1976

[A Lark Ascending]

Interesting article here:

From Steve Reich to rock: why 1976 was a big year for minimal music

And yet I remember 1976 completely differently. It was the year I more or less gave up on rock music. Not so much because of the rise of punk (which didn't really have it's full impact until the following year) - just a feeling that the music I'd enjoyed earlier in the decade was running out of steam; a disappointment with a lot of newly emerging rock which seemed to suffer from glitzy production and a greater simplicity of style using the new multi-track technologies; it was also the year I first noticed independent radio in Britain with its very carefully controlled formats. 1976 was the year I started looking elsewhere - dipping my toes into jazz, going to half a dozen classical concerts to see what that was all about.

I'm always suspicious of grand pronouncements of 'greatness' and 'significance' because they tend to assume that there is a single narrative that needs to be asserted; they don't take into account the multiple different contexts of listeners that can make 1976, for example, seem quite different to the writer of this piece and myself (I was 4 years older than him). Some interesting revisionism going on there too - most people who considered themselves 'serious' (word deliberately loaded with sarcasm) listeners would never have touched Abba with a barge pole - their status as musical icons was written considerably later. I'd also be intrigued to know how much of the 'classical' music of the year he uses to decide 1976 was an iconic year he actually knew at the time. 

(I don't remember many great rock albums from that year - two he mentioned I was very fond of (Trick of the Tail and Hejira); the other one that got played to death was Neil Young's 'Zuma'. I certainly remember the long, hot summer!).

How was 1976 for you?

(Apologies to those not born then...but you might have a liking/horror for the year; 1959 seems to be held in great affection by jazz fans not around at the time (or still in nappies).) 

Edited May 8, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[sidewinder]

I just remember it being the most sweltering Summer ever. Spent most of it hauling bags of cement !

Musical highlights - all those UK Impulse reissues including 'Africa Brass' - real bolt from the blue, Clifford Brown 'Complete Paris Collection' on Vogue and Miles Davis 'Water Babies' and (I think) 'Agharta'. Bought them all at the time.

Edited May 8, 2016 by sidewinder

[JSngry]

Tall ships!

[Scott Dolan]

Hmmm...I was only 6 at the time, and hadn't really developed any musical tastes of my own. I do remember listening to Prokofiev's Peter And The Wolf on my own (though I couldn't tell you the orchestra, or date released). Aside from that is was Frampton Comes Alive if I was hanging out with my sister, or Chicago IX if I was hanging out with my brother. 

[A Lark Ascending]

1 hour ago, Scott Dolan said:

 Aside from that is was Frampton Comes Alive... 

Remember that being popular - I was doing my final university exams that summer and I recall that oddly treated vocal sound coming out of the radio when revising. 

11 hours ago, sidewinder said:

I just remember it being the most sweltering Summer ever. Spent most of it hauling bags of cement !

Musical highlights - all those UK Impulse reissues including 'Africa Brass' - real bolt from the blue, Clifford Brown 'Complete Paris Collection' on Vogue and Miles Davis 'Water Babies' and (I think) 'Agharta'. Bought them all at the time.

I can still remember the moment it rained in late summer - I was about to go down to Exeter to start my teacher training and the news was that Devon was about to go onto standpipes. Saved at the last moment. [today's weather is just like 1976 - a sign of this summer?]

I went on a four month album buying freeze whilst I revised for my exams. Despite having a well paid summer job I can't recall buying many new records - I was starting to catch up with previous releases in non-rock areas. Remember buying Ralph Towner's 'Solstice' on spec and being smitten - turned the ECM tap on (I already had a few Jarretts). Vaughan Williams started kicking in then; and a recording of 'The Dream of Gerontius' after hearing a live performance at the Royal Festival Hall (first time I'd been to a classical concert on my own and I remember being worried that I might not be let in for breaking some dress code rule [of course, there was no such thing but this was all very new to me]). 

This novel conjures up that summer brilliantly:

[Steve Reynolds]

Was 16 - just discovering more interesting music other than the radio songs - maybe the year I heard Glad/Freedom Rider and then Dear Mr. Fantasy and bought all of the Traffic LPs - rode my bike many miles to find an original version of the great second LP. The great band and those great records started to teach my how to listen. 

[paul secor]

I can't remember anything in particular about 1976. Just another year for me.

[7/4]

I guess this was the year I saw Yes & Peter Frampton in Philly at JFK Stadium.

