Jazz Fusion & Progressive Rock

[A Lark Ascending]

Back to polyphonic synths (may they all rot in hell!).

Even if they're analog???

I'm not sure I could tell! I just hold them guilty for all those records where the space gets filled in with an anodyne wash. Mellotrons could do it with some character (sounding all the time that they were about to break down).

I'm not too fond of the monophonic synth either - growling away like at the end of the first ELP album was quite fun but the Jan Hammer-type soloing sets my teeth on edge (maybe I can just recall seeing him writhing around as if he had been electrocuted).

The ARP thing King Crimson used in the early 70s sounds interesting - gives the impression you needed to be a muscle man to get anything out of it at all and even then what came out was not all that predictable. If you hear it on one of the live things that have come out from soundboard tapes it really does sound like an erratic beast.

Sorry - synths have always been a blind spot for me. I've never heard a single recording where I'd not have preferred a different instrument...except perhaps the end of that ELP track and, maybe, the bizarre background whirrings on 'Abbey Road'.

My loss entirely - apologies to synth lovers.

[7/4]

Sheesh!

I was just referring to the early polysynths from the late '70s.

[Shawn]

Sheesh!

I was just referring to the early polysynths from the late '70s.

I still remember reading the liner notes to Permanent Waves and it listed Geddy Lee playing an "Oberheim Polyphonic"...and I thought...what the hell is that?

[A Lark Ascending]

Sheesh!

I was just referring to the early polysynths from the late '70s.

You touched a nerve!

It's like some people get worked up about flutes or soprano saxophones! (I love both in jazz and elsewhere).

Don't worry...when I become world dictator I intend to be benevolent. I won't ban them (though I might have ownership severely restricted).

Edited April 19, 2009 by Bev Stapleton

[7/4]

OK, ok ok, ok...slowly backing away.

Anyway...it was a new fresh sound at the time.

[NavSJ]

I remember hearing much of this music after the fact, in the early to mid 80s, when I was in junior high and high school. I remember when Discipline came out, and my impression was, well, whatever. Sounds pretty contemporary, New Wave, Talking Heads like.

Thankfully, I met some older people who actually were listening to this music in the 70s and not eating paste and/or riding Big Wheels and playing with Evel Knievels who said, *No, no, no, you don't want to listen to this. Let me tell you about the guy in the bear rug who banged on chains and bit into blood pellets.

Man, that stuff, to 80s ears, totally blew my mind. It was practically from outer space, from Mars, as far as I was concerned. And it seemed so ridiculously non-commercial. I mean really, *Relayer* went platinum. Tubular Bells multi-platinum. Are you kidding? How was this possible? Impossible, I maintained at the time.

Of course, at the time Yes/Asia/Genesis were putting out schlock, and King Crimson was trying to be more hip/relevant/new wavish than musical. Nay, Genesis had stopped putting out music alltogether, and was more into vying for market share with the Lionel Richies of the world. It's like they all became embarrassed that they were good musicians at one time, who were more than competent on their instruments.

One of the 1st fusion (or apparently, seemingly fusion) albums I bought in the 80s after getting hip to Bitches Brew was the Chick Corea Electrik Band. Man, what a piece of commercial P.O.S. that was.

But all of it lead me to jazz, for which I am eternally grateful.

[Hot Ptah]

Have you read Stuart Nicholson's book, "Jazz-Rock"? He has an entire chapter on that very subject.

I trace it back to 1956, Sun Ra's "India" on his "Supersonic Jazz" album.

I haven't read that, but I'll add it to my want list, sounds like a winner.

One song that sticks in my head is "Latona" from John Patton's Let 'Em Roll album, the riff to that song sounds like something either The Allman Brothers or Santana would be playing a few years later.

Shawn, check your Private Messages on this.

[BruceH]

Jazz fusion and cold fusion...I'm skeptical about both.

[Hot Ptah]

Jazz fusion and cold fusion...I'm skeptical about both.

The difference is, jazz fusion is more than a myth...and I have the hearing loss to prove it.

[7/4]

I wouldn't say UK "survived". They did one American tour when Bruford and Holdsworth were in the group. I don't know of any other American tours.

I'll defer to you there - I don't think I ever heard Asia or UK.

UK was a super group without a hit. Asia was a pop group providing employment for former progrockers without a band.

I've heard the first UK album - quite mediocre in my opinion. I've always been surprised to hear some people describe it as a classic.

Guy

It is.

I was digging my Bruford albums waiting for him to do something new after Crimson and his first solo album showed up in the store at the same time as the UK album. Both of these albums sounded new and fresh - prog was pretty much over by '78.

I think he was in Genesis for a short period of time, but recordings didn't show up until a few years later.

edit: my bad - Genesis - Seconds Out, a live recording with Bruford on came out in '77, but I didn't really notice it at the time. It's interesting that he played with them, but he wasn't a member of the group.

Plus, polyphonic synths were still pretty new at the time. Not every keyboard player had one.

The big disappointment was Asia. We bought our tickets for the Capitol Theater show before the album came out. I was stunned when I first heard them on the radio. Asia took the progressive out of progrock and left it outside the corp headquarters door.

[JSngry]

Speaking of Larry Coryell...

I finally got to hear Chico O'Farril's Impulse side Nine Flags, recorded in November of 1966, and there's this one guitar solo on a blues that really jumped out, a totally different voice than any other on the record. It was a guitarist who played with a big fat and wide tone like T-Bone Walker, and who also would be going along playing bebop licks and then suddenly go into some T-Bone/Chuck Berry business and then go right back. I had no idea who it might be until I check the personnel, it was Larry Coryell.

