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If Ratledge was the group’s de facto leader, Hopper remained at the core of its sound both as an instrumentalist and composer, on the albums Volume Two (1969), Third (1970), Fourth (1971), Fifth (1972) and Six (Columbia, 1973).

By the sixth release, however, he had fallen out of sympathy with the group both musically and personally, and he left in 1973. He later said that he had felt straitjacketed and likened his latter days in the group to being “a civil servant”.

Hopper had already indicated his desire for liberation while still in the group by making his debut solo album, 1984, an adventurous set which included early experiments with tape loops which was released in 1972. As soon as he was free from Soft Machine, he launched into a series of experimental collaborations with Stomu Yamashta’s East Wind, Isotope, Gilgamesh and the Carla Bley Band. He was also reunited at different times with other former Canterbury-scene alumni in Soft Heap, Equipe Out and In Cahoots.

For a while in the early 1980s he drifted out of music, but returned with a group of European jazz musicians in a band called Hopper Goes Dutch and later the Hugh Hopper Franglo-Dutch Band. He also played with Short Wave.

In 2002 he was reunited with former the Soft Machine members Elton Dean, the drummer John Marshall and the guitarist Allan Holdsworth as Soft Works. When John Etheridge replaced Holdsworth, the line-up became known as Soft Machine Legacy, mixing compositions from the original band’s repertoire with new material.

As a solo artist Hopper recorded some two dozen diverse albums spread over a 25-year period. Among the most notable were Hooligan Romantics (1994), Highspot Paradox (1997) and Jazzloops (2002). His most recent release, Dune, last year, was recorded with the Japanese keyboardist-vocalist Yumi Hara Cawkwell and was as experimental in approach as anything in his long career.

He was due to tour with her last year, when he was told that he had leukaemia and underwent chemotherapy. Many of the musicians who had played with him over the years gathered to take part in a benefit concert for him at the 100 Club in Oxford Street last December.

He is survived by his partner, Christine, whom he married two days before he died.

Hugh Hopper, musician, was born on April 29, 1945. He died on June 7, 2009, aged 64