seven for Lee Variations”

LABEL

British Progressive Jazz

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The British Progressive Jazz label continues its admirable excavation of key documents from the fertile British jazz scene of the 1970s. Following On Italian Roads, the new release Seven for Lee Variations presents two exceptional live recordings by Elton Dean, captured during consecutive concerts at Milan’s Teatro Cristallo in 1979.

The album opens with a previously unreleased version of “Oasis,” recorded on the second night and distinct from the take included on On Italian Roads. Intense and at times incendiary, the performance unfolds with remarkable collective cohesion. Dean’s alto rises with lyrical authority while Tippett steers the quartet through passages of sophisticated harmonic freedom, anchored by Harry Miller’s resonant bass and Louis Moholo-Moholo’s fluid, multi-layered drumming.

The second and final piece, “Seven for Lee Variations,” is an extended and reimagined version of Dean’s signature composition – a veritable musical manifesto of his Ninesense period. Its well-known opening riff becomes the springboard for an expansive improvisational suite in which the four musicians seem to communicate telepathically. Dean and Tippett alternate and pursue one another in an ever-evolving spiral, while the rhythm section weaves a fabric that shifts from urgency to abstraction without ever losing narrative direction.

The sound quality is strikingly good: clear, balanced, and dynamically vivid. This is not merely a historical artifact but a genuine live recording that captures the quartet’s energy, inventiveness, and deep rapport. The restoration work – aided, it seems, by the excellent condition of the original tapes – achieves a sonic presence rarely found in amateur recordings of that era.

Seven for Lee Variations not only enriches the archive of Elton Dean and his collaborators but also reinforces their legend. Just two tracks suffice to summon the force of music that, nearly half a century later, still radiates its undiminished visionary power.

– Francesco Spezia

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