Here, check out this line up:

Clark Terry (tp, flh) J.J. Johnson (tb) Seldon Powell (ts) Pat Rebillot (p) Larry Coryell (g) George Duvivier (b) Gus Johnson (d) Chico O'Farrill (arr, cond) NYC, November 14, 1966

Coryell's "difference" is extremely obvious and just a little startling even today. I can only imagine how it might have sounded back then. You got these highly-seasoned but somewhat buttoned-down vets, and then there's this one guitarist who sounds like either the best rock guitarist or else the jazz guitarist from Dogma, Freeland.

Not a bad album overall, highly buttoned-down but oh well about that, it is what it is, but that one Coryell solo really stood out to me.

[Shawn]

Yeah, I've been on a Coryell kick recently. Check out his solo on the song "One, Two, 1,2,3,4" from Gary Burton's album Duster. He's playing around with feedback a good deal during that particular cut. An eye opener.

[A Lark Ascending]

Just read this over the last week. Will interest most who have been interested in this thread. Not a conventional bio by an means - he explores a series of key questions asked of him/things that he thinks important. A few points that are relevant to the discussion above:

a) Bruford stresses how the music he plays is very much a creature of a window of opportunity he was lucky to arrive in - a point when technology, affluence and clueless record company management enabled virtually anything to get on record. He talks about a situation where record companies were prepared to enter ten horses in the race. If one came through, it paid for the rest. It was also an era where Yes could make two poor selling albums and still be kept on the books (and he hints that 'The Yes Album' got attention in the US by almost payola-like manipulation of the charts!). By the 80s the management had control, inisisted on quick returns and constantly interfered in the music with 'post-production' manipulation to create hits.

b) In many ways the book is very sad - Bruford seems to be suffering a major case of insecurity and lack of self-esteem. It's almost as if, having despaired of a situation where he makes rock music for a few hours and then has it taken out of his grasp to be manipulated by sound engineers, he's moved towards acoustic jazz only to feel that he's not up to the standard of jazz players...both the legends and the new up and coming whizz kids.

Fripp comes across as a very difficult, unpleasant man. Bruford remains proud of his 70s work and doesn't take the easy option of so many who made their name at that time of rubbishing what he did.

Seems like an honest book but one where you feel a bit sorry that after 40 years he should feel so uncertain of his worth.

[7/4]

Just read this over the last week. Will interest most who have been interested in this thread. Not a conventional bio by an means - he explores a series of key questions asked of him/things that he thinks important.

I have it and read a little bit. I agree about what you wrote. A lot of what I read sounds like what I've been reading in interviews for years.

[rsnd]

"edit: my bad - Genesis - Seconds Out, a live recording with Bruford on came out in '77, but I didn't really notice it at the time. It's interesting that he played with them, but he wasn't a member of the group."

Though Bruford did tour with Genesis in 1976, he does not appear on Seconds Out except for one track, "Cinema Show," as the rest of the songs were recorded on the band's 1977 tour, with Chester Thompson on drums. He also plays on the track "It/Watcher Of The Skies," which was included on the "fourth" side of the CD reissue of Three Sides Live, (which came out in the '90s, with '70s live material supplanting the studio tracks that were included on the original incarnation of the album).

[A Lark Ascending]

Bruford says he enjoyed playing with Genesis but felt that he didn't have much to do - after the scope for creativity in King Crimson it seems he felt a bit restricted playing their very arranged music.

He is very complimentary towards Phil Collins, both as a drummer and person. Very interesting...Collins is ridiculed in the UK in the same way as Sting and Bonio. At least he doesn't have a ridiculous stage name.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Funkadelic was once a well-kept secret ...

........so's the location of the Mothership. Somewhere just outside DC perhaps? Instead of hitting all the museums, maybe a few of the 20,000 school groups in town could fan out to search for it?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/11/AR2010041103996.html

In Maryland, George Clinton, Parliament-Funkadelic and a missing Mothership

By Chris Richards

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, April 12, 2010

[JSngry]

Somebody needs to find Sir Nose & make sure that this sacred artifact has not fallen into malevoloent hands!

[WorldB3]

Funny that I just came across this thread because yesterday I was playing Webers - Little Movements thinking this would be a great prog record if you replaced the soprano sax with electric guitar.

Really like John Marshall's drumming on this.

[A Lark Ascending]

Funny that I just came across this thread because yesterday I was playing Webers - Little Movements thinking this would be a great prog record if you replaced the soprano sax with electric guitar.

Really like John Marshall's drumming on this.

I love that record - the trilogy of Yellow Fields/Silent Feet/Little Movements are my favourite Webers. Perfect balance of electric and acoustic with the drumming never rock-obtrusive.

Always felt they chose to go back a few steps and explore the Miles electric legacy from 1968-69 rather than the usual fusion jump-off-point of 1969-70.

[WorldB3]

I just started getting into the Weber Colours band, I love Sand-Glass and Seriously Deep off of Yellow Fields/Silent Feet.

[Guest Wallace]

Get...get...get IT ON!

[Guest Wallace]

Lets see some lists of 10 fusion lps that really turn your crank.

[Guest Wallace]

n.p.: WILDING/BONUS "Pleasure Signals" with guests Phil Collins,John Goodsall,Robin Lumley,Mike Shrieve etc.

[Rabshakeh]

Just chanced upon this thread. Some great reminisces here.