OFF: Progressive really progressive?

[Chris Warburton]

>>I would not burden KC with the label 'progressive'.  Indeed, their >>music in
the days of the classic Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross line-up >>could be better
defined as 'mercurial'.  And if anyone has sampled >>the delights of the 'Great
Deceiver' box set, they would perhaps >>realise they should be fitted either
into the free-jazz category or >>psychedelic, on the basis of much of their
live performances being >>improvisational - not something that I have ever
witnessed to any >>great extent from the so-called 'progressive' bands.  In
fact, they >>always seemed rather too structured for my liking.
>
>Ooohh... I don't agree. Yes has been known to improvise a lot. In >fact,
"Tales from topographic oceans" sounds a lot like an improvised >album to me.
Although it probably isn't. And I know other prog bands >are pretty good at
improvising too. I mean, hey, when a band is so >good at structuring their
music they can't be bad at improvising. You >attain a certain skill level where
you can hardly go wrong. I can't >imagine Steve Howe or Kerry Livgren (for
instance) not being able to >improvise. C'mon, let's be serious for a minute !
;-)
>  And just for the record, King Crimson IS a progressive band, at
>least in my personal little universe. Just as are Jethro Tull, ELP, >Camel (to
some extent), etc...
>

OK guys, you got me going again - it's impossible to detach KC from the whole
progressive thing, but they definitely transcended it, and their whole
development from 'Larks Tongues' to the end of that era is a lot more in line
with "free-jazz" developments, although the terms "jazz" & "free-jazz" are even
more contentious than "progressive".  The big difference between KC and most of
the other bands of the period is that the improvisation is "collective", rather
than it being a supreme instrumentalist strutting his or her stuff over the
changes. (BTW who is Kerry Livgren?).  Observation: Anyone who really likes the
unleashed King Crimson (another title Mr. Fripp?) should check out Shannon
Jackson (with or without the Decoding Society) & Ornette Coleman's Prime Time
(or Song X with Pat Metheny - even PM rocks on this one)  even though it means
going to the "jazz" section of the record-store. SJs 'Red Warrior' is a
plank-spankers delight!


Cheers,
ChrisW

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>From Chris Warburton's Personal Mailbox
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