How "slightly jazzier" becomes [Jazz} "dominant" is beyond me. My brain doesn't work that way.Originally Posted by Trane
How "slightly jazzier" becomes [Jazz} "dominant" is beyond me. My brain doesn't work that way.
Yeah, I know that's the intent. I find the ones I listed to be way outside the scope. There are others I could nit-pick, but I don't consider the ones i listed to be nit-picking. They're square pegs.
Yes, and it's that sound that separates them out from other music and groups them together in this category. It's not like full-blown Prog-Rock wasn't happening right alongside these releases, in many (most?) cases.
On the list are 2 Burnin' Red Ivanhoe albums mentioned - there exist an album in between those 2 which should qualify as well. Selftitled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC97-y8S9e4
Day of Phoenix is also proto something: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SwPTqyfrsI
Just re listened to Pete Brown & Piblokto! ~ Things May Come and Things May Go but the Art School Dance Goes on Forever (1970).
Nice album with a small ensemble- G/B/K/V/alto sax and a sparse dry production .
Mostly mid tempo jazzy inflected art rock, with only one mild rocker Walk for charity, run for money.
Pete Browns singing reminds me of Robert Wyatt, giving this album a very Canterbury vibe.
Here's some Pete Brown trivia:
-He was/is a poet, and his first band ,The First Real Poetry Band featured John McLaughlin on guitar.
-Was thrown out of his next band, Battered Ornaments after recording two albums.
-That led him to writing lyrics for Cream.
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
Some nifty twin guitar work there!
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
Greenslade is certainly full blown prog. How can drummer Andy McCulluch, after playing with King Crimson in their third album (Lizard), and Dave Greenslade, after a couple of years in Colosseum, go back to play 'proto-prog? Besides, the music completely corroborates this. I would also certainly say Jonesy was prog, and a couple of others. Anyway, great list.
Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers
It's been months (years, maybe) that meant to check that site out
Done
he also recorded an album with Graham Bown
And since BA and Piblokto dated from 69 to 71, he was first writing lyrics for Jack Bruce (both in Cream and his solo albums) before starting his own bands... and he had some Colosseum links via Dick Heckstall-Smith
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
I agree.
But then again, much so-called "proto" was indeed "full blown" to begin with - but existed before the genre adopted stylistic form(s) (as recognized in retrospect) and thus essentially comprised a mishmash of various templates and approaches, some apparently wholly disparate. Greenslade, I'd argue, were still a "symphonic" rock quartet with a prominent jazz/fusion influence.
I hardly think it's about degrees; a title like Secondhand's Death May Be Your Santa Claus, for instance, contains studio experimentation on a surpiringly high level of technical standards for 1971, and (as John/Baribrotzer suggested), it's not really about the advancement of formalities either - as some works (Egg's The Polite Force, for example) moved compositionally further than what most "progressive" acts would still be searching many years later.
Progressive rock music in its "proto" period (late '66 until early '72, I suppose, with obvious backdrops thereafter as well; think a band like Fusion Orchestra or Circus 2000) lingered on its experimentalist outline as prolonged from the spirit of psychedelia - yet with somewhat other aims and objectives. Some folks keep complaining about the gap between Egg's "Boilk" and "Long Piece no. 3", but they're actually only two sides of a coin; a "rock ensemble" transgressing its inherently defined limitations of style and scope.
Damn, I feel a bug comin' up. There'll be blood this New Year's whisky weekend; drowning in the wonderfully juvenile snot of proto-prog adolescence. I refuse to play that Elias Hulk "drum solo", though. And there's no friggin' way I'll be spinning Clear Blue Sky; one has to draw that line somewhere.
"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
Was Parlour Band - Is a Friend? ever released on CD? Had the LP like 30+ years ago. Long since gone. Haven't thought about them in about the same amount of time.
That one always gets panned, but I think it has a ton of charm. Oh well.
I have it on a Japanese edition that I bought in the early 90s. Sounds great, imo.
Exactly - Their first album is really good !
Iron Butterfly's first 4 albums (Before Metamorphosis)
Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers
he also recorded an album with Graham Bown
And since BA and Piblokto dated from 69 to 71, he was first writing lyrics for Jack Bruce (both in Cream and his solo albums) before starting his own bands... and he had some Colosseum links via Dick Heckstall-Smith
Graham Bond, and you are correct!
Pete also recorded one single,"Flying Hero Sandwich"/"My Last Band" with Gentle Giant drummer,John 'Pugwash' Weathers.
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
Great list. Thanks for reposting
Your welcome!Great list. Thanks for reposting
Years of listening there.
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
Just revisited Pete Brown and Piblokto!, Thousands on a Raft (1970)
A stronger (and longer) album than their previous effort, Things May Come and Things May Go but the Art School Dance Goes on Forever, but with the same artsy/jazzy approach.
The band sounds tighter as does the production, albeit slightly.
Two long jam tunes worth mentioning (Highland song & If Only They Could See Me Now parts 1 & 2)feature some above average guitar and organ/piano playing make up half the album!
Although the standout track for me is the beautiful ballad Station Song Platform Two.
It has a strong Gilgamesh/Hatfield and the North style that seems to scream Canterbury.
Check it out:
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
Great list Tom!
There's a few there I haven't heard.
Julian"s Treatment and Mad Curry top my list !
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
I would certainly suggest Blonde on Blonde as a proto prog band...
True "proto" is really hard to quantify - in some ways harder than full-on "prog". To me, it involves both a sense of infinite possibilities, and an unpolished quality (at least compared to later "prog"). But those are, as S.S. says, two sides of the same coin: the experimentalism leads to over-reaching of a dozen kinds, and to a willingness to forgive oneself for trying too hard to transcend one's own abilities. The commonest form of that is probably recording and releasing improvisations by musicians who don't have the chops to even be poor jazz musicians, but there are many kinds of not-quite-successes.
A title I'm really missing on the list (there are several, of course, but this one kinda shines) is the Motherlight album by Bobak,Jons,Malone. If anyone had played me that record now and told me it was some current hipster act doing the "retro" thing, I'd might just believe them. There's even some friggin' near-motorik drumming going on:
"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
^ My favorite British Psych album, which admittedly does have some Prog-Rock touchstones peeking out now and then. (Might be why I favor it.)
Thanks Chris. Unfortunately the Mad Curry has yet to find its way onto a legitimate CD (plenty of boots though). There is a legit vinyl press though on Wah Wah (Spain) if interested. Oh, and be sure to avoid the Julian's Treatment Plus CD on See For Miles, if you want to get both on one CD. They left off the best track from the Julian Jay Savarin album!
Bachdenkel
Thors Hammer
^ For fans of proto prog, I highly recommend Linos radio show The Waiting Room every Friday morning from 10-12
http://cfmu.msumcmaster.ca/
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
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