Michael Ratledge was very tall. I was first introduced to Mike by a mutual friend, Susan DePalma, in the afternoon of one of our annual 12-hour New Year's Day parties in the West Village. Susan had a Cheshire Cat grin when she got my attention by saying, "There's someone I think you will be very interested to meet." When I turned, I had to look up, and at the same time, I heard the words "Mike Ratledge"—I went weak in the knees and almost fell backward; such was the power of the man's presence. This was probably 1995. Mike eventually left after a few hours, but then much later returned, saying this was the best party around, and proceeded to lose at Backgammon versus my 12-year-old daughter (the more sober player at that point). Thanks to Susan, we kept in touch and talked about our respective endeavors. In one such moment in a typical Ratledge bon-mots, he said of my persona as a consultant, "So you really don't undertake anything; you’re just the undertaker."
The last time I saw Mike in person was at his club in London, a properly wood-paneled dark warren of well-worn Chesterfield sofas and clouds of cigarette smoke. It was probably the second bottle of wine when I realized that the man was a technical genius who just happened to also be rendering his own translation of Francois Villon's love poetry. Back then, metadata was not as commonplace as now, but he was annotating interactive CDs with fine-grained metadata covering session players and recording dates. To say he was a virtuoso conversationalist is like saying Bucky Fuller was laconic.
The bottom line was that I was fortunate enough to be an acquaintance of the post-Softs Ratledge and astute enough to heed the man who had contributed so mightily to the canon of music that today is generalized as the Canterbury Scene.
The first time I heard Soft Machine (many fans refer to it as The Softs) was in my friend Jeff Ryan's basement during our weed-infused after-school listening sessions, which were surrounded by Jeff's walls of vinyl. Volume One was unique at the time and remains so to this day. Emerging at the moment when LPs with continuous sides were starting to become a thing, it was the product of the original and short-lived lineup of Kevin Ayers (whose Joy of a Toy stands as one of the greatest electric bass solos of the era), guitarist Daevid Allen (who would go on to form the anarchic assemblage under the name Gong), and the combination of Ratledge and Robert Wyatt on drums and vocals that gave voice to Ratledge's brilliantly scored compositions. Exemplary in all aspects, including volatility, this original line-up lasted long enough to blow people’s minds and, importantly for me, earn a spot as the opener for the Jimi Hendrix Experience North American tour of 1968.
This was the one and only live performance of Soft Machine I was privileged to attend. Yes, Jimi set fire to his Strat. The Foxboro Arena is just that, so the nuances of the Softs’ music were lost, but what boomed out in its place was Mike Ratledge's Hammond B3 on drugs—fuzz and wah-wah underneath industrial grade percussion (an organ setting pioneered by Jimmy Smith and Larry Young). So, who else could make an organ trio fit in perfectly with Jimi Hendrix? The answer is Mike Ratledge.
The tour was followed by a reconstituted band with the great Hugh Hopper on bass, who was convened to fulfill a contract, resulting in Volume Two. The same joyous vocals, the breakneck changes and edits, and the seductive melodies propelling highly literate lyrics (if anyone else knows songs about Alfred Jarry's Pataphysics, please let me know) remain singular sonic monuments. That came out in 1969, post-Hendrix—there is a line in Have You Ever Bean Green that starts: "Thank you Noel and Mitch…." And ends with the sound of what is reported to be Jimi's motorcycle.
Depending on the demographic you are talking to, kaleidoscopic 1969 can be characterized in many ways. The celebration of Mike Ratledge's achievements can be described as an invisible but massive hinge that opens up another way to imagine and play music, especially from a keyboard player's perspective. Consider the releases that feature distorted organ: Larry Young, organist in the supergroup Lifetime led by drummer Tony Williams and featuring a blistering John McLaughlin on the debut album Emergency. Or, speaking of McLaughlin, Miles Davis' bombshell double-LP set Bitches Brew featuring Chick Corea, Larry Young, and Joe Zawinul. Pedals for keyboards came into wide use about this time, several years after Mike had used them in early performances.
When I asked Mike about the sound he got from the B3 he obliquely referred to was-was pedals and (this may be a reference to the banshee sounds in Third) scraping tone-wheels inside the Hammond.
That's the context for the next transition of Soft Machine. No more "Volume" in the title, just the number. Soft Machine Third, a double-LP set, dropped in 1970. The inside photo is a living-room shot of the band relaxing with some port and reportedly tripping. Third is to Soft Machine what Bitches is to Miles, an arrival from beyond the solar system. Key to the transformation is the influx of trained jazz players bringing colors that diffuse an ethereal yet at times acid mood using a mix of violin, trombone, bass clarinet, flute—not your average instrumentation in 1969 unless your Brian Wilson. Third is also notable for the arrival of Elton Dean on alto and saxello (a kind of bent soprano). What followed were two more albums (you can guess the titles by now). This is seen as the "jazz" period of the Softs, with a floating pool of musicians all playing their asses off in the company of Ratledge and Hopper. It is rarely heard on the air.
Collectively, these five albums constitute the canon of Mike Ratledge in his incarnation as Soft Machine, at least for me. They also remain in a class alone as the greatest rock music that most people have not heard. Twelve sides propelled by the genius of a creative giant who left it all out there for us, who can only marvel.