Certain Zappa pieces were most definitely (small 'p') prog.
As others have said: odd meters, complex and difficult instrumental passages, multiple sections within a track, jazz and classical influences, etc. are plentiful in Zappa's music, which are the same things I associate with prog.
Small 'p' prog is not a style. It is music with the above attributes, that is not in the jazz or classical realm.
Inca Roads, for example, is a prog piece (one of the best ever, IMO), by my definitions.
And if there were a god, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence - Russell
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
The Big Six bands weren't even considered "prog" back in the early 1970s. They were nothing more than another style of rock music. The labelling came afterwards, except for the critics like Bangs and Christgau who called it "artrock." Which it wasn't.
For me, Zappa is a genre all its own.
Bob
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Ian Beabout
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Do you really believe that shit your spewing or is this an act of rebellion to come off looking hip? Do you secretly own 6 posters of Phil Collins in tank tops? And for the record, I have never barfed while listening to Genesis and I don't know one "young" person that likes them so much. At least in my zip code.
Boooo.
So Zappa is the Gigantic One. Then there's the Big 5, the Medium 29, the Small 287, the Miniscule 1220, and the Microscopic 7453.
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
correct, because the 4-letter word "prog" was invented in the mid-80s (by the Neoboys I guess)
and though there were quite a number of artists who were blending Rock with other styles of music and being called "progressive"; the two word term "progressive rock" didn't really start becoming common until the mid 70s
signed, old guy who was part of the NYC scene in the early 70s
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
I didn't even realize that Yes, ELP, Genesis, etc. were "prog rock" until I got on the internet (1996 or so). I always referred to them as "art rock", I term I always preferred anyway (though I realize that there really is an artrock genre, that isn't prog rock).
As to Zappa, I never really lumped him in with what I thought of as Prog. He really is his own musical universe. Much of what he did was in the general "rock" format, but a good amount of it wasn't, so I'm not sure how you really pigeonhole him. Of course, as you get older and go through enough endless arguments about what is or isn't "prog" or "progressive" or whatever other genre categorization you care to name, you start to realize that the categorizations are really just a reference, like a section in a library. I mean, are all Sci-Fi stories the same? Are they even all similar? Not when you've read as many of them as I have they aren't. There are so many musics that cross the line of "genre" that you really just have to learn to listen with an open mind and heart and like what you like and discard what you don't, regardless of "genre".
Wait, sorry, this is PE, what the hell am I saying??? Phil Collins ruined Prog Rock!! Peter Gabriel ruined Lady Gaga!!!!!
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