Led Zeppelin released Presence, but ELP & Yes were between albums. I was just starting to discover ECM albums, maybe I'd heard Frank Zappa, Bitches Brew and A Love Supreme by then. I can't think of anything else musically significant that happened that year.

I was 16. A girl across the street and I lost our virginity together. I went back to public school again that fall, after a few years at a private school.

[JSngry]

Bicentennial Minutes on CBS.

[l p]

1976 is the year when a lot of rock bands that were producing decent music (for rock) began to lose their way. and many jazz musicians started to put out records that sound a lot like smooth jazz.

[A Lark Ascending]

Gigwise, not much. The very first National Health concert (with Bill Bruford on drums) early in the year which was marvellous (but did a band ever have less luck with its timing to start a career!); in the autumn Steve Hillage in Exeter which I found dull. Went to four Proms in the summer (had never been before) with some friends - had a Janacek conversion experience with the Glagolitic Mass. And in Exeter again, Stan Tracey Quartet doing 'Under Milk Wood' with Donald Houston reading extracts, my first jazz gig (as opposed to jazz rock). A few folk things too though I can't remember if they were in the autumn of '76 or the summer of '77 (I was banished to Cornwall in the spring doing my teaching practice).   

Edited May 8, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

Jimmy Carter!

[A Lark Ascending]

Jim Callaghan's Ruskin College speech! 

[Dave Garrett]

Going on a school outing to see the Freedom Train when it made a stop here.

http://www.freedomtrain.org/american-freedom-train-home.htm

[sidewinder]

'Frampton Comes Alive' - That one was ubiquitous, got sick of it pounding through my walls.

Standpipes - yes, it did almost come to that with the drought in the SW. Preceded with a ban on car washes and garden watering I recall.

Edited May 10, 2016 by sidewinder

[A Lark Ascending]

I bought Bitches Brew at the end of that year. Hated it. Decided Miles Davis wasn't for me. Changed my mind a few weeks later when I heard 'Blue in Green' on JRR. But it took nearly 20 years and listening to a lot of other music before I had the context to make sense of BB. 

[sidewinder]

Bought 'Bitches Brew' that year as well and really liked it from the off. It had a 'specially priced 2LP set' sticker on the front at £2.99 ! That one was closely followed by 'Big Fun' and 'Agharta' from the same (only recently closed) shop. Those vinyls are still in my racks and regularly get a play.

Was 1976 the year that that God-awful 'Jazz Ship' series was on BBC?

This thread is turning into a UK Old Codgers 'When I were a lad...' thread. 

[Scott Dolan]

On May 8, 2016 at 2:46 PM, l p said:

1976 is the year when a lot of rock bands that were producing decent music (for rock) began to lose their way. and many jazz musicians started to put out records that sound a lot like smooth jazz.

Yep, that was about the time Chuck Mangione became popular. 

[bluesoul]

 

[paul secor]

5 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

Yep, that was about the time Chuck Mangione became popular. 

I guess there's a good reason I can't remember much about 1976.

[JSngry]

Mangione had been building in popularity for a few years before Feels so Good took off in 1978...all those Mercury albums from the early 70s kept finding audiences, and "Hill Where The Lord Hides" from 1971 was on the Hot 100. So don't say you didn't see it coming!

[paul secor]

Mangione was so far outside my world that I guess I didn't see it coming until it was there. And then I guess I tried to ignore the fact that it was there.

[clifford_thornton]

 

(1976)

[A Lark Ascending]

10 hours ago, sidewinder said:

This thread is turning into a UK Old Codgers 'When I were a lad...' thread. 

My default position. 

[7/4]

On 5/8/2016 at 3:48 PM, A Lark Ascending said:

Gigwise, not much. The very first National Health concert (with Bill Bruford on drums) early in the year which was marvellous (but did a band ever have less luck with its timing to start a career!); in the autumn Steve Hillage in Exeter which I found dull. Went to four Proms in the summer (had never been before) with some friends - had a Janacek conversion experience with the Glagolitic Mass. And in Exeter again, Stan Tracey Quartet doing 'Under Milk Wood' with Donald Houston reading extracts, my first jazz gig (as opposed to jazz rock). A few folk things too though I can't remember if they were in the autumn of '76 or the summer of '77 (I was banished to Cornwall in the spring doing my teaching practice).   

I was listening to Steve Hillage by then. I thought he was the next Hendrix. I still love those first solo albums by